Most police officials around the world prefer to stay aloof of politics, concentrating their attention on mundane matters of law enforcement and insisting on their integrity, in the face of pressures from City Hall or partisan interests. Not so in the Islamic Republic of Iran, where Police Chief Gen. Esmail Ahmadi-Moqaddam sees fit not only to take sides in the ongoing factional political fight within Iran’s establishment, but to opine on matters of foreign policy and comparative social science.

Analysts say Ahmadi-Moqaddam is a confidante of Mojtaba Khamenei, the mid-ranking cleric close to the Revolutionary Guard who is the hard-line son of Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Many consider Ahmadi-Moqaddam’s comments a reflection of the younger Khamenei’s worldview.