Mahmoud Ahmadinejad chimes in on Michigan football
Do we want his support? Not sure. But I don't see any ex-world leaders tweeting about Sparty...
https://twitter.com/Ahmadinejad1956/status/1052178368072945668
October 16th, 2018 at 12:39 PM ^
Hey anyone know of any Michigan bars in Tehran?
October 16th, 2018 at 1:07 PM ^
Wear your colors proudly. You may even walk out alive.
October 16th, 2018 at 1:59 PM ^
a bar that serves milk and tea?
October 16th, 2018 at 12:39 PM ^
Now anyone feel free to correct me if I'm wrong here, but from what I remember Ahmadenijad was actually somewhat of a moderate by Iranian standards and worked as a bit of a counterbalance to the more radical elements in Irah, namely the clerics and the actual leader of the country, Ayatollah Khomeini.
October 16th, 2018 at 12:43 PM ^
He did pass a law to allow women into stadiums to watch soccer matches, so that is nice I guess.
But I'm going to go with no, generally speaking.
October 16th, 2018 at 12:49 PM ^
Yeah after a quick scan of Wikipedia it appears I was very much mistaken lol.
October 16th, 2018 at 12:45 PM ^
More like counterstrike
October 16th, 2018 at 12:45 PM ^
Khomeini is long dead, Khamenei is Supreme Leader.
October 16th, 2018 at 2:06 PM ^
no he is a hardliner compared to who he ran against for his presidency.
October 16th, 2018 at 12:42 PM ^
The webs are slow in Tehran. It took him a month to figure out what this guy was talking about.
October 16th, 2018 at 12:47 PM ^
It's a shame we fucked up our relationship with that country so badly. We have a lot more in common with Persians than many of their neighbors.
Plus their food is good. And their woman are stunningly beautiful.
October 16th, 2018 at 12:49 PM ^
Eh. The people are largely pro-US. It’s the “government” that is anti-US, and I don’t think we could have done much to change that.
October 16th, 2018 at 12:52 PM ^
Yeah - the whole taking of 52 embassy hostages for 444 days seemed to sort of sour the relationship.
October 16th, 2018 at 1:03 PM ^
So did overthrowing their democratically elected government and installing a brutal and repressive absolute ruler in 1953.
October 16th, 2018 at 2:48 PM ^
Also taking about a billion dollars to sell them weapons, then just keeping the money for 30 years.
October 16th, 2018 at 12:55 PM ^
Very underrated cuisine. Tadeeq and fasenjoon is an amazing meal.
October 16th, 2018 at 1:00 PM ^
Some amazing historical sites in Iran as well...lots of places in the Middle East I would love to visit someday if things ever change
October 16th, 2018 at 1:05 PM ^
The CIA overthrew their democratically elected president, Mossagdeh, back in the 50s and helped install a brutal dictator. Things haven't been good since .
October 16th, 2018 at 2:10 PM ^
Not that I support CIA messing up in other countries. Mossagdeh was prime minister and his policy was not much different from Hugo Chavez.
October 16th, 2018 at 3:41 PM ^
How does that justify the CIA formenting a coup when we has democratically elected by the people of Iran?
October 16th, 2018 at 10:20 PM ^
My guess is that most Iranians do not like the religious radicals running their country since '79. I feel sorry for them.
October 16th, 2018 at 12:50 PM ^
Not really one of his fans, but I'm waiting on his response to this critical question:
"Mahmoud, are hot dogs sandwiches?"
October 16th, 2018 at 2:59 PM ^
Considering the amount of pork mixed in with other unmentionables in hot dogs... he's probably say no.
Side note: most of my co-workers are Muslim, so it was kinda cool when a cold-calling product vendor brought in pepperoni pizzas for our office because it was more for me.
October 16th, 2018 at 12:55 PM ^
The world is a weird place .........
October 16th, 2018 at 1:05 PM ^
Let bygones be bygones, I only care what his take is on gerrymandering.
Can we fly this man in and let him join forces with Arnold?
October 16th, 2018 at 1:06 PM ^
FYI, "Inshallah" literally means "if Allah wills it." The Arabs use the expression in every other sentence, like, "you will come back for another trip, Inshallah, very soon!"
Taken literally, he is praying to God we win. That means something more to a devout Muslim than when a random person says, "I hope to God he scores a touchdown here."
October 16th, 2018 at 9:29 PM ^
A couple quibbles: 1. Probably best to translate it as "God willing", which makes more sense for native English speakers (it could also be "By the will of God" and, of course, your definition is literal as you noted); 2. Yes, Arabs use the expression a lot (almost in a "knock on wood" kind of way) but Iranians are Persian, not Arabs.
October 16th, 2018 at 1:07 PM ^
I think Ahmadinejad1956 is actually Shea Patterson's twitter. Either Shea or Mineralking.
October 16th, 2018 at 1:12 PM ^
Weird flex but ok
October 16th, 2018 at 1:20 PM ^
Apparently he's a sports fan.
The #NFL season will start this week, unfortunately once again @Kaepernick7 is not on a NFL roster. Even though he is one of the best Quarterbacks in the league
The philosophy and spirit of sports is bringing people together not causing more conflicts. Politics must support the spirit of sports not destroy it.
October 16th, 2018 at 1:32 PM ^
He's somehow rebranded as a normal woke guy with occasional sports takes. Twitter is wild
October 16th, 2018 at 1:34 PM ^
Can we get Mahmoud to take part in the next Draftageddon?
October 16th, 2018 at 1:36 PM ^
This is clearly board worthy
October 16th, 2018 at 1:46 PM ^
He follows 15 accounts; a few Iranians, some South American leaders and a few athletes.
October 16th, 2018 at 1:52 PM ^
The following tweets turning him into a football expert and the "I'll hang up and listen" are great!
October 16th, 2018 at 1:58 PM ^
The interesting question is why MICHIGAN and why now (beyond that MA is replying to an old UM related tweet)? What's the connection that I'm missing? He's met Bolinger at some point, right? Maybe Juan Cole?
October 16th, 2018 at 1:59 PM ^
Are you guys kidding me??? Does anyone not remember the best Iranian kicker there ever was? Ali Haji Shiek!!!!! He kicked for Bo back in the late 70's! Clearly, Ahmedinejad was channeling him!
And you guys call yourselves Michigan football fans...
October 16th, 2018 at 2:14 PM ^
I went to the MLB All-Star game with Ali when it was in Detroit with a mutual friend. Nicest guy you'd ever want to meet. He let me try on his Redskins Super Bowl ring. I think he was weirded out by the amount of Michigan related stuff I knew about him, though. Cool story, bro....
October 16th, 2018 at 2:14 PM ^
will someone call Shiek asking if he is related to Ahmedinejad by any chance?
October 16th, 2018 at 4:24 PM ^
Ali red-shirted his freshman year in '79, but was the starting kicker in '80-'82.
October 17th, 2018 at 1:55 PM ^
Someone very close to me taught English as a Second Language at UofM while a grad student, and one memorable summer had 7 or 8 members of the Iranian Navy in her class, engineers who were sent here for their English before being sent to various colleges in the states to study. (She always said she got to know what was going on in the world by who showed up in her class.) Will save the story of when they came to visit us in our nearby small town, blew out their tires on the freeway and had to spend the night on our living room floor. This was in the time of the Shah, so we always wondered what had happened to them afterwards.
October 16th, 2018 at 2:05 PM ^
I know an honorary captain for next year!
October 16th, 2018 at 2:08 PM ^
There must be some kind of link to UM here that we don't know about. College football is an obscure sport outside the US.
October 16th, 2018 at 2:11 PM ^
Looks like he is a Kaepernick fan, so perhaps that is the link.
October 16th, 2018 at 2:22 PM ^
So what you're saying is that it's not much of a stretch that MA could be reading, or even replying to, this here very blog . . .
October 16th, 2018 at 2:28 PM ^
"Hey Mahmoud, first time caller long time listener..."
October 16th, 2018 at 2:31 PM ^
Welcome to the Club, Mahmoud!
October 16th, 2018 at 2:44 PM ^
I'm perfectly okay with that.