Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad was elected June 24, 2005, to a four-year term, becoming the first non-cleric president in 24 years. He defeated former president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani in a run-off. Prior to his 2005 election to the presidency, Ahmadinejad did not hold an elected office and was a virtual unknown in the international arena. This report covers his background; his victory over the well-known former president Rafsanjani; his remarks about the West, including Israel; and recent visits to Iraq and Latin America. For further information and analysis on Ahmadinejad, Iran, and U.S. options, see CRS Report RL32048, Iran: U.S. Concerns and Policy Responses, by Kenneth Katzman. This report will be updated as warranted.

Conclusion:
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is a man obsessively concerned with the sense of his inherent inferiority. He suffers a complete absence of a libidinal humaneness which leaves him without the capacity to respond to - let alone demonstrate - love and compassion for others. He compensates for his monumental insufficiencies here by embracing fundamentalist religion and projecting an image of one whose decisions and behavior originate with his total devotion to the highest authority. But everything he does extends from entirely mental designs and cerebral formulas and his commitment to religion serves as the perfect vehicle to affect his true agenda.

Nothing will deliver as much satisfaction and be as significant to him as effecting the devastation of the entire world. Let no one err on this matter. It is not the stuff of comic book fantasy. Ahmadinejad is paranoid and a through and through psychotic who has mastered the formulas that has him project an image of one who is sane, balanced and responsible. If he has access to the buttons here will push them without a moment’s hesitation. While it is true that at a barely subconscious dimension he despises himself and identifies with the termination of his (inferior) being, he would not wish for this to happen before he brings about the termination of every other being. His hatred of himself and, indeed, of all life, is virtually absolute.