The Latest from Iran (20 May): From the Ridiculous to the Sublime
Friday, May 20, 2011 at 18:21
Nasrin Sotoudeh2045 GMT: Ahmadinejad Watch. Earlier today we noted an interview of leading principlist MP Ahmad Tavakoli in which he said, "[Opposition figure Mir Hossein] Mousavi could mobilise the social base against [Ayatollah] Khamenei, Ahmadinejad couldn't even if he wanted to."
That was only a fragment --- and, indeed, a misleading fragment --- of an important statement which points to the dilemma for Ahmadinejad's critics: do they push the President from power or do they accept that he will complete the last two years of his term? And what happens in 2013?
Tavakoli's interview because with the current conflict, as he notes Ahmadinejad's recent move on the Ministry of Intelligence and attempt to merge Ministers without informing legislators: "The Parliament's patience with the president is coming to an end."
Yet, when pressed what Parliament might do --- the interviewer suggests that Tavakoli's criticism can be qualified because "he is said to oppose everything" --- the MP offers a telling admission: he voted for Ahmadinejad's re-election in June 2009 not because he liked the President but "out of expediency" to shut off the reformist threat.
Tavakoli continues that Mousavi, if he won the Presidency, could challenge Supreme Leader with a well-established social base. So the vote for Ahmadinejad was loyalty to Ayatollah Khamenei as a necessary pillar of the Revolution.
An EA conservative jumps in with an interpretation, "So Tavakoli points to the long-term problem that no conservative can attract the millions of votes that Ahmadinejad has in 2005 and 2009. There is no clear alternative to the President."
My own addition --- that is certainly true if the Ahmadinejad of 2011 is seen in the same light as the Ahmadinejad of 2009. But what if the President, with his recent actions, has now become the threat to the Supreme Leader that Tavakoli feared at the last election?