THE president of Iran, Mah-moud Ahmadinejad, has taken to regaling his inner
circle with a startling anecdote from his travels around the country to
bolster domestic support for a nuclear programme that has generated
vociferous international opposition.
Flying back to Tehran one day from a western province, he realised that he
would not reach the capital in time for a scheduled prayer and ordered his
helicopter pilot to land.
As Ahmadinejad tells it, he had just laid out his prayer mat on the flat,
fertile terrain of rural Zanjan when three shepherds appeared and began to
chant. “Nuclear power is our inalienable right,” they cried in faithful
unison.
The story, recounted last week by one of the president’s advisers, is viewed
by aides as an illustration of popular backing for uranium enrichment
despite the United Nations sanctions it has provoked at a time of growing
economic hardship in Iran.
To foreign diplomats, however, it is another sign that Ahmadinejad - who once
claimed to have been surrounded by an aura while speaking to the UN and who
has called for Israel to be wiped off the map - is becoming, in the words of
one western official, “increasingly divorced from reality”.
Diplomats find it hard to judge who really speaks for Iran today. Ayatollah
Khamenei, the supreme leader, has the ultimate power but says little in
public, while his president’s rhetoric is often at variance with more
businesslike statements from other senior officials in parallel power
structures.
Ahmadinejad, head of the conservative hardliners whose scant knowledge of the
outside world is a source of pride, has found himself pitted against a group
of conservative pragmatists such as Ali Larijani, secretary-general of the
Supreme National Security Council and Iran’s chief nuclear negotiator, who
represents a more sophisticated approach to international relations.
At an Army Day parade in Tehran last week, Ahmadinejad spoke belligerently
about western attempts to halt the production of enriched uranium for fear
that it will be used for nuclear weapons rather than nuclear energy as Iran
claims.
“The army stands against any aggressor and will cut off their hand,” he
declared as he reviewed a procession of tanks, gaily painted missiles on
flatbed lorries and even two mini-submarines trundling by in the spring
sunshine.
In contrast, Larijani’s more moderate tone was in evidence in recent comments
that Iran was interested in dialogue and in improving relations with
Washington.
The saga of the 15 British sailors and marines detained in the Shatt al-Arab
waterway last month highlighted a fault line of growing significance in
Iranian politics. The Revolutionary Guards, one of the pillars of support
for Ahmadinejad, imprisoned them and made talks about their release all but
impossible. They are said to have shown no sense of urgency and no
understanding of the pressures faced by the British government.
In the end Larijani - who believes that, to survive, the regime has to engage
with the West - stepped in and defused the crisis. He recommended to the
supreme leader that the servicemen be freed and then had a long talk about
it with Sir Nigel Sheinwald, Tony Blair’s foreign policy adviser.
Ahmadinejad and Larijani ran against each other for the presidency in 2005 and
represent factions vying for power in parliamentary elections next year and
presidential elections in 2009.
Many Iranians believe that Ahmadinejad’s international posturing on the
nuclear issue and UN sanctions may have backfired at home. A steep drop in
support since he was voted in on a populist platform two years ago was in
evidence when his Sweet Smell of Service party suffered dramatic losses in
municipal elections last December.
It is Ahmadinejad’s apparent detachment from the economic realities facing
ordinary Iranians that now threatens his position, according to critics who
also argue that his nuclear obsessions have left the country isolated and
vulnerable to attack.
Some rivals accuse him of using confrontation with the West to distract people
from the mundane but pressing concerns of stagnant wages, skyrocketing
prices and imminent petrol rationing, an extraordinary prospect in a country
that earns £100m a day from oil revenues.
Every conversation here last week seemed to revolve around the imposition of
petrol rationing on May 21. Subsidised petrol will rise from 800 riyals
(about 4p) to 1,000 riyals (5p) per litre. Far worse in this sprawling
traffic-choked city, only three litres a day will be available at that
price. Ration cards will be issued and any purchase over the limit will be
at a nonsubsidised rate that has yet to be decided.
“It is one of the most sensitive decisions ever taken in the history of the
Islamic Republic of Iran,” said Saeed Laylaz, an Iranian economist. “There
will be dissatisfaction, unrest and more inflation. At worst, there will be
an explosion in the social structure.”
Iranians have already been hit by a 50% rise in fares last month. Shared
taxis, the favourite way to get around town, rose from 1,000 riyals to 1,500
(8p) for the shortest journey. Every such increase counts in a country where
a teacher is paid about £30 a week.
The mood on Tehran’s streets, where any expression of political opposition
could land a protester in prison, is mutinous.
“The only good thing about the nuclear issue is that it seems it has brought
so much pressure on this government that this might be the end of them,”
said Shahla, 38, standing with bags of spring onions, radishes and tomatoes
outside a greengrocer’s near Ahmadinejad’s old house in the eastern Tehran
district of Narmak. She did not buy the cucumbers she wanted because they
cost too much.
Shahla is no radical but a mother of two who works as a hairdresser. Her
husband is a carpenter and they can barely make ends meet. “People are
struggling to survive,” she said. “My children should be eating fruit, but
it’s too expensive.” A woman in a black chador, the dress of the
ultra-conserva-tive, stopped to listen. In the old days she would have been
one of the unofficial guardians of the revolution and would have stopped the
conversation. Instead, she chimed in. “The people’s blood is boiling,” she
said, introducing herself as Miriam, an employee of the education
department. “But we are strangled, we cannot speak.”
These are the people who voted Ahmadinejad into power and they are furious
that their salaries remain pitifully low while the price of food rises at a
rate unofficially estimated at between 20% and 40%. They feel betrayed and
say they will not vote for him again.
Some Iranian analysts say Ahmadinejad’s theatrics have not only sent his
popularity into freefall but have also earned the displeasure of Khamenei -
who could remove him.
Such a radical move seems unlikely, not least because it might give the
impression that Iran was bowing to western demands. But Ahmadinejad will
face an uphill battle to win a second term, given the state of the economy
and the impression that he is a demagogue.
The dark horse positioning himself to challenge the president is Mohamed Baqer
Qalibaf, Ahmadinejad’s successor as mayor of Tehran.
Qalibaf, a former Revolutionary Guard now seen as a conservative pragmatist
but who straddles both camps, is one of the few politicians earning praise
in Tehran by concentrating on practical matters such as building parks and
new pavements. In a contest with a mystic obsessed with nuclear matters, the
practical man preoccupied with pavements and the price of bread may just
prove to be the winner.
Former FBI man held
A former FBI agent who disappeared in Iran last month is being held by
Revolutionary Guards in a “safe house” in Tajrish, northern Tehran,
according to a source within the guard, writes Uzi Mahnaimi.
They want to swap Robert Levinson, 59, a private investigator from Florida,
for Ali Reza Asgari, an Iranian general who vanished in mysterious
circumstances in Turkey in February.
Levinson, who is said to be unwell, has apparently been interrogated by guards
who intend to broadcast his testimony on television once Tehran acknowledges
that it is holding him.
He disappeared on March 11 while on the island of Kish, an Iranian free trade
zone where a visa is not required.
