He is definitely not a puppet of the clergy. He is more of a fundie than most of the ruliong elite clergy. What everyone expected before the previous elections was that the so-called 'pragmatic conservatives' will win, a faction that sought to give some concessions to the masses while going on with strong theocracy. Their candidate was a heavyweight: the predecessor of Khatami the outgoing reformist President. From what I read, the support Ahmadinejad got from influential clerics was meant to weaken rivals in inter-conservative tussles, but he got 'too much support'. A further angle of Ahmadinejad's victory which I hinted at was that he is also a man-of-the-people populist, an Islamic fundie saviour of the proletariat, who blasted corruption and the rich lifestyle of the ruling elite.

_{*Lunatic*, n.
One whose delusions are out of fashion.}

He's not a clergy mouthpiece. He's a populist and is no doubt attempting to build himself a popular base (by projects to help young couples afford housing and thus marry earlier, for example).

His anti-Israel and Holocaust provocations may be seen in this light, as an attempt to raise his popular profile, not only in Iran, but elsewhere in the region. (He's not an Arab, but this is a way for him to appeal to Arab opinion and bridge the Arab/Persian split). They (provocations) have something of the nature of before-battle taunts, as if he were trying to whip up enthusiasm behind his leadership by yelling to Israel and the US, "Bring it on!"

I don't think he's totally bonkers, and this rhetoric proceeds from a calculation (right or wrong) that Iran is in a strong position following the disastrous invasion of Iraq. That strength may be put down to:

• Iran's oil;
  
• capacity to disrupt shipping in the Persian Gulf;
  
• (alleged) capacity to impact the dollar through a currency switch on the oil market;

and to the weakness of his designated opponents caused by:

• resentment in the region of the Iraq invasion;
  
• fairly global unease and disapproval of same;
  
• fact that the invasion is a flying fuck-up;
  
• consequent fact that Iran has considerably increased its influence in Iraq;
  
• other consequent fact that the US can neither build a coalition nor convincingly draw up major battle plans alone;
  
• leaving, as only military option, air strikes Ahmadinejad (and others in Iran) doubtless judge of little long-term importance.

I'm just trying to read in the tea-leaves here. If Ahmadinejad's thinking goes as I suggest, he may be wrong on a number of counts, just as he may well be right (sez me) on some of the big ones.