The old best-of-five format was compact and ideal coaches of good teams hated best-of-five, because it gave too much of a shot to an underdog, but that was exactly why it was perfect.

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Indeed, in the face of rising domestic opposition to Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the regime's best bet may be to launch a war against the hated Jews in order to unify the clerical leadership - which is now split between those supporting the regime and those supporting the opposition - behind the regime.

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