TEHRAN, July 19 (Reuters) – Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has come under fire from leading hardliners for naming as his top deputy a man who said Iran was friends with everyone, including arch foe Israel, local media said on Sunday. Iran’s state-run English language Press TV said Esfandiar Rahim Mashaie “no longer wanted the job” of first vice president and had resigned because of the row. There was no immediate confirmation of the decision.Analysts say Thursday’s decision by Ahmadinejad to appoint Mashaie, to whom he is related by marriage, suggests that the president has a small entourage of people he trusts.Mashaie, whose remarks on Israel in 2008 created a storm at home, was previously one of several vice presidents and in charge of a culture and tourism body.In rare public criticism, Ayatollah Ahmad Khatami, an Ahmadinejad ally and member of Iran’s top legislative body, said on Sunday that Ahmadinejad had shown “a twisted face to clerics and elites” by appointing Mashaie last Thursday.”Ahmadinejad should not challenge conservatives with such decisions. I request the president to replace him before more criticisms are made,” the hardline cleric was quoted as saying by the Khorasan newspaper. Ahmadinejad was re-elected in a June presidential vote, which stirred the largest display of internal unrest in Iran, the world’s fifth biggest oil exporter, since the 1979 revolution and exposed deep rifts in its ruling elite… >>>
