The only thing worse than having a batshit-crazy president running amok with nuclear weapons is having two crazy presidents. Caught between George W. Bush and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the world is in a perilous position, sliding down a slippery slope towards war - likely to be the first war since 1945 in which nuclear weapons will be used.
In an interview published today, Ahmadinejad declared that he does not fear an attack on Iran:
They are aware of Iran's strength. I believe they will not do such a stupid thing, and its masters won't as well... Everyone knows that the Zionist regime has nuclear weapons while Iran abides by the international laws," the Iranian president said.
Of course, by "the Zionist regime's masters," he means George W. Bush. And if he believes that Bush is not too stupid to attack Iran, then Ahmadinejad is too stupid to be running around loose, giving speeches. And so, it seems, the real rulers of Iran are starting to conclude.
The presidency of Iran is not supposed to be a powerful position. The president has no legal authority over such state institutions as the armed forces (the police, the army, the revolutionary guards, etc.), the state radio and television, the judiciary, the prisons, and most of all, foreign policy. The reason is that the president is democratically elected, and the real powers in Iran, the Supreme Leader and the mullahs of the Guardian Council, disapprove of letting real power get into the unreliable hands of the people.
Ahmadinejad's precedessor, Mohammad Khatami, was elected as a reformer, but the mullahs effectively tied his hands and refused to allow most of his reforms to be implemented during his two terms as president. In disgust, the reform-oriented voters stayed home from the polls and let the repressive interests put Mahmoud Ahmadinejad into office, running on a platform of economic reform as opposed to the more liberal reforms Khatami had sponsored. Now, the people are disillusioned as the Iranian economy is suffering from inflation and shortages of basic goods. Ironically, given Iran's status as one of the world's leading producers of oil, the nation is having to ration gasoline, owing to a shortage of refinery capacity. Instead of addressing these problems, Ahmadinejad has instead attempted to divert public attention from them by pushing forward with his nuclear energy program. But in recent local elections, the voters dealt him a strong rebuke by electing his opponent, Hashemi Rafsanjani.
Much more significantly, the Supreme Leader has now come to regard his former protege as a mistake. Ahmadinejad is running amok, trying to whip up public support by promoting a belligerent stance against external enemies, and endangering Iran by doing so.
An article in the Guardian Tuesday discussed this shift in power within Iran.
President's future in doubt as MPs rebel and economic crisis grows
Robert Tait in Tehran
Tuesday January 16, 2007
The Guardian
Iran's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has suffered a potentially fatal blow to his authority after the country's supreme leader gave an apparent green light for MPs to attack his economic policies.
In an unprecedented rebuke, 150 parliamentarians signed a letter blaming Mr Ahmadinejad for raging inflation and high unemployment and criticising his government's failure to deliver the budget on time. They also condemned him for embarking on a tour of Latin America - from which he returns tomorrow - at a time of mounting crisis.
The signatories included a majority of the president's former fundamentalist allies, now apparently seeking to distance themselves as his prestige wanes.
MPs also criticised Mr Ahmadinejad's role in the UN security council dispute over Iran's nuclear programme amid growing evidence that the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has ordered him to stay silent on the issue.
The last straw appears to have been Ahmadinejad's recent junket to Latin American, where he has been hobnobbing with Hugo Chavez and Daniel Ortega - ardent opponents of Bush. This venture into foreign diplomacy is entirely outside the Iranian president's limited authority.
The penultimate straw appears to have been the recent UN vote to impose sanctions on Iran over the nuclear issue. Newspapers in Iran, which are subject to control by the Supreme Leader, are now openly accusing the president of being the cause.
The newspaper, Hamshari, whose director, Hossein Entezami, is a member of Iran's nuclear negotiating team, was more blunt: "At the very moment when the nuclear issue was about to move away from the UN security council, the fiery speeches of the president have resulted in the adoption of two resolutions [against Iran]."
While it is clear now that Khamenei has repudiated his former protege, the question is whether he can now succeed in undoing the damage he has caused. While Ahmadinejad may boldly declare that neither Israel nor the US will dare attack Iran, the signs are pointing in the other direction. US armed forces are gathering as if to strike. And anyone who recalls the prolonged buildup to Bush's attack on Iraq will know that all his rhetoric about diplomacy and weapons inspectors were blatant lies. Nothing Iraq could have done would have diverted this maniac's resolve to attack. The same may be true now, in the case of the pending attack on Iran. Ahmadinejad may have already gone too far.
The signs are ominous. The recent UN resolutions suggest that Iran's foreign support is fading. Its major supporters, China and Russia, may be falling by the wayside. Worst of all, Saudi Arabia is beginning to take the lead in opposition to Iran among the Arab states, after deciding that the Shi'ite regime is too great a threat to ignore. In succession, both Rice and [yet more ominously] Gates are visiting with King Abdullah this week to discuss measures against Iran.
recent reports suggest that Ahmadinejad may be attempting to repair his mistakes.
In another sign that Saudi is taking on a larger regional role, Abdullah met with Iranian nuclear negotiator Ali Larijani over the weekend. Mr. Larijani delivered a letter to the monarch in which the Islamic Republic asked for help in easing tension between it and the US over Tehran's nuclear program.
But there are no indications that his appeal has had any effect. King Abdullah is not batshit crazy. The Saudi concern is perhaps less with Iran's nuclear program as with the possibility of an Iranian-dominated Shi'ite regime in neighboring Iraq.
And in the background there is Israel, where a collective paranoia has been whipped up by its leaders, howling that Ahmadinejad is the second coming of Hitler.
While Ahmadinejad, in his recent interview, again denied that he has agressive attentions against Israel,
Ahmadinejad was asked in the interview whether he wants to see Israel destroyed, but failed to provide a direct answer. He referred in his answer to things he said in the past about Israel being wiped off the map "like the Soviet Union was wiped off the map."
"Where is the Soviet Union? It vanished," the president said. "We are not interested in war, we are only trying to solve the problem called the Zionist regime, which is the source of hatred."
it is unlikely that anyone will listen, prefering to interpret his previous ill-advised remark that Israel should be "wiped off the map" as proof of this intent - despite the fact that the president of Iran has no authority to order any such action.
We are surrounded on all sides by apocalyptic lunatics. If it is not Hitler's second coming, it is Jesus, or the Mahdi. George Bush is the sort of evangelical Christian who believes that an Apocalypse in the MidEast will usher in the End Times, while Ahmadinejad belongs to a Shi'ite sect that believes much the same of the Mahdi, supposed to be the Twelfth Imam, the last direct successor of the Prophet.
But at least Ahmandinejad is now likely to be reined in by the mullahs, if not removed from office. There is talk, according to the Guardian, of impeachment.
Good for Iran, if they can manage to impeach their wackazoid. If only we could do the same here, the world might be spared the impending doom. If only it's not already too late.