The man annoys as much as he amuses, but as his power faces its stiffest challenge yet, one wonders if Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad is still capable of pushing the odd and unacceptable views on the international community that he has in the past. As his new cabinet took office three months after Iran’s fateful elections, the Security Council met to discuss the country’s nuclear programme. Now there have been statements from his cabinet that they have drawn up a fresh series of proposals and are willing to come to the diplomatic table, but it accompanies the heard one-too-many times statement: “nuclear programme is our inalienable right.” Peaceful, they say, but what of reports of uranium enrichment? And if they are baseless then why limit access to sites? True, haphazard behaviour was to be expected; look at Iran’s track record.

But Ahmedinejad can no longer blindly misbehave. Divisions within Iran’s political elite and with top clerics at Qom and Najaf are evident — especially if you follow key cleric Rafsanjani’s actions both prior to and immediately after the election. Further, note how many members of the clergy were missing from his inauguration; recall the weird embrace between him and Ayatollah Khameini, a vast difference from the affectionate hug they’d shared last time. The president, previously powerful, now has a bit of a balancing act to perform, appeasing rival factions.

One lesson from the elections’ aftermath is that a formidable lobby would gladly usurp his power and position. He now must court not simply powerful clerics who sense their authority slipping away, but even his core support base, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps or IRGC.

... contd.