Rutgers Professor Wants to Run for President of Iran

No, this isn’t like some former senior lecturer at the University of Chicago Law School becoming the first black president of the United States. This would actually be unlikely. Hooshang Amirahmadi, a professor of public policy at Rutgers-New Brunswick, has thrown his hat in the ring for the 2013 Iranian Presidential Election. “Who can they find better than me as a peacemaker – someone who understands American language, Iranian language, American culture, Iranian culture, and can go back and forth?” he said. “I feel like I am the one.” [Italics mine.]

Some likely roadblocks: 1. Popular Iranian presidential candidates don’t typically live in hated countries that impose crippling economic sanctions on their mother country; 2. The Iranian media thinks he’s a CIA spy; 3. He was already rejected as a candidate in 2005 after the government decided he wasn’t Islamic enough to qualify for president; 4. Lately, in Iran, all election means is “ceremonial button-pushing contest in which nobody but Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has a chance of winning.”

Meanwhile, a confident Ahmadinejad is focused on bigger things. “I am ready to be the first human to be sent to space by Iranian scientists,” Ahmadinejad said today. “Sending living things into space is the result of Iranian efforts and the dedication of thousands of Iranian scientists.” [Inquirer]