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An op-ed published today in The New York Times repeats a number of well-worn claims about Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Written by the Brookings Institute's Saban Center senior fellow Suzanne Maloney and Council on Foreign Relations senior fellow Ray Takeyh, the article, entitled "Ahmadinejad's Fall, America's Loss," attempts to argue that "the prospect of a nuclear deal between Tehran and Washington is diminishing" due to the recent political infighting between the Iranian President and the country's clerical leadership.

Unsurprisingly, the op-ed is suffused with the usual boilerplate Western narratives about Ahmadinejad, and even Iran in general. The fellows write that he has "dabbled in Holocaust denial" and that, in June 2009, the conservative Iranian government conspired in "rigging the system to ensure his re-election." Neither of these allegations stand up to serious scrutiny.

Maloney and Takeyh, who openl... >>>