Iran's Veepstakes

It would seem that in all the sound and fury about health care reform and just how many votes Sotomayor will get in the Senate we've forgotten about Iran. This is too bad because something both interesting and possibly quite scary is going on there right now. A fight has broken out between Ahmadinejad and Khameini over Ahmadinejad's choice for veep. Khameini nixed his choice, Esfandiar Rahim Mashai, but Ahmadinejad is sticking to his guns so far.
Now at first glance it wouldn't seem scary at all; just the opposite in fact. The clerics dislike Mashai because he's said that Iran is friends with everyone "even Israelis," he attended a ceremony in Turkey where women danced, and another in Iran where women played tambourines and read from the Koran. So at first glance it appears that Mashai is being punished for showing both a minimal level of sanity and decency. (Before concluding that this shows that maybe Ahmadinejad isn't as bad as we think it's worth pointing out that Mashai is his son-in-law).
What's scary about this is that Ahmadinejad feels confident enough to stand up to Khameini. The common opinion is that Ahmadinejad is the clerics' stooge, but figuring just who's really in charge in Tehran is like reading tea leaves. Another theory is that Ahmadinejad and the Revolutionary Guards have all but seized power and that the clerics are now more or less their puppets. This latest development gives a bit more credence to that theory, and at the very least shows that Ahmadinejad is no puppet. That's scary because in dealing with Iran we thought we could count on the fundamental venality of the Iranian regime. The Ayatollahs may talk a good Allah and Mahdi game, but when it comes down to it most of them want to continue fleecing their own people and enjoying their own privileges more than doing what they take to be Almighty's will on Earth. They're scumbags, but rational scumbags. And as long as they're rational nuclear deterrence would probably work (the scumbag element helps too, at least the purely self-interested are easy to predict). They may expect a nice time of it in heaven, but they've a good thing down here so no need to rush things. Ahmadinejad on the other hand has all the signs of a true believer. If the Ayatollahs are in charge a nuclear Iran is bad, but not terrifying (or at least not much more terrifying than anyone having nukes is). On the other hand if Ahmadinejad really is in charge or has a good bit of room to make his own plays, a nuclear armed Iran may be actually be as awful as the neo-con types make out.