The War President

The Newsweeks' Devoted and Defiant starts out with this paragraph:


Born to a blacksmith, educated as a revolutionary, trained as a killer and derided by rivals as a mystical fanatic, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is easily cast as the personification of everything there is to fear about a nuclear Iran. But he may be worse than that—not because of how he looks to the outside world, but because of what he represents inside his country. Ahmadinejad plays to a nostalgia for war among parts of Iran's leadership, and even some of its young people: a longing for confrontation, a belief that a quarter century ago, when revolutionary Iran was ready to challenge the world, send countless youths to martyrdom in the fight against Saddam Hussein's Iraq, endure missile attacks on its cities, suffer poison-gas attacks against its troops—in those days the regime of the ayatollahs was purer, more noble, more popular and ultimately more secure.


It goes on to say:

Since he took office in August, Ahmadinejad has shown himself an expert at provoking outrage,...


The authors of the article are no small time experts at "provoking outrage". Ahmadinejad was member of the Revolutionary Guards Corps that found the Saddam's army. The Corp would be equivalent to the US Marines force. Could it be that the authors are trying to provoke outrage by calling one's military career as "trained as a killer".


The authors also say he "plays to a nostalgia for war" as it make the government "more popular and ultimately more secure". That sounds like a chapter out of Karl Rove and George W's play book. What was the name for it? "The War President?"