85-year-old dissident religious leader Grand Ayatollah Hossein-Ali Montazeri made a fairly direct criticism of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and the current Iranian executive this week. He says that although nuclear energy is Iran's right, Ahmadinejad is going about it the wrong way, using belligerence rather than negotiations. In addition, he has complained about resource mismanagement, an unwillingness to admit that Iran suffers from inflation, and money spent aiding outside groups (unnamed, but one presumes Hamas and Hezbollah) rather than within Iran. In his words:
"Some countries don't have oil and gas. Yet, they run their country and stand on their own," he said, according to a copy of his words seen by AP.
"We have so much oil and gas but make useless expenditures work for others and don't think of our own people's problems and the price of basic commodities goes higher and higher every day."
He complained that people kept on shouting slogans about nuclear rights, but he asked: "Don't we have other rights too?"
It's good to recall that there are many like Montazeri, when one is tempted to paint all of Iran with the brush of radical foolishness. As we well know, the dangerous person in charge does not necessarily represent the will, ethics, morality, or value of the people.