Amir Taheri on the stagnate quality of Ahmadinejad's second term
Saturday, July 17, 2010 at 12:05AM 
Op-ed by Amir Taheri by way of WPR's Media Roundup.
A great listing of Ahmadinejad's woes:
Consider a few items with regards to President Ahmadinejad.
He had promised a reconciliation tour that was to take him to 20 of Iran's 30 provinces in a bid to heal the wounds caused by his disputed re-election. The tour was cancelled when it became clear that such an exercise could play into the hands of an opposition movement that refuses to fade away.
Also cancelled was a promised grand gathering of key regime figures to embrace one another and let the bygones be bygones . . .
Last month, President Ahmadinejad tried to shift attention away from the domestic crisis by announcing the imminent dispatch of a flotilla to defy Israel's blockade of Gaza. This week the entire exercise was cancelled with a terse announcement that 'international configurations' did not favour the sending of the flotilla.
Ahmadinejad had claimed that pro-Iran forces would win the Iraqi general election and create a new hinterland for the Islamic Republic. That did not happen. Iraq is now likely to emerge as an independent power with no interest in serving the Khomeinist regime's regional ambitions.
There was more bad news for Ahmadinejad. The manoeuvre he had concocted with Brazil and Turkey to divide the UN's Security Council failed to stop the imposition of the toughest sanctions yet on the Islamic Republic. The UN move was immediately followed by the imposition of even tougher sanctions by the European Union . . .
The much heralded 'pipeline of peace' that was supposed to transport $4 billion worth of Iranian natural gas to Pakistan and India will remain a pipe-dream. Both India and Pakistan have withdrawn from the project, citing the UN sanctions as an excuse.
Also cancelled are a series of agreements with Western and Asian companies to develop the South Pars gas reserves. As a result, the entire project has been handed over to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) which, for obvious reasons, lacks the expertise for such an undertaking.
Ahmadinejad had also promised that Iran would become self-sufficient in gasoline by building 12 new refineries before the end of this second term. Work on the promised refineries was supposed to start in August. Now, however, it is clear that not one of the refineries will be built anytime soon . . .
With annual growth down to around two percent and unemployment rising at the rate of 3000 jobs lost each day, according to the Ministry of Labour in Tehran, Ahmadinejad's second term has not had a bright start on the economic front. As for his much advertised privatisation scheme, the whole exercise is beginning to look like a looting raid by the IRGC . . . Some Iranians call the so-called privatisation scheme ‘the greatest plunder in Iranian history since the Mongol invasion in the medieval times' . . .
For almost a decade the main theme of Iranian politics has been a gradual but steady transfer of power from the mullahs to the military. Ahmadinejad was propelled into the presidency in the hope that he would speed up and smooth out the transition.
Carried away by his unexpected promotion into a major historic role, Ahmadinejad, a frustrated showman, has provoked a series of internal and external tensions that have complicated the transition.
This is not a package that should scare us whatsoever.
Reader Comments (1)
When it is difficult to get effective allies, it's nice to have this kind of opponent.