Iran: Corruption Charges Expose Internal Rifts

Last week, Iranian judiciary spokesman Gholam Hossein Mohseni Ejehi announced corruption charges against one of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s closest confidants, First Vice President Mohammad Reza. According to the AP’s Brian Murphy, Reza’s indictment by the Iranian judiciary—which is controlled by Parliament Speaker Ali Larijani’s brother Sadeq—is a direct response to Ahmadinejad’s firing of Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki earlier this month. “The developments revealed the increasingly complex political maneuvering within the Islamic Republic as it struggles with economic sanctions and growing international pressure to curb its production of nuclear fuel,” Murphy writes.