AHMADINEJAD ON HIS LAST LEGS

Cleric’s support in Iranian parliament means president will need to answer for mismanagement of economy

Iran’s sinister and eccentric president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is a lame duck for his remaining 18 months in office, and his goose may be cooked too.

Apart from Iran’s reform movement, which was excluded from fielding candidates, Ahmadinejad was the big loser in Friday’s election for the 290seat parliament.

Iran’s media are reporting 75 per cent of the seats have been won by supporters of the country’s top cleric, the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

The election was conclusively rigged — from the selection of approved candidates to the postelection announcement of an unbelievably high turnout of 64 per cent cent of the 48 million voters.

But as the United Nations’ International Atomic Energy Agency shows more conviction that Iran has a nuclear weapons program and the United States and Israel debate what to do about it, the election has at least clarified who in Tehran controls policy.

It is Khamenei, and Khamenei alone.

Ahmadinejad has failed utterly in his attempt to fashion a power base with which he could manipulate events after he is required to retire at the completion of his second four- year term in the presidency in 2013.

The only real question is whether Khamenei will leave Ahmadinejad to bluster ineffectually for his remaining months in office, or whether the religious leader will complete the humiliation of his would- be rival.

Khamenei speculated in October about ending the office of a directly elected president and instead having government led by a prime minister who would be chosen by the parliament, the Majlis.

Khamenei now has enough followers in parliament to make this constitutional change. But at the moment, analysts in Iran are saying they doubt if the ayatollah will add to Ahmadinejad’s humiliation by making the change and removing him from office.

Most likely at the moment is the Majlis will choose a prime minister after Ahmadinejad completes his term next year.

But the situation can change rapidly, as it has in the past three years when the two men have gone from being mutual supporters at the time of Ahmadinejad’s re- election in 2009 to bitter rivals now.

There are signs Khamenei will use his control of parliament to cause Ahmadinejad as much discomfort as possible.

The Majlis on Monday reaffirmed its intention to call Ahmadinejad to answer accusations about his mismanagement of the economy, his attempts to grab control from Khamenei of key policy areas such as intelligence and foreign affairs, and a campaign by his supporters to give the president a religious legitimacy to rival the ayatollah.

The clarification of the hierarchy of power in Iran may or may not make it easier to deal with Tehran over its nuclear program as U. S. and European Union sanctions begin to seriously affect Iran’s already disabled economy.

On one hand, the competition among hardliners during the election period to take the most extreme positions on relations with the U. S. and the destruction of Israel is now over. Pragmatism might be allowed to outweigh theocratic ideology.

On the other, Iran’s nuclear program remains very popular and a source of national pride, even among proreformers.

Ayatollah Khamenei may have won control of parliament, but he knows he is deeply unloved by a large proportion of the Iranian people and he therefore nurses a hunger for popular approval.

For years, the IAEA has been the target of criticism it has been either ridiculously conservative in its assessment of evidence that Iran wants to be able to make nuclear weapons or else purposefully blind to what is obvious.

But under its new chief, Yukiya Amano, the IAEA has started saying the Iranians are conducting tests and experiments that are only consistent with weapons- making and not the peaceful purposes which Tehran continues to insist are its only aim.

Amano said he is “seriously concerned” because his inspectors were recently barred from visiting Iran’s facility at Parchin, where there is evidence scientists have been testing ways of triggering a nuclear explosion.

Iran has the other two essential elements for nuclear weapons: a system for enriching uranium and large missiles to deliver the bombs to targets.

With Iran apparently set to cross the line of bomb- making ability, Israel, which sees itself as a potential target for Tehran’s bomb, and some elements in the U. S. are promoting preemptive military action.

But with Iran top of the agenda as President Barack Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met in the White House on Monday, Obama was pressing for economic sanctions to be allowed to work.

However, in one of his most forceful statements on the issue thus far, Obama said he “would not hesitate to use force” to stop Iran getting nuclear weapons.

“Iran’s leaders should understand that I do not have a policy of containment. I have a policy to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon,” he said.