Early Life
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was born Aradan Iran in 1956, to a poor family in the village of Aradan. He was the fourth of seven children born to a blacksmith. He grew up in an Iran filled with western influence, which caused many where he lived to resent America and their ideal, but while he was young he showed no particular interest in politics. He finished national university exams with extremely high marks, coming 130th out of over 400,000 students (Biography Ahmadinejad 2019). When he began to attend Iran University of Science in Technology in 1975, Ahmadinejad began to participate in secretive resistance groups against the Shah, Mohammed Palhavi. He distributed propaganda across the country supporting Ruhollah Khomeini and the 1979 Iranian Revolution. After the Iranian revolution occurred, conflicting reports say that he might have been a student leader helping the capture and hostage taking of the U.S. embassy (Biography Ahmadinejad 2019).
Political Career
In 2005, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad entered the Presidential elections as an outsider. However, despite not having much political support initially, Ahmadinejad quickly gained a large base and defeated his moderate opponent by a large margin to win the presidency. During his first term, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad focused on Shiite Islamic ideals. He lessened the gap between the poor and the rich, but also banned music and media he thought was indecent. In foreign affairs, Ahmadinejad worked to undo the progress with western nations that his predecessor, Mohammed Khatamini, had made. He defended Iran's nuclear program and criticized the U.S. He also made several controversial and untrue statements, including calling the holocaust a myth (Brittanica Ahmadinejad 2018). In 2009, Ahmadinejad was nonetheless re-elected with 60% of the vote, despite polling below his reformist challenger. This sparked the nationwide Green Movement against him, which he would spend the beginning of his second term stomping out (Britannica Ahmadinejad 2018). He was unable to accomplish much politically during his second term due to his declining support among his own party and having several executive actions blocked by the Supreme Leader.
Historical Significance
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's decisions while president of Iran and general incompetence in office threw Iran into several challenging years of political turmoil that effect the country even today. Ahmadinejad entered Iranian politics as an outsider, but was able to quickly rally a base and win the support of Iran's supreme leader. His political views represented a stark contrast to both his predecessor and successor, but he was nonetheless able to cause a large right wing shift in Iran during his presidency. In his first term he destroyed ties between Iran and other western countries, as well as lessening the gap between Iran's poor and rich. In his second term, however, he began to feel the effects of Iran's fractured political views. The Green Movement that sprung up as a result of his re-election forced him to use deadly police force to quell protests, and made him to fall out with the supreme leader that caused his election in the first place. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's historical significance comes from him not only moving Iran right, but fracturing the political field up until the current day.
Russia and Iran had strengthened connections under Mahmoud's presidency.