Although most Iranians forget it today, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was elected in 2005 on a platform of technocratic competence. The clique surrounding his rise to mayor of Tehran and beyond once called themselves Abadgaran, “the Developers.” In a column four months after Ahmadinejad’s election to the Iranian presidency, commentator Saeed Laylaz reminded readers of the sage advice of Deng Xiaoping, arguing that a hard-line conservative government could push through economic reforms where the reformist administration had failed. “The cat is finally catching mice,” Laylaz wrote, “and its color no longer matters.”[1] After the exhaustion of the reform movement’s momentum, Ahmadinejad presented himself to the people as the intrepid engineering professor, the humble, principled and no-nonsense expert who could get things done. “Expert,” in fact, is one of the good doctor’s favorite words.

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