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Tehran (AFP): President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has come under fire from Iran's top dissident cleric over his handling of foreign and domestic policies including Tehran's disputed nuclear drive. The latest criticism came from Grand Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri, who was once appointed to succeed the founder of the Islamic revolution but fell from grace in the late 1980s.
“It is necessary to act with reason with the enemy and not provoke it. Extremism does not do people any good,” Montazeri said, referring to Ahmadinejad's rhetoric against the United States.
“We say death to America, but the United States is a power with important means,” Montazeri was quoted as saying in a meeting with a group of liberal opposition groups.
“Every day, it is repeated that a certain thing is our undeniable right. I agree it is your right. But one can obtain a right without creating problems and providing pretexts for others” to put pressure on Iran, he said.
Iran says it has an “undeniable” right to nuclear technology, defying the international community which has called on the Islamic republic to freeze uranium enrichment.
Ahmadinejad has come under fire by both conservatives and reformists over his economic policies and handling of the nuclear issue after the UN Security Council passed a resolution in December imposing sanctions on Iran for its refusal to suspend enrichment.
Montazeri also criticised Ahmadinejad for his government's inability to control inflation, saying “one cannot run a country with slogans.”
Ahmadinejad swept to power in a June 2005 election on the back of promises to “bring oil money on to people's tables” and remove the gap between rich and poor.
Critical voices have risen against Ahmadinejad after his allies were defeated in December 15 municipal election and Assembly of Experts polls.
On Tuesday a moderate MP hit out at the president for what he said were “acts of provocation and adventurism, which are incompatible with our foreign policy.
“The attitude adopted by the president is not in our national interests,” Akbar Alami said during an open parliament session broadcast live on state radio.
Ahmadinejad has vowed not to bow to any UN resolutions and pledged to press on with the nuclear programme.
There has been speculation that Washington may be planning a military strike against Iran's nuclear programme, which Tehran insists is only designed for peaceful energy ends but the West fears to be a cover for weapons development.
Alami also denounced a Holocaust conference held by the foreign ministry in December that gathered notorious revisionists in Tehran who questioned the mass slaughter of Jews in World War II by Nazi Germany.
