Mahamoud Ahmadinejad has graduated from being the most controversial statesman in the international community to being the most controversial figure in Iran. It is interesting to note that during his tenure as President since 2005, beneath the veneer of anti U.S rhetoric, Ahmadinejad has facilitated George Bush's policy for Iran while the latter helped Ahmadinejad in his domestic battles. This "mutual enforcement" seems to have ended under Barack Obama, who is not as eager as his predecessor to have the likes of Ahmadinejad in the Middle East for promoting U.S interests. For instance, during the initial days of June 2009 post election uprising in Iran, the Obama administration maintained an uninvolved posture. Had it condemned the election results vociferously, it would only have helped raise Ahmadinejad's domestic stock and would have undermined the Rafsanjani camp.
The Bush White House, on the other hand, lent Ahmadinejad considerable help in his domestic travails. In late 2007 Ahmadinejad's domestic standing was in serious Jeopardy. The local Council election of 15 December 2006 had already showed a heavy nationwide defeat for Ahmadinejad's allies. At a parallel election to the Assembly of Experts that monitors Iran's supreme leader and chooses his successor, anti Ahmadinejad mood won Rafsanjani a resounding majority. Hasan Rowhani, Ahmadinejad's opponent on nuclear policy, also won overwhelmingly. Demonstrations on college campuses were escalating by the day. Starting in December 2006, Ahmadinejad was no longer a welcome figure at Amir Kabir university.
From December 2006 onwards, anti Ahmadinejad sentiment in Iran kept spiraling. Even hard line clerics were split over his policies. Criticism of Ahmadinejad reached a crescendo in the fall of 2007. His nuclear policy show down with the U.S was the prime cause of alarm as the fear of a U.S attack on Iran had spiked during that period. Even the supreme leader Khamanei showed his disapproval of Ahmadinejad's nuclear policy by appointing Larijani as his special envoy on the nuclear negotiating team after Ahmadinejad dismissed the latter. Given the domestic political milieu, the victory of Ahmadinejad's opponents to the Majlis election scheduled for March 2008 seemed imminent. At this juncture a dramatic event, possibly masterminded by the Bush administration, rescued Ahmadinejad from the jaws of premature political death.
U.S 'National Intelligence Estimate of December 3, 2007 declared that Iran had halted its nuclear weapons program in 2003 "owing to international pressure." While the NIE bombshell stunned the world, it impacted Iran's domestic scene directly, causing the high political temperature against Ahmadinejad to plummet. On the one hand, the release of the NIE estimate helped secure the international consensus of March 2008 for tougher sanctions against Iran, which were viewed by the Security Council as an "alternative to war," on the other, it immediately restored Ahmadinejad's standing with his domestic constituents. The alienated hardliners were back by his side after having concluded that Ahmadinejad was right after all.
Further, the NIE also impacted the March 2008 Parliamentary elections in Iran. Between December 2007 and the end of January 2008, the U.S Secretary of State Rice's talk of "watering down" sanctions and peaceful resolution of the nuclear dispute kept increasing Ahmadinejad's domestic stature vis-à-vis his opponents, reinforcing the extremist agenda within Iran. Consequently, the 12 member Council of the Guardians rejected applications from thousands of prospective candidates who belonged to the 21 groups designated by the U.S media as Ahmadinejad's opponents. More than a hundred active opponents in session were also barred from contesting.
Once the purges were over, the U.S director of national intelligence Mr. McConnell reneged on the December 3 NIE report. McConnell's explanation to the Senate's Select Committee on Intelligence for this turn about was that in late November he had to assemble a declassified assessment "in haste" (!?!) and therefore ended up using unintended language.
That former President Bush would rather have an extremist Tehran was revealed during a May 2006 news leak regarding his rejection of Khatami's offer for Tehran's endorsement of Arab League's Beirut Declaration in return for an end to U.S hostilities. The Bush administration had used Tehran's animosity towards Israel to red flag its nuclear program. The 2002 Beirut Declaration was the first ever official Arab acceptance of land for peace. Iran's endorsement of it would have aligned Tehran's policy with that of Egypt and Saudi Arabia, two of the staunchest U.S allies in the region.
Why did George Bush reject a conciliatory Tehran? What political vision of his was better served by a hard line Tehran? A related question rises; who is Ahmadinejad and what accounts for his rise to power in post Khatami Iran? An understanding of Iran's post election turmoil of 2009 should be sought within the answer to these two questions.
The regime of international economic sanctions and technology transfer control during the Cold War was hinged on preventing the transfer of West's defense related technology to the Communist bloc. As the Cold War ended, the U.S led the international effort for re conceptualizing the same regime. Its efforts produced the 1995 Wassenar Arrangement wherein it was decided that states that exhibit "dangerous behavior" should be denied dual use technology transfer and should be economically isolated through sanctions.
Khatami's (1997-2004) conciliatory foreign policy had improved Iran's relations with the West and the Gulf monarchies. It had softened Iran's image within American society, leading to athletic exchanges between the two countries. European governments put aside the 1997 Mykonos verdict that held Iran responsible for terror assassinations in Europe, and re designated their parleys with Iran from "critical dialogue" to "constructive engagement." Pressure from Europe led to Washington's backing off from secondary sanctions over European investment in Iran's energy sector. Russia unilaterally abandoned the 1993 Gore-Chernomyrdin agreement that called for U.S Russian cooperation in nuclear dealings with Iran. Britain, France and Germany reached an agreement with Iran in November 2004 on nuclear cooperation for peaceful purposes. Saudi Arabia dropped its investigation of the 1996 Khobar Tower bombing that killed 19 U.S citizens to avoid finding evidence of Iran's involvement..
The year 1999-2004 is unprecedented in the history of Iranian oil industry in terms of the discovery of new oil reserves in Yadavaran, located near Iraq border, southeast of the giant Azadagan oil field. Iran's fossil fuel sector, reeling under the damage inflicted upon it during the Iran/Iraq war, relies heavily on the West for extraction technology. At the end of 2004, besides the Chinese, Indian and Russian firms, the French giant Total Fina Elf, the Royal Dutch/Shell group and Italy's Eni, among others, had rushed to bid for development of Iran's new oil fields. Even U.S firms like Haliburton took advantage of loopholes in the sanctions regime.
Roger Stern, a professor of Geography at John Hopkins University states in a report published by the National Academy of Sciences that Iran's oil and gas dilemma appears to point up a genuine need for civilian nuclear power. "The confluence of high domestic demands, a delay in adding production capacity, the diversion of natural gas to keep wells producing and other factors could lead to a decline of up to 46% in Iran's exports by 2011 and a halt to exports by 2015." Even optimistic analysts concede that output will remain flat at 4 million b/d, while Iran needs to increase to 7 m b/d. Perviz Mina, an international petroleum consultant and a former member of the board of directors and managing director of international affairs of the National Iranian Oil Company also concedes that the Iranian production capacity is diminishing by 7 to 8% a year while the internal consumption is increasing by 6 to 7% a year. If the country's exports declined, it will mean a lower standard of living in Iran which could exacerbate Iran's socio- political problems.
Khatami's conciliatory foreign policy was motivated by the understanding that both civil nuclear technology and induction of foreign technology in energy sector were essential for Iran. However, George Bush's agenda in the Middle East sought "regime change" through military means, which are "legitimated" only if the regime is viewed internationally as a threat. Khatami's Iran was conciliatory. Enter Ahmadinejad and the picture altered. Ahmadinejad's rise in Tehran coincides with the American entrenchment in nearby Iraq, which placed the American neocons' covert operational capacity in Iran's proximity.
Ahmadinejad was an active member of the student organization OSU, set up by Ayatollah Beheshti to counter the rapidly rising opposition called Majahideen-e-Khalq among university students. According to OSU sources, when the seizure of the U.S embassy was planned in 1979, Ahmadinejad wanted to seize the Soviet embassy as well. Later, Amadinejad joined the Revolutionary Guards. During early eighties, he worked in the internal security of the IRGC and earned notoriety as a ruthless interrogator and torturer. He also worked as an executioner in the notorious Evin prison, where thousands of political prisoner were executed during the purges of the 1980s.
In 1986, Ahmadinejad became a senior officer in the Special Brigade of the Revolutionary Guards and was stationed in Ramazan Garrrison near Kermanshah in Western Iran, the headquarter of the Revolutionary Guards extraterritorial operations, a euphemism for terrorist attacks outside Iran's border. In 1997, the newly sworn Khatami administration removed Ahmadinejad from the post of Governor of Ardebil province, after which he returned to Elm-o-Sanaat university to teach. At the university, he organized Ansar-e-Hezbollah, a violent vigilante and built a strong net work of radical fundamentalists within the Revolutionary Guards called "Abadgaran. He returned to politics in May 2003, contesting Tehran's mayoral elections in which a mere 6% voted. With help from Abadgaran, Ahmadinejad was able to win the mayor's election and later the Parliamentary election of 2004.
In 2005 election, he offered his candidacy without any conservative parties inviting him to run. Even as Ahmadinejad stood, no faction endorsed him. Opinion polls conducted by the government put Rafsanjani in first place followed by Qalibaf and Moin competing for the second. 2005 was the first ever run off in the history of revolutionary Iran. The New York Times reported on June 19, 2005 that the element of the bizarre came as Mohamoud Ahmadinejad announced that he would be in the run off hours before the ministry issued its own results. The election result was challenged by opposition even then. In an open letter to supreme leader Ali Khamanei, Mehdi Karrubi alleged rigging and interference of Revolutionary Guards in the polling process. Three newspapers that printed Karrubi's letter were banned from publication. Several reformist candidates also alleged rigging.
Rafsanjani made the following statement on the run off of 2005 election,"I do not intend to take my complaint about the election to those arbitrators who have proved that they do not want or cannot do anything about it." The spokesman of the election headquarters declared that "reporting of the election fraud at such a broad scale is quite unprecedented and according to latest reports, the violations are no longer limited to trivial illegal affairs."The interior ministry recounted a tiny fraction of the total number of votes in urban constituencies which did not include remote rural areas where fraud is easier and closed the chapter. Ahmadinejad's first Presidential victory was also controversial.
At the time Mahmoud Ahmadinejad became President, Iran was all set to commence its oil bourse to trade barrels in non U.S dollar currencies of choice. The bourse had been finalized during Khatami's tenure in the summer of 2004. It is not clear as to why Khatami did not establish the bourse himself. In the summer of 2004, an event in Baghdad makes interesting reading in this regard. On May 20th, 2004, U.S troops and Iraqi security raided Ahmad Chalabi's (CIA's favoured man) house in Baghdad. News leaked that Chalabi supplied intelligence to Iran regarding Pentagon's plans, including the information that the Bush administration was planning to invade Iran. Was it this information that led Tehran to delay the opening of the oil bourse? Saddam was sacked after declaring his intention to sell Iraqi oil in euros instead of dollars. If Chalabi led Khatami to delay the launch of Kish bourse, it may have been a set up. When Khatami left office, the Kish bourse was scheduled to be opened in March 2006 under the new president.
Ahmadinejad's first move in office was to create stalemate in the ministry of oil by fielding inexperienced cronies as oil ministers. Twice his nominees were rejected by the Parliament. The third one withdrew on his own. The fourth, Kazim Vaziri Hameneh, was appointed in December 2005 but soon ran into trouble with Ahmadinejad. On August 12, 2007, Hamaneh was fired by Ahmadinejad who took this decision when parliament was in recess for a month due to summer holidays. Ahmadinejad stalled the appointment of new oil minister for as long as the law allowed him, 3 months. The stalemate damaged investor confidence and Iran's standing within Opec. Meantime Chris Cook, the architect of Iran's oil bourse, complained of frustration in his dealings with Tehran. His payment was withheld by Tehran. Had the Kish bourse commenced before George Bush was able to win consensus for sanctions against Iran, its successful launch coupled with the later economic events of 2008 could have made Venezuela, Russia and China join Tehran in demanding dollar free oil transactions. If Opec joined too, financial experts term it the financial equivalent of a nuclear strike on the United States.
The much anticipated Kish bourse was postponed several times. Meantime, Ahmadinejad targeted Israel with jargon so belligerent that it embarrassed even Iran's most vocal allies. His saber rattling strengthened Bush's case for Missile Defense in Poland, to Kremlin's chagrin. It also lent credence to Tel Aviv's call for preempting Iran's nuclear program. China, who always blocked sanctions against Iran in the Security Council, was rubbed the wrong way in August 2007 when Iran released the news of detaining two Chinese nationals on charges of spying on its military and nuclear facilities. This was the first such charge against China within Iran, emanating at the time of the SCO conference. China and India are Iran's main LNG target markets. Earlier In 2006, the National Iranian Oil Company terminated its 2004 contract with Inpex Corporation of Japan to develop the oil field in Azadegan. The contract was terminated in a bad way with Japanese government officials complaining they had not been informed of its termination. The Bush administration had opposed the project all along.
Ahmadinejad's anti Israel rhetoric and his conduct of the nuclear negotiations strengthened Bush's case for economic isolation of Iran as it violated the core principle of the Wassenaar Agreement. When the Kish bourse was finally launched in 2008, President Bush had succeeded in building consensus for a crushing set of Security Council sanctions against Iran which effectively cut Iran off from international finance.
In 1990s, foreign oil companies had started investing in substantial numbers in Iran for the first time since the revolution. Ahmadinejad's rhetoric led to the suspension of foreign investment. In 2000, new foreign investment deals with Iran stood at 101. In 2007, they fell dramatically to 18.
Ahmadinejad's activities have jeopardized the development of Iran's energy sector. Though rich in fossil fuel reserves, Iran's problem is extraction which cannot be solved without foreign technology. For as long as Ahmadinejad remains in power, the international community would continue to impose crushing sanctions against Iran. Iran's nuclear program is also seriously jeopardized. The international community is not willing to trust Ahmadinejad. In four years, Ahmadinejad has managed to reverse a quarter century of gains by the IRP regime. His policies have thwarted the development of Iran's oil and gas sector. Ahmadinejad's belligerence towards Israel has seriously endangered Iran's civil nuclear program. George Bush opposed the same by calling Iran a threat to regional and international peace even before Ahmadinejad supplied verbal evidence of this assertion.
The IRP itself has come under severe strain due to Ahmadinejad's presence at the helm of affairs. Not because Ahmadineja is the first non mullah to lead Iran but because he has struck at both the support base of the IRP as well as its core. Iran is a nation of seventy million people, 47 million of which (67%) are below the age of 25. Out of this, twenty five million are between the ages of 15 to 25 years. Iran's Youth, that brought about the revolution of 1979, is restive again. Further, the intra IRP rift between the conservatives and the reformists had already widened during Ahmadinejad's first presidency. The 2009 election rigging has caused it to become violent. Even within the conservatives there is discord, bringing the IRP to a point of explosion..
Those who are equating the current unrest in Iran to the Chinese political unrest of 1989 and predict that it will peter out the same way must bear in mind that Iran's youth does not feel that Iran is physically secure under Mahamoud Ahmadinejad. Iran's immediate neighborhood feeds this insecurity. Behind the outburst against Ahmadinejad lurks a nation's collective instinct of self preservation that will not give in to repression easily. The post election outburst was spontaneous. With time, it is likely to gather organized momentum which may be hard to reverse. Iran could be headed for a second big change.
The writer is a consultant based in Washington DC. Zeenia.satti@post.harvard.edu