THE loud international boos that greeted the Iranian President’s inflammatory remarks are likely to be echoed in Tehran, where opponents are already describing his speech as a spectacular own goal.

President Ahmadinejad’s critics will seize on his “wipe Israel off the map” gibe as further evidence of his dangerous amateurism that is harming Iran’s relations with the outside world. His belligerent tone will certainly heighten international concerns over Iran’s nuclear programme, stoke Washington’s hostility, alienate a Europe already frustrated over the nuclear stalemate and enable Israel better to portray Iran as its gravest threat.

“It is a major political blunder and, given the international reaction, yet another reason for putting him on a leash,” an Iranian academic said yesterday.

Mr Ahmadinejad made his explosive remarks before 4,000 students at a conference entitled The World Without Zionism which set the scene for today’s annual anti-Israel demonstration in Tehran.

Slogans denouncing Israel are a common sight at all rallies organised by the regime, but it was the first time in many years that such a high-ranking Iranian official has openly called for the country’s eradication.

Mr Ahmadinejad’s strident rhetoric has got his country into trouble before. Last month he made an ill-judged speech at the UN, insisting on his country’s right to harness nuclear power. American diplomats used his UN address successfully to lobby the board of the International Atomic Energy Agency to haul Iran before the Security Council.

That debacle prompted the clerics who run Iran to rein in their turbulent President. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the Supreme Leader, responded by altering the country’s complex power structure. He granted the Expediency Council — an appointed panel under the sway of moderates — new authority to supervise a Government increasingly dominated by hardliners.

The council is headed by Hashemi Rafsanjani, a former President and influential insider who advocates accommodation with the West, but who lost June’s presidential elections to Mr Ahmadinejad. Analysts believe that in boosting Hojatoleslam Rafsanjani’s institutional powers, Ayatollah Khamenei is trying to curtail the hardliners’ adventurism.

“Ahmadinejad’s role has been very substantially reduced,” Professor Gary Sick, a professor of Middle East politics at Columbia University, said.

“He’s been in office for a hundred days. He’s done nothing. I think people are looking around and saying ‘This guy is a disaster’. I think they [the regime] are going to isolate him and quarantine him.”

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