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Meet Iran’s next potential Ahmadinejad

Given the Iranian public’s disappointment with both Reformists and conservatives, the potential for the rise of yet another populist hard-liner is growing ever more real.
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (R) and head of Iran TV, Ezzatollah Zarghami, (L) applaud as they attend the 44th General assembly of the Asia-Pacific Broadcaasting Union in Tehran 03 November 2007. AFP PHOTO/ATTA KENARE (Photo credit should read ATTA KENARE/AFP/Getty Images)

Is Ezzatollah Zarghami the next populist to rise from Iran’s hard-line camp? The recent activities of the former head of the conservative-dominated state broadcaster, who has been in constant verbal clashes with moderate President Hassan Rouhani, certainly raises this question.

Born into a religious family in 1959, Zarghami's father never bought a television. He, however, ended up being a cinephile, binging on movies. In high school, he was a classmate of Hassan Tehrani-Moghaddam, the father of Iran's ballistic missile program who was killed in 2011, and also former Reformist parliamentarian Hamid Reza Katouzian. When the 1979 Islamic Revolution overthrew the shah, then 20-year-old Zarghami was just starting a civil engineering program at Amirkabir University. Soon, he became one of the students who seized the American Embassy, leading to the cutting of diplomatic relations with the United States.

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