Iran's next spiritual leader backs suicide bombs

The Telegraph reports.

In a move that would push Iran even further into the diplomatic wilderness, Ayatollah Mohammad Taghi Mesbah-Yazdi, 71, who publicly backs the use of suicide bombers against Israel, is campaigning to succeed Grand Ayatollah Ali Khameini, 67, as the head of the Islamic state.

Considered an extremist even by fellow mullahs, he was a fringe figure in Iran's theocracy until last year's election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, a fellow fundamentalist who views him as his ideological mentor. He is known to many Iranians as "Professor Crocodile" because of a notorious cartoon that depicted him weeping false tears over the jailing of a reformist journalist.

Hmmm. Wonder what happened to the cartoonist?

"The cartoonist whose drawing earned "Professor Crocodile" his nickname suffered the same fate as the journalists whose frequent imprisonment was depicted. He, too, was sent to jail."

Oh.

And the world wants to negotiate with these mad men.