In Iran Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's government has seen controversy over policies such as his 2007 Gas Rationing Plan to reduce the country's fuel consumption, and cuts in maximum interest rates permitted to private and public banking facilities;[1][2][3] his widely disputed and protested election to a second term in 2009;[4][5] and over the presence of a so-called "deviant current" among his aides and supporters that led to the arrest of several of them in 2011.

[6] Abroad, his dismissal of international sanctions against Iran's nuclear energy program, and his call for an end of the state of Israeli and description of the Holocaust as a myth, has drawn criticism.

He spoke of an extended program using trade to improve foreign relations, and called for greater ties with Iran's neighbours and ending visa requirements between states in the region, saying that "people should visit anywhere they wish freely.

[16][17] Ahmadinejad's team lost the 2006 city council elections,[18] and his spiritual mentor, Mohammad Taghi Mesbah Yazdi, was ranked sixth on the country's Assembly of Experts.

Former presidents Mohammad Khatami, and Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, who is currently head of the Expediency Discernment Council, along with opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi, did not attend the ceremony.

One unintended effect of this stimulation of the economy has been the bidding up of some urban real estate prices by two or three times their pre-Ahmadinejad value by Iranians seeking to invest surplus cash and finding few other safe opportunities.

[50] According to a report by the group Human Rights Watch, "Since President Ahmadinejad came to power, treatment of detainees has worsened in Evin Prison as well as in detention centers operated clandestinely by the Judiciary, the Ministry of Information, and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

In a statement carried on the students' Web site,[citation needed] they announced that they had been protesting the growing political pressure under Ahmadinejad, also accusing him of corruption, mismanagement, and discrimination.

[85]In a 11 June 2006 analysis of the translation controversy, New York Times deputy foreign editor and Israeli resident Ethan Bronner argued that Ahmadinejad had called for Israel to be wiped off the map.

[89] Furthermore, Steele cites a source at the BBC, as well as the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI), supporting the following translation: This regime that is occupying Jerusalem must be eliminated from the pages of history.

[89]While this translation is quite similar to Professor Cole's version, it does use the word "eliminated" rather than "vanish", which is consistent with Bronner's suggestion that an "active" verb would more accurately reflect the original Persian.

In a speech on 2 June 2008, the Iranian presidential website quotes Ahmadinejad as saying "the Zionist Regime of Israel faces a deadend and will under God's grace be wiped off the map."

"You should know that the criminal and terrorist Zionist regime which has 60 years of plundering, aggression and crimes in its file has reached the end of its work and will soon disappear off the geographical scene"[91]In June 2007, Ahmadinejad was criticized by some Iranian parliament members over his remark about Christianity and Judaism.

Ahmadinejad wrote a letter to parliament speaker Gholam-Ali Haddad-Adel, furiously denouncing him for an "inexplicable act" in bypassing the presidency by giving the order to implement legislation in an official newspaper.

According to the Majles News Web site, MP Mohammad Reza Bahonar stated, "legal purging starts with questions, which lead to warnings and end with impeachment."

[112] Following the first round of elections Ahmadinejad was summoned to testify before parliament on issues such as his economic policies, his views on the obligatory Islamic head scarves for Iranian women and his relations with the supreme leader.

[113] In July 2009, the general court of Tehran convicted Industry Minister Ali Akbar Mehrabian and Mousa Mazloum but kept silent about Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's involvement, according to Etemad-Melli daily.

[119] The disagreement has been described as centering on Esfandiar Rahim Mashaei, a top adviser and close confidant of Ahmadinejad[120] and opponent of "greater involvement of clerics in politics",[121] who was First Vice President of Iran until being ordered to resign from the cabinet by the supreme leader.

[124] The events have been said to have "humiliated and weakened" Ahmadinejad, though the president has denied that there was any rift between the two,[124] and according to the semiofficial Fars News Agency stated that his relationship with the supreme leader "is that of a father and a son.

[131] U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley both reviewed the letter and dismissed it as a negotiating ploy and publicity stunt that did not address U.S. concerns about Iran's nuclear program.

"[143] Ahmadinejad's comments were condemned by major Western governments, the European Union, Russia, the United Nations Security Council and then UN Secretary General Kofi Annan.

[145] Canada's then Prime Minister Paul Martin said, "this threat to Israel's existence, this call for genocide coupled with Iran's obvious nuclear ambitions is a matter that the world cannot ignore.

Using Persian translations from Dr. Denis MacEoin, a former lecturer in Islamic studies in the United Kingdom, Teitelbaum wrote that "the Iranian president was not just calling for "regime change" in Jerusalem, but rather the actual physical destruction of the State of Israel," and asserted that Ahmadinejad was advocating the genocide of its residents as well.

"[150] According to Gawdat Bahgat of the National Defense University, "the fiery calls to destroy Israel are meant to mobilize domestic and regional constituencies" and that "Rhetoric aside, most analysts agree that the Islamic Republic and the Jewish state are not likely to engage in a military confrontation against each other.

[164] Relations were briefly strained after President Abdullah Gul had stated that he wants the atomic threat to be eliminated from the region, perhaps a hint to Iran;[165] however, business has remained cordial between the two countries.

[184] On 23 September 2009, Ahmadinejad gave a speech to the UN General Assembly which focused on accusing Western powers of spreading "war, bloodshed, aggression, terror and intimidation" in the Middle East and Afghanistan.

Delegations from Argentina, Australia, Britain, Costa Rica, Denmark, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, New Zealand and the United States left the room as Ahmadinejad began to rail against Israel.

According to a report from Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting, Ahmadinejad said, referring to Europeans, "Today, they have created a myth in the name of Holocaust and consider it to be above God, religion and the prophets.

Ahmadinejad's September 2008 speech to the UN General Assembly, in which he dwelled on what he described as Zionist control of international finance, was also denounced as "blatant anti-Semitism" by German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier.

Shiraz Dossa, a professor at St. Francis Xavier University, in Nova Scotia, Canada, argued in June 2007 thatAhmadinejad has not denied the Holocaust or proposed Israel’s liquidation; he has never done so in any of his speeches on the subject (all delivered in Persian).