(Correction; AP apparently removed the story, here's another link)
There is a general rule to politics; the base, the base, the base. Don't abandon your strongest supporters, especially when you need them more than ever. At a time when those most fiercely-loyal supporters are the only supporters that the regime has left, "President" Mahmoud Ahmadnejad of Iran has left them all wondering if their tea has been spiked.
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's base of conservative hard-liners are simply amazed by the "President's" decision to make "a friend of Israel" his Vice-President. As you can imagine, the conservative hard-liners of Iran are no friends of Israel.
Hezbollah and Hamas were already scratching their heads at the sight of their patron, "Supreme Leader" Khamenei, under a fierce siege of public opinion at home for his rabid support of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Now, however, Khamenei has been given a chance to try and save himself.
Hossein Shariatmadari, an aide to supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and editor of hard-line Kayhan newspaper, said Sunday that Mashai's appointment caused "a wave of surprise mixed with regret and concern" among Ahmadinejad supporters.
And also from the Associated Press story;
Khamenei, who has supported Ahmadinejad in the election dispute, called Mashai's comments about Israelis "illogical" shortly after he said them but urged critics to abandon their call for the president to fire his relative.
Mashai is Ahmadinejad's son's father-in-law and it's safe that's the only reason he got the veep spot. As for Mashai's greatest "sin", that was for saying that Iranians are "friends of all people in the world - even Israelis." This is something that Mashai said while he was the #2 man in charge of tourism. Oh, the outrage.
Mashai's other offenses(according to hard-line conservatives) include; watching women perform a traditional dance in Turkey, along with hosting a ceremony in Tehran in which women played instruments and one read aloud several verses from the Quran at a podium.
Will Khamenei take this chance to throw Ahmadinejad to the wolves in some weak attempt at saving himself? We'll definitely have to wait and see. The damage done to Ahmadinejad's support within his own base has yet to be fully realized, but in times like this, it only takes so much damage to the base for the whole structure to come falling down on Ahmadinejad.