Demagogue

When oil prices rise and the media interviews a public official from Saudi Arabia or another OPEC country, the official invariably offers reassurance that the rise is only a temporary spike in prices and sounds almost disappointed that prices are rising.

For that reason, it was kind of refreshing to read this news story from Reuters:

Iran’s president said on Friday the rise in oil price was “very good,” Iran’s Mehr News Agency reported, emphasizing the hawkish position of the world’s fourth largest oil exporter as crude prices have hit record levels.

“The increase of the oil price and growth of oil income is very good and we hope that the oil prices reach their real levels,” Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said as he toured an oil exhibition in Tehran ...

Yes, Ahmadinejad is a holocaust denier. He is also a scary religious zealot who, as mayor of Tehran, required all male city employees to have beards and instituted separate elevators for male and female municipal employees.

Yes, he is all of these things and more. But, unlike his peers in other oil-rich nations, at least he's not pretending to be anything other than pleased that his country is reaping hefty profits from oil exports.