Ahmadinejad Looks to Export 'New Islamic Revolution'

Agence France Presse, Yahoo! News:

Iran's president elect Mahmood Ahmadinejad hailed his election triumph as a new Islamic revolution that could spread throughout the world, in a shift away from previously moderate post-vote rhetoric. "The era of oppression, hegemonic regimes, tyranny and injustice has reached its end," he said, in an apparent reference to Iran's arch-foe the United States. "The wave of the Islamic revolution will soon reach the entire world." READ MORE

Iran's president elect Mahmood Ahmadinejad hailed his election triumph as a new Islamic revolution that could spread throughout the world, in a shift away from previously moderate post-vote rhetoric.

"Thanks to the blood of the martyrs, a new Islamic revolution has arisen and the Islamic revolution of 1384 (the current Iranian year) will, if God wills, cut off the roots of injustice in the world," the IRNA agency quoted the ultra-conservative as saying.

"The era of oppression, hegemonic regimes, tyranny and injustice has reached its end," he said, in an apparent reference to Iran's arch-foe the United States. "The wave of the Islamic revolution will soon reach the entire world,"

"In one night, the martyrs strode down a path of 100 years," he added.

Ahmadinejad has previously been at pains to present a moderate face to the world, avoiding religious rhetoric at his post-election news conference in favour of pledges of friendship and compassion to all at home and abroad.

However these latest comments were made to a markedly different audience -- the families of over 70 victims, including several MPs and the former chief justice, killed in a 1981 attack at the headquarters of the once powerful post-revolution Islamic Republic Party.

The tone of the remarks harks back to the first years after 1979 Islamic revolution, when the country's leaders frequently pledged to take the revolution beyond Iran.

Ahmadinejad has frequently extolled the "purity" of those early days.

However Iran subsequently abandoned attempts to export the revolution, which the regime believes prompted Western countries and most Arab states to side with Saddam Hussein's Iraq in its 1980-1988 war with the Islamic republic.

The return to such expansionist rhetoric could set alarm bells ringing in European capitals already worried about Ahmadinejad's stance in future talks on Iran's nuclear programme, as well as in neighbouring Arab countries.

Ahmadinejad, who is due to take office in early August, meanwhile hinted that he would be prepared to include outstanding ministerial officials from the outgoing government in his new administration.

"I think... that there are competent directors in the country and today there are ministers who deserve to serve the people and I will use all the capacities," he was quoted in local media as saying.

However he played down speculation about the future policies and composition of his government, saying "apart from me no-one knows the proposals of the government... what has been announced is people's personal opinions."

Ahmadinejad trounced moderate cleric Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani in the second round run-off of Friday's presidential vote to record the greatest upset in Iranian political history.

The Guardians Council, the hardline vetting body that oversees the election process, confirmed that the elections were valid, according to the student agency ISNA.

"We have not received any complaint," the head of the Guardians Council, Ayatollah Ahmad Janati, said in a letter to the interior ministry.

"Even if there were some irregularities in some election propaganda that does not put the regularity of the election in question," he said.

Rafsanjani had alleged after the election that "all the means of the regime" were used amid a smear campaign against him and his family. He also lashed out bitterly at the Guardians Council, saying he could not file a complaint as there was non-one sufficiently competent to judge it.