Rattlesnake Ridge      

 
      BFF
“Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad escalated an unusually public confrontation within the country’s leadership Saturday by firing three Cabinet ministers, defying Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and his loyalists, who had warned him the move would be unconstitutional. Ahmadinejad accepted the resignation of the ministers of oil, welfare, and mines and industries as part of a plan to reshape the government by eventually merging eight of the country’s ministries into four, according to the semi-official Fars News Agency and letters posted to his own website………..”

Presidents usually calm down during their last year or two in office. By that time people start paying more attention to who will succeed them. Iran’s Ahmadinejad started his term of office with a bang and he seems intent on ending it with a bang, possibly a bigger one. It seems that before his final term of office expires in 2013, he will be confronting an entrenched field of rivals ranging from Ayatollah Khamenei to a conservative parliament. So far he has failed to chip away meaningfully at the powers of Khamenei, and he may now have trouble with the legislature. He did succeed finally in getting rid of Foreign Minister Mottaki. Mr. Ahmadinejad has an interesting group of people around him, including his in-law and chief adviser Mashaei who is apparently immensely disliked by the clergy. They seem to be trying to push the country toward a “softer” version of an Islamic republic, more an “Iranian” republic that is Islamic.
Mr. Ahmadinejad is the country’s third civilian president. The very first one was Bani-Sadr who had to escape to France in the early 1980s. Then there was the short-tenured Mr. Rajaie who as blown up to smithereens, along with many others, by a terrorist bomb. Then followed a succession of three clergy presidents (Khamenei, Rafsanjani, Khatami). Now it is possible that the theocracy will try to make sure the next president is a mullah: it has had nothing but trouble with civilian “presidents”. Yet that is not good for the regime, for it will give an even narrower tunnel vision. It will also make it “look” more theocratic.
Either way, we can look for tumultuous two years in Iranian politics. That will match the tumultuous next two years I expect to see in the Arab world.
Cheers
mhg



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