UPDATED Iran Debate: How Weak (or Strong) is Ahmadinejad?

The Latest from Iran (30 August): Parliament Discusses the Cabinet

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UPDATED 31 August, 0725 GMT: Enduring America's Chris Emery, formerly known as "Mr Jones", has now made his contribution to what is becoming, I think, one of the most important discussions in the post-election crisis --- see below. Mr Smith has offered a reply.

UPDATED 1145 GMT: Mr Smith has made another intervention in the debate.
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Over the weekend, after Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's tough talking at Friday prayers in Tehran and as he was submitting his Cabinet choices to Parliament, we have been debating the President's position and future prospects. EA's Mr Smith and Mr Johnson are joined by Muhammad Sahimi of Tehran Bureau, whose column sparked the discussion, and Fintan Dunne.

SAHIMI: ....Such fabrications [like those in his Friday speech] are of course meant to present Ahmadinejad as a confident leader. But, in reality, he is weaker and more isolated than ever. True, the right wing is in control, but that control has been achieved first and foremost by the support of the high command of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC). Otherwise, the base of support for Ahmadinejad among the population is extremely narrow, limited to at most 15% of the population.

At the same time,...glaring fissures which have emerged within the conservative and reactionary camp, which poses a growing threat to Iran’s political stability. Even Ayatollah Khamenei and the hardliners around him are well aware of the danger, which explains why they have been gradually retreating over the past few weeks.

First, they acknowledged some of the crimes that have taken place in the detention centers.

Second, they have retreated from linking the reformist leaders with foreign powers, notwithstanding Ahmadinejad’s tired accusations during Friday Prayers.

Third, Ayatollah Khamenei appointed Ayatollah Mahmoud Hashemi Shahroudi, the former judiciary chief, as a member to the powerful Guardian Council, in preparation for the departure of Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati, the ultra-conservative secretary-general of the Council, and an ardent supporter of Ahmadinejad. At least compared to Jannati, Shahroudi is a relative moderate.

Fourth, Ahmadinejad’s appointment of Esfandiar Rahim-Mashai as the First Vice President was blocked. Mashai was even barred for two months from holding any governmental position, another tactic to put Ahmadinejad under control.

Fifth, many of the reformists and their supporters, if not their main leaders, have been released from detention.

Sixth, behind-the-scene efforts continue to reach some sort of reconciliation between the reformists and the conservative camp. So far these have failed because the main demand of the reformists, holding a new election, has been rejected.

Seventh, Saeed Mortazavi, the notorious Tehran Prosecutor General and the man implicated in many crimes was sacked.

At the same time, Iran’s uranium enrichment program has stagnated, either by design, or due to technical difficulties, or because of a lack of raw materials (yellow cake) needed for uranium enrichment. Iran has also become more flexible with the International Atomic Energy Agency, allowing more visits to its nuclear sites.....

All are signs of a very weak Ahmadinejad presidency ahead, not to mention his complete lack of legitimacy in the eyes of a large majority of Iranian people, even among those who may have supported him before the election.

Even more damaging for Ahmadnejad is that his chief clerical patron, Ayatollah Khamenei, has himself been greatly weakened. The Ayatollah has been openly challenged and strongly criticized by many important clerics. Grand Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri, the most important Shiite cleric in Iran, openly called him unqualified and his reign illegitimate. Ayatollah Khamenei has allowed himself to be reduced to the leader of one faction in the conservative camp by openly and unabashedly supporting Ahmadinejad. He can no longer pretend that he is above the political fray.

SMITH: [The Tehran Bureau article] lacks sources on just about all the allegations it makes and then essentially parrots the reformist line: Ahmadinejad is weak, is in trouble, is a lame duck already, etc.

While of course all of us wish that this was the case, the reality appears quite different, as we have seen no real thrust to wrestle him out of office. The Supreme Leader has only rebuked him frontally during the [former First Vice President] Mashai affair and he still has the rather remarkable opportunity of talking from official platforms such as Friday Prayers, saying things quite different from what the Supreme Leader says, and still walking out relatively unscathed.

Granted, he has the same amount, or more, difficulties than any executive leader in the world would have for forming a government, but I would be very cautious in calling Ahmadinejad a has-been and that days may be counted down to his demise. Sadly, I doubt this scenario will happen anytime soon.

We shouldn’t forget that the Supreme Leader, conservative critics of AN like the Larijanis, Ahmad Tavakoli (who happens to be the Larijanis’ cousin), and more have essentially agreed to accept the outcome of the Presidential election as announced by the Interior ministry. Hence, they are simply jostling for political kudoes and power within the Government, more than mounting a challenge that is really geared towards removing Ahmadinejad from power.

DUNNE: Muhammad Sahimi was too dismissive in describing of Ahmadinejad as "isolated and delusional", and he erred in reducing the regime to the person of the president.

But he was correct to describe Ahmadinejad as "weak". Professor Sahimi accurately catalogs the ongoing obstruction of the hardliners and the very public political fractures. Furthermore he shows the regime is now tellingly reliant on a narrow base of IRGC appointees to fill government posts.

Ahmadinejad/IRGC's core 'hard' support is as low as 12%, with a 'softer' support extending to up to 20% of the population. Because of this, the disputed president's public pronouncements are reductionist and defensive --aimed at his own supporters and the ill-informed. By contrast, most other voices in Iranian politics are addressing the remaining 80%+ of the population.

Despite their hard-line rhetoric, Ahmadinejad/IRGC are unable to crush the reformers. It is going to be far harder to violently suppress any mass public protests in the weeks ahead. And there is a dire political problem looming for this one-legged regime: it's the economy, stupid!

Even a government of national unity would be hard-pressed to dig the Iranian economy out of the mire against the backdrop of deteriorating global finances. A lame duck Ahmadinejad government comprising an ineffectual clique will certainly fail to turn things around. One shudders to contemplate the unspoken financial state of Iran. Currency problems and capital flight are doubtless significant.

As the weeks pass, the economy will join the stolen election as the twin key political issues for the populace. Imagine an opposition rally protesting the economic straits of the people as well as the stolen election. Imagine the regime trying to suppress such a rally.

That the reformers are not already in prison is a victory in itself. Now, a death by a thousand cuts threatens the Iranian regime. That reality explains the government's determined effort to halt such a slow slide by means of show trials --which have backfired.

The reformists could compromise by accepting the current status quo, on condition of substantive electoral reform overseen by a parliamentary process. But from their perspective it might be best to simply allow this regime to stew in their own economic juice until well roasted.

JOHNSON: I find Mr. Smith's assertion that Professor Sahimi's article "lacks sources on just about all the allegations it makes and then essentially parrots the reformist line" to be both inaccurate (many of Sahimi's statements have been have also been reported here in Enduring America as well as other news-sites), and rather unfair.

Mr. Smith states that there is no thrust to wrestle Ahmadinejad out of office. This statement only makes sense if Mr. Smith considers the reformist movement to be irrelevant. I think that there has been a major effort to wrestle Ahmadinejad out of office; and that effort is still going on. The fact that Ahmadinejad has not been able to imprison and/or neutralize the ringleaders of this effort (Khatami, Mousavi and Karroubi), even though he has explicitly demanded it in public, demonstrates the limitations that exist to his power.

Ahmadinejad's pre-Friday prayers speach seems to have a lot of significance for Mr. Smith. I think that it is rather strange that a strong and powerful and confident president of the Islamic Republic of Iran must choose the mid- to low-profile pre-Friday prayers speech, since many of the faithful participating in Friday prayers either eschew or arrive near the end of the speech, to address the country instead of using IRIB [state television]. Did IRIB not give Ahmadinejad broadcasting time? If so, what kind of a strong President is denied this?

Mr. Smith considers the fact that Ahmadnejad is "saying things quite different from what the Supreme Leader says, and still walking out relatively unscathed" as evidence for Ahmadinejad's power. I think this is more a statement of Khamenei's weakness than Ahmadinejad's strength. I think the replacement of [Tehran chief prosecutor] Mortazavi is the real litmus test. If Mortazavi's successor puts an end to the trials and somehow addresses the issues of torture and the secret burials, a tangible limitation of the President's power has been put in place. This would be the first step taken to abort Ahmadinejad's "velvet coup".

Mr. Smith also takes Ahmadinejad's parliamentary troubles lightly. I agree that conservative parliamentarians are "simply jostling for political kudoes and power within the Government". However I think that the rumblings and confrontations demonstrated by a sizable fraction of conservative MPs with regards to the President demonstrate that these MPs are convinced that: firstly, Ahmadinejad has no intention of giving them any kudoes and power; secondly, Ahmadinejad's plan may have also intended to weaken their power as well as that of the reformists; and thirdly, they may think that all the recent scandals (torture, unmarked graves, etc.) has turned Ahmadinejad into a political hot potato that must be dropped as soon as possibly.

The outcome of the presidential election was accepted by the conservatives in June. Not all of them are necessarily bound to continue to accept that now, especially if rejecting Ahmadinejad is equivalent to their political survival. The upcoming vow of confidence will be a demonstration of how the conservatives feel towards Ahmadinejad's policies.

SMITH: My assertions regarding Ahmadinejad were not so much related to his political "power", rather to his chances of political survival.

I don't deny that he is weak, has severe issues in forming his government, and is prey to all sorts of critics, both conservative and reformist. My considerations are focused, however, on whether Ahmadinejad will survive the storm in the short term and be able to stay in his place. I still believe he will, because the conservatives have too much to lose in terms of legitimacy after substantially endorsing the election results in June. No one, including the Larijanis, has contested the latter yet, and this is quite important in my view.

This is not to deny that friction between Ahmadinejad and Khamenei exists, but again not at boiling point level. Lastly, Ahmadinejad's appearing at Friday prayers was completely to be expected, as it is Government Week in Iran right now, and nearly all Presidents have appeared on the podium on this occasion.

EMERY: I wouldn't necessarily connect all the concessions detailed by Sahimi and Mr Johnson to Ahmadinejad's apparent isolation or weakness. Certainly the "stagnating" nuclear issue is not really evidence of a "very weak Ahmadinejad presidency ahea". I'm also not convinced that Ahmadinejad's inability to have Mousavi, Karroubi, Khatami, and Rafsanjani locked up is, as Mr. Johnson suggests, a useful demonstration of the limitations that exist to his power. The absence of such dictatorial powers are inherent in the office of the presidency.

My position is somewhere in between those expressed by Mr Smith and Mr Johnson. I agree with Mr Smith that Ahmadinejad will probably survive attempts to remove him. However, my prediction is for a totally chaotic second term in which Ahmadinejad is unable to achieve anything substantial as the Parliament and judiciary acts increasingly independently from the government (perhaps already seen in the "moving" of Mortazavi and appointment of Ejeie to posts in the judiciary). Increasingly, the question of the Supreme Leader's succession will come to dominate back stage political manoeuvrings.

As such, the real question is not so much whether Ahmadinejad has lost his public legitimacy or whether the Larijanis have or have not questioned the election result. The immediate apparent legacy of the crisis is that the coordination required for an effective legislative program will be almost impossible to achieve. The still-unknown legacy is the extent of the compromises, principally in terms of Iran's justice system, that Khamenei offers to avoid further mass protests. I don't see Ahmadinejad as particularly significant in how that pans out, although the result of the current trials does seem a reasonable litmus test.

The wider point is that Ahmadinejad doesn't actually appear to have much in the way of policies at the moment. Nor does he appear to grasp the enormity of the task in front of him. Ahmadinejad's second term may hang on this failure as much as anything else. Of course, he will now find it much harder to pass the legislation and reforms he thinks will do something about it and his failures will undoubtedly be capitalised on by his opponents. But a lot does depend on the merit of his policies.

Frustration will be hard for Ahmadinejad to take because the economy is where he has exercised more control than any other President. He also believes he has a strong mandate for his economic "vision", for which the SL has publicly stated his broad agreement (again, more than for any previous President). The real test will thus be when Ahmadinejad tries to pass something fiscal.

If Ahmadinejad does appear increasingly irrelevant or lame, then another important question is how he will react. When he appeared almost invisible in the first few weeks of the crisis, he tried to claw back his bureaucratic authority by some high profile sackings and appointments. I think everyone (including the Supreme Leader) was surprised at how brazen he was in trying to re-assert his visibility. It seems he is now emboldened enough to publicly differ with the Supreme Leader on the trials as well.

I don't see the Supreme Leader as likely to publicly remove his patronage from Ahmadinejad, but it could be possible that he will move closer towards an informal triumvirate with the Larijanis. But Ahmadinejad still has some leverage. Any US-Iranian engagement will require his cooperation, in that he will have the ability to de-rail it or at least cause severe problems. The SL will also recognise that there may be a political price to pay, in terms of the overall authority of the regime, for damaging the office of the Presidency. Ahmadinejad's ouster could even bring the IRGC [Revolutionary Guard] onto the streets.

SMITH: I largely concur with Chris Emery on the unstable nature of AN's second term, although I would, once again, exercise caution as to the real extent of Parliamentary opposition to Ahmadinejad. This will become much clearer in the next few days, as the various ministers receive their votes of confidence.

I too can see many avenues of deadlock for Ahmadinejad in his second term, particularly if the reformists attempt to embark on a long-term route that will target the 2012 Parliamentary elections, as they will have to attack the current composition of the Guardian Council and hence try to chip away at the current conservative quasi-monopoly over state power.

I would also be wary to think that Ahmadinejad does not " grasp the enormity of the task in front of him". I haven't seen statements to this effect by him. His second speech in Parliament yesterday, which I followed via live TV, was actually quite well-constructed. He defended, inter alia, his cabinet changes by saying that reshuffles are necessary, or else cabinets could last 50 years and elections would be made worthless. And his points on women and the experience of other members of his cabinet are also quite interesting. My own experience in dealing with him over the years (I have also had the dubious privilege of shaking his hand and asking him a couple of questions during press conferences) leads me to believe that he is more wily and clever than his external appearance makes him out to be.

As to the judiciary, I think we really have to wait till the end of Sadegh Larijani's appointments to see what the state of play is. Mortazavi was shooed out and in the door again in the last few days and the rest of the appointees such as Ejeie are hardliners in their own right, opposed to Ahmadinejad but not really wishing to make concessions to the reformists.

I still remain convinced that the Supreme Leader will pull a stunt by the end of Ramadan and pardon the reformist bigwigs, after the latter have received long prison sentences. Should he be clever, he would arrange for all of them to be carted off to his palace and be offered the pardon there in front of TV cameras. It would discredit them and allow Khamenei to show off his magnanimity, for free.

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Fintan Dunne and I had an excellent, if challenging, discussion on Thursday night about the significance of the Afghanistan election. We also considered the threats to President Ahmadinejad from within the Iranian establishment and from the renewed opposition (be this from the catalyst of Mehdi Karroubi or from the development of "guerrilla" protest). The chat concluded with a provocative analysis stemming from Wednesday's bombing in Baghdad that killed almost 100 people --- what does it indicate about the political future for Iraqis?

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