Ahmadinejad: The Secret History Of Iran's Radical Leader by Kasra Naji

A refreshing immediacy, with a disturbing analysis. 

Some of the finest writers about Iran’s politics such as Ray Takeh or Vali Nasr are, without doubt, experts in their field - but they live in America. Right from the start of this book, with its vivid descriptions of a distraught and dusty Ahmadinejad burying his father, you sense the author is not only a complete master of his subject, but he has been close to the events he is writing about.

Much of the material such as the reverence for the missing Mahdi, the holocaust denial conference, the erratic economic policies, or the rambling letters to Bush and Merkel are familiar from the general media, but because Naji was in Iran while it happened, the picture is sharper, more immediate. Naji was certainly an eye witness on the opening day of the holocaust denial conference:

Arthur Scargill: 1938 –

History’s kind view of the veteran miner’s leader: he achieved nothing.


By the early 1990’s Arthur Scargill, veteran union leader and enemy of Margaret Thatcher, was something of a defeated war horse. Appearing on the BBC’s weekly political discussion show, ‘Question Time’ he answered according to his left wing creed with all his usual passion, but everyone knew he was a preacher without a congregation. Britain had moved on – to happily make money without coal. At the end of the programme the panel was asked what Arthur Scargill had achieved. A flattering question for anyone. One of the replies though was not so flattering. This was from William Waldegrave, an Eton educated Tory. His answer was blunt: ‘nothing’.


And Waldegrave was right.