Ahmadinejad has been grooming Mashaei to take over for years, and the two are like-minded in their nationalism and shared disdain for the clerical establishment, according to Geneive Abdo, a fellow at the Stimson Center's Middle East Program and a nonresident fellow at the Brookings Institution.
Rob Atkinson is founder and President of the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation and Nonresident Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution Metropolitan Policy Program.