The question is, of course, whether or not he actually believes his own rhetoric.

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad declared on Thursday that Iran was the world’s “number one” power, as he launched a bitter new assault on domestic critics he accused of siding with the enemy.

“Everybody has understood that Iran is the number one power in the world,” Ahmadinejad said in a speech to families who lost loved ones in the 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq war.

“Today the name of Iran means a firm punch in the teeth of the powerful and it puts them in their place,” he added in the address broadcast live on state television.

Actually, many hear the name “Iran” and think “place the U.S. could be making a parking lot in the next few years”. But we’ll leave him to his own delusions.

His rhetoric has even incurred the wrath of a powerful Iranian Islamic cleric.

“Does foreign policy mean expressing coarse slogans and grandstanding?” Hassan Rowhani, a former top nuclear negotiator who still holds influential posts, asked in a speech to a foreign policy conference in Tehran. 

“Does foreign policy mean expressing coarse slogans and grandstanding?” Hassan Rowhani, a former top nuclear negotiator who still holds influential posts, asked in a speech to a foreign policy conference in Tehran.

According to the report, Rowhani said Iran “needs to find an accommodating way to decrease the threats and assure the interests of the country.”

“If the international community thinks that a country wants to play troublemaker and eliminate others, it will not let the country do this and will confront it.”

Always good to hear common sense coming out of Iran.