Ahmadinejad Will Remain A Hardliner

Iran will continue to defy any initiative from Obama, making it a bad time for the new administration to start a new process.

Just because the Israeli invasion of Gaza has grabbed the headlines, the international community has not forgotten about Iran and its alleged nuclear weaponisation. Stephen Hadley, George W. Bush's outgoing National Security Adviser, has made clear that the Bush administration has left a series of pressure points ready for Barack Obama's administration to use.

"The United States would be foolish to talk without leverage, because talking and negotiating without leverage won't get you a deal that will advance your interests," Hadley told AP. No one really disputes this self-evident fact, but the real question is how an Iran going into fiercely contested June election will handle such American leverage. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is facing serious internal challenges from both liberals and conservatives.

America and its allies believe that Iran is working on the capability to make nuclear weapons, and America has demanded that Iran suspend its enrichment programme. Ahmadinejad insists his government is only interested in nuclear power generation. For many years, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has agreed that Iran's nuclear power programme is peaceful, but even it has got fed up with Ahmadinejad's refusal to allow the IAEA to make the required searches to decisively dismiss charges of weaponising outside the power programme.

In his election manifesto, Obama was clear that he saw Iran as a major problem which had to be dealt with, and he agreed with Bush that Iran could not be allowed to have nuclear weapons. However, he has also said that he would talk to the Iranian administration, so no one knows how the new administration will tackle this very difficult problem. After he won the American election, Obama said that a combination of economic incentives and tighter sanctions might persuade Iran to change its nuclear programme, but Ahmadinejad's government has rejected this, insisting that it has the right to continue with its nuclear programme.

But Ahmadinejad has his own problems. He has enjoyed a long run of popular support helped substantially by the high oil price, but now he is slipping in popularity with the Iranian people. His disastrous management of the economy has begun to hit home to the average Iranian, and now that the oil price has fallen from just below $150 a barrel to just under $50, he does not have the revenues to spend his way out of trouble. This is why he is being forced to run a more rational economic policy, and moved in December to cut the state subsidy on fuel, a deeply unpopular move which is particularly delicate in the run up to the June presidential elections.

In addition, many conservatives who are natural supporters of Ahmadinejad are tired of his endlessly confrontational stance with America. They see little advantage coming out of the government to offset the problems created by deliberately seeking controversy, and no other economic or political success to set against the nuclear controversy.

However, Ahmadinejad is using the Israeli invasion of Gaza as a very useful distraction from domestic issues. He has spoken out frequently against Israel, and has been very supportive of Hamas. Ahmadinejad's ferocious rhetoric against Israel is popular but will only work as an electoral issue for him if the Israeli invasion continues till June. If a ceasefire and withdrawal are agreed in the next few weeks or even months, it will not help the Iranian president win votes.

In Iran's political system, the Guardian Council has the power to refuse candidates it dislikes, and the Council uses this power widely. It has stopped many liberal candidates from standing, and in the conservative camps, the Council has made sure that the final candidate is one which suits its agenda. More liberal elements in the Majlis wanted it to monitor the Guardian Council, but this was halted when the Majlis passed a bill early in December, restricting itself from investigating the Guardian Council.

Unconditional

The constitution gives the Majlis unconditional rights of supervision, but in practice over the years the Guardian Council has bitterly opposed this. This latest bill means that conservative members of the Majlis have ensured that the Guardian Council will continue to vet presidential candidates, and therefore the Majlis has ceded to the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamanei a much stronger hand in controlling who stands for president.

The leading liberal is former president Mohammad Khatami, who has yet to declare if he will run or not. His candidacy might force some of his more conservative supporters to shift to backing Ahmadinejad (or any other conservative) out of fear that the liberal Khatami would not be the right man to handle the confrontation with the US created by Ahmadinejad. From the conservative side, many are preparing to challenge Ahmadinejad, like his successor as mayor of Tehran, Mohammad Ghalibaf, who carries an impressive record of military service and hard line political ideas, combined with practical ability to deliver when in office.

All this internal debate and intense politicking means that Ahmadinejad will continue to defy any initiative from Obama, making it a bad time for the new administration to start a new process. To engage with Iran, the new State Department would have to lay out its ideas and wait for a new Iranian administration.