The parliament is worth ****. They are useless, powerful in domestic questions but weak in real-politiks and foreign policies. It's the cleric council that wields the highest power in Iran, even in their de jure law. Iranian government is a mixture of democratic and undemocratic organizations, and undemocratic organizations have the upper hand in "hard issues".
Of course Iran allowing a minority group to exist is kinda supposed to happen and if they didn't it would be really tough news. Jewish emigration can, and propably does have many different reasons, but still Iranian jews are not a persecuted group as far as I know. They have their own represenation, and even if this is purely for propaganda reasons it still speak heavily for Iran's relatively lax approach to Judaism.
The entire argument at hand has more to do with the entire argument of Ahmadinejad, accused of being the highest authority, which he is not, being a vitriolic anti-semitist, when even in his famous speech he does not qualify as such.
I would think Ahmadinejad is pretty obviously anti-semitic given his actions in hosting what was effectively a Holocaust denial conference; that act to me indicates he sees no distinction between 'Zionist' and 'Jew' - him not, say, trying to exterminate the domestic Jewish population is simply a matter of relative threat. Plus, I find it hard to see how Ahmadinejad could be selected by the ruling clergy (which, in effect, he is given the rather undemocratic nature of Iranian elections) without knowledge and implicit support of his views.
That's a risk you're willing to take then? You're quite the gambler.
IMHO, Iran is no more likely to lauch a nuclear stike (if he had nukes) than the other nucler powers (primarely thinking about the USA and Isreal)
If I had to chose between a national copy of Bush or Ahmadinejad running my country, I'd chose the latter. He taks no s*** from the "wolrd"!
And he drives the economy and foreign relations into the ground doing so...... Kim Jong-Il takes even less ****, would you prefer him?
