Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has been put "under a spell" by his chief of staff Esfandiar Rahim Mashaie, an ultra - Ayatollah Mohammad Taghi Mesbah Yazdi, believed to have been Ahmadinejad's mentor, told the weekly Shoma, "I've told some of my close friends that I am more than 90 percent certain that (Ahmadinejad) has been put under a spell. This is not natural at all. No sane person does such things unless his free will has been taken away."
"His actions have no justification. When he has 10 friends... does it make sense to constantly defy nine of them and defend (the actions of the) tenth person?" Mesbah Yazdi asked in an allusion to Mashaie.
Mashaie, the president's top advisor and close relative who has worked alongside Ahmadinejad for more than a quarter century, has been the target of a
Mashaie, who has been condemned for being too liberal, holding nationalistic views dating back to pre-Islamic Iran,
| Too liberal and too reactionary, then? |
| A phrase worthy of the glory days of Maoist political rhetoric. |
"I do not know if it is (because of) hypnotism, a spell or relations with yogis. But there is something wrong. It is almost as if this questionable person (Mashaie) has put this man (Ahmadinejad) under a spell, as if he has wrapped him around his finger," said Mesbah Yazdi.
Several