Iran Snap Analysis: Ahmadinejad's Future? Follow the Oil....

Ahmadinejad at Abadan, 24 May 2011On Monday and Tuesday, we covered the curious story of President Ahmadinejad's son-in-law, Mehdi Khorshidi publicly attacking Ahmadinejad's advisors, notably Vice President Hamid Baghaei and Chief of Staff Esfandiar Rahim-Mashai. At the same time, we spoke with sources and EA correspondents about the significance of the development.

This prompted one of our correspondents to write that we were looking in the wrong place. The key political story is President Ahmadinejad's attempt to name himself the caretaker Minister of Oil, a move resisted by Parliament and declared unconstitutional by the Guardian Council:

I think that the Khorshidi-Mashai case is a bit tangential. What is really important is whether the regime will solve this ministerial mess regarding Oil before the OPEC summit of 8 June in Vienna. It will be the first meeting that Iran is actually chairing in 35 years (i.e. since the formation of the Islamic Republic).

At present, the prospect of sending another minister who has nothing to do with oil and/or a deputy oil minister is frankly really embarassing for protocol and reputation, not to mention the lack of gravitas and bargaining power it will give the Iranians at this crucial time. 

The only reason I see for Ahmadinejad clinging on so stubbornly to the caretaker post is for him to go to Vienna in the end. He hasn't been to Western Europe since that lowly attendance at the Copenhagen Summit [on climate change in December 2009], where he got ignored by everyone. He would be centre- stage at Opec and rivet everyone's attention, something he badly needs in this moment of crisis.

If he really toughs it out and manages to stay on till June 8, we should be in for a fantastic show as well, because he will singlehandedly make the price of crude oil jump $10-15 within an hour of his speech.

Nominating someone else as permanent Minister of Oil, at any rate, will be difficult. In 2005, when the conservative front was far more compact than now, and the Ahmadinejad rift with [Speaker of Parliament] Ali Larijani wasn't even on the horizon, it took the President over 4 months to find a minister approved by Parliament. It looks like a Herculean task to me right now.

This should be the real focus in my view, the rest is not negligible but it is second-rate compared to this.

I received this commentary a few hours after the explosion at the Abadan oil refinery, just before Ahmadinejad was making a speech to open a new phase at the complex. In the tension over that development --- accident, sabotage, or even assassination attempt? --- I missed a connection.

Ahmadinejad, unsurprisingly but perhaps ironically in light of the fire nearby, declared on national television that Iran would lead the world in the production and distribution of oil, marking its technological and economic advance. 

He gave that statement as President. But he also was preaching as the Minister of Oil --- the one who wants to be the personal representative of Iran's leadership at the OPEC meeting in two weeks' time.

And, even if those flames behind him were accidental, they were a vivid marker that some other people in Iran do not want him in that position.