Handshake Blues

(Fox News) - Former Iranian President Mohammad Khatami's future political career is in dire straits — over a handshake.

The Guardian reports that fundamentalists are outraged over video showing Khatami, an Islamic cleric, shaking hands with a group of women in Italy. Islam forbids handshakes between men and women who are not close relatives.

Khatami has dismissed the images as fakes, and even tried to deflect the attacks by promising not to run for president in 2009. But some radical clerics are now calling for Khatami to be defrocked.