Is Ahmadinejad Jewish?

Whether the rumors are true or not, they will impact Ahmadinejad's stance on the Middle East. FP.com suggests he'll have to remain hardline or become even more anti-Israel in order to demonstrate that his family background is as he says it is.

But in the end, the rumor is almost as powerful as the truth when it comes to shaping Ahmadinejad's actions at home and abroad. None of the accounts suggest he had any active participation in the choices allegedly made by his parents while he was still a child. Yet even suggestions of not having been Shiite for many generations -- despite his mother's family claiming descent from Islam's prophet Muhammad -- undercuts Ahmadinejad's legitimacy in the eyes of many conservative Iranians.

Ultimately, on the domestic front in Iran, the whole issue plays into the widening chasm between the mullahs and Ahmadinejad, some of whom have challenged his family's Muslim lineage and piety for years. His oft-questioned background also may explain why he and the many relatives he appointed to high office are working hard to create a secular yet still autocratic state, moving away from the theocratic oversight of politics.

On the international front, the problem of Ahmadinejad's past produces other complications. As his heritage becomes a more public question, it only makes it less likely that he can find accommodation with Israel without compromising himself in Muslim eyes. To protect and further his political career, Ahmadinejad will only be more compelled to reaffirm his Shiite identity by presenting himself as the champion of Muslim and Palestinian rights over Jewish and Israeli ones.

Consequently, Ahmadinejad's Jewish background, if it does exist, will only make peace in the Middle East and compromise with the United States less likely on his part. And in endeavoring to deflect and vitiate complications -- actual or imaginary -- from his past, the Iranian president continues to sully his nation's image and tarnish his own legacy.