Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad defied the world in 2007 by refusing to make the slightest concession in the nuclear crisis and clashed with domestic rivals critical of his outspoken style and economic polices.
He was rarely out of the headlines, dismissing the chief demand of the West in the atomic stand-off, firing ministers and lambasting rivals with a tone rarely heard in Iranian politics.
Domestic critics accused Ahmadinejad of underestimating the danger of US military action and the economic consequences of a potential third set of UN sanctions against the Islamic republic. Western countries warned that only a full suspension of uranium enrichment-a potential bomb-making process-could end the standoff and the threat of sanctions.
But Iran ploughed on with its nuclear programme, completing the installation of more than 3,000 centrifuges at an enrichment plant in Natanz, proclaiming that the drive had reached an "industrial phase".
Ahmadinejad compared the Iranian nuclear programme to a "train without brakes" and said his skills as an engineer told him the United States would not launch a military attack. In December, he claimed a "great victory" after a US intelligence report said Iran had halted a nuclear weapons drive in 2003, taking the heat out of the crisis and reducing the probability of military action.
Ahmadinejad always emphasised his stance had the backing of supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who on occasion also reminded Iranians of the importance of standing up to the West in the nuclear crisis.
Iran paraded the captives on television and sought to extract every advantage it could. Then, in typically theatrical style, Ahmadinejad suddenly announced at a news conference they were to be released. The farcical scenes that followed-a smiling president shaking hands with the puzzled sailors dressed in ill-fitting suits given them by Iran-were among the most indelible images of the year.
As Ahmadinejad frayed the West's nerves on the nuclear issue, he also courted controversy in domestic policy as political tensions mounted ahead of parliamentary elections on March 14.
He fired his ministers of oil and industry, replaced a swathe of officials and merged a key planning body into the government, prompting critics to allege that policy-making was being reduced to a small coterie of allies. "One cannot lead the country with just three or ten people," sniped moderate cleric Hassan Rowhani, a close ally of the pragmatic former president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, Ahmadinejad's arch political rival.
The president even described his critics as "traitors" and having "less intelligence than a goat". Another Rafsanjani ally, former nuclear official Hossein Moussavian, was arrested for spying, released on bail and then publicly accused by Ahmadinejad of being a criminal.
The judiciary said he had no case to answer on spying charges, prompting another angry outburst from the president. But for many Iranians-who themselves will mark their New Year of 1387 on March 21 - the most pressing question was a startling jump in inflation. The price of basic goods like fruit, vegetables and chicken rocketed over the past six months, hitting the poor hardest. Ahmadinejad came to power on a platform of promoting social "justice," and economists accused him of stoking inflation by injecting massive quantities of cash into the economy to fund local infrastructure projects. "Inflation exists in society ... Every single person in society says that it exists and ordinary people feel it every time they purchase something, " complained former president Mohammad Khatami.
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