Reformists May Try to Oust, Kill Ahmadinejad, Khamenei

The fallout from Friday’s Iranian presidential elections could turn bloody, with attempts to oust or even assassinate Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and even the Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, a well-connected Iranian source tells Steve Clemons of the Washington Note. The election “coup by the right wing” has sparked a civil war among Iran’s revolutionaries, the source says, leaving Ahmadinejad “genuinely scared of Iranian society.”

Fearful of reformists like Mir Hossein Mousavi, “Ahmadinejad will try to have them imprisoned and killed,” and they will attempt retaliation by “doing away with” him and Khamenei. Clemons isn’t convinced his source knows all, but nonetheless remains “impressed with the seriousness of the discussion we had and his own concern that there may be political killing sprees ahead.”
(More Iran stories.)