Ahmadinejad's proposed new cabinet shows that the Iranian hardliners now hold all the strings of power in Tehran, writes Mustafa El-Labbad If confirmed by parliament, the government elected by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad will entrench the new balance of power in Iran, which is characterised by the total hold of the hardline conservatives, championed by Supreme Guide Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, over all key governmental agencies. It will be the first time this trend holds such a monopoly over the nation's constitutional decision-making powers since the republic was founded in 1979. Although the Iranian constitution gives the supreme guide the ultimate say in all state matters, in practice this has always been tempered by the interplay between the various wings or camps within the Iranian revolutionary enterprise, which has enabled moderates and reformers to exercise varying degrees of control in government. However, this margin of plurality has dwindled dramatically over the past few years, and with the departure of former president Mohamed Khatami the reformists have lost their last emblem of an effective presence in the political arena. Furthermore, former president Hashemi Rafsanjani's defeat was an indication of how low his once considerable influence had sunk and a sign of the ebbing appeal of the pragmatism that was his political hallmark. It can thus be confidently stated that the hardliners, with Khamenei at their head, now hold sway in Iranian politics. The new president owes his electoral victory to the supreme guide's moral support and to the political support of the political and military blocs associated with the army and Revolutionary Guard. Not surprisingly, Khamenei chose to sideline former president Khatami from the presidential inaugural ceremonies and to personally invest the new president. On his part, Ahmadinejad kissed Khamenei's hand, thereby declaring his fealty to the supreme guide and effectively cutting short conjectures that the new president would attempt to assert a measure of autonomy. Ahmadinejad's proposed cabinet is consistent with the shape of the current balance of power in Iran. Gone are any ministers who owe any loyalty to Hashemi Rafsanjani, who had served as president from 1989 to 1997, and those who remained under Khatami, who served as president from 1997 to this year including the Ministry of Petroleum Bijan Namdar Zanganeh, the Ministry of Finance and Ministry of Economy. Out too, of course, are all representatives of former president Khatami's reformist trend. Nor are women represented in the new president's proposed government, in marked contrast to his predecessor's which had two women as vice-presidents. Under the Iranian constitution, the president must submit his cabinet nominations to parliament for confirmation. However, given the hardline conservative stance, as personified in its current speaker Mohamed Reza Bahonar, the confirmations are likely to be a pure formality. Five ministries are generally regarded as indices of power balances in Iran because of their political and economic importance. These are the ministries of defence, intelligence, interior, oil and foreign affairs. All of Ahmadinejad's nominees for these portfolios belong to both his same age group and same ideological orientation. His replacement of Kamal Kharazi by Manouchehr Mottaki as foreign minister is not just a symbolic change of faces but a sign of the tougher foreign policy stances the new president wants his government to take. Mottaki, former ambassador to Japan and Turkey, has been one of the harshest critics of Iran's nuclear negotiations with the European Union. Another bleak portent is to be found in Gholam Hussein Mohseni Ejehei, nominee for the Ministry of Intelligence, and widely reputed as a relentless opponent of freedom of the press and a sworn adversary of reformers. A similarly grim message to reformists is conveyed in the nomination of the hardline former deputy intelligence minister Mustafa Pourmohammadi as interior minister. As minister of petroleum, Ahmadinejad named Ali Saeedlou, who had served as Ahmadinejad's deputy when he was mayor of Tehran. Saeedlou has pledged to bring that vital ministry under tighter control, against rumours of immense kickbacks and other illegal dealings involving billions of dollars of oil contracts. Ideological uniformity not only informed Ahmadinejad's cabinet nominations but also his appointment, on Monday, of Ali Larijani as secretary of the Supreme National Security Council (SNSC). Larijani, former head of the Iranian national broadcasting company and another hardliner who ran in the presidential elections, replaces Hassan Rowhani who until now has led the negotiations with Europe over Iran's nuclear programme. The appointment is consistent with the prevailing mood in Tehran, which is calling for a tougher stance against Western pressures over the nuclear issue. This said, the recent Iranian decision to recommence its uranium enrichment operations on a limited scale was not a sudden, hotheaded reaction to international pressures, but a well-calibrated political move. When Bush declared that he would not rule out the military option against Iran, Tehran responded that it would "stand as firm as a mountain" in the defence of its right to process uranium for peaceful purposes, and the reopening of its nuclear facility was intended to demonstrate the earnestness of this intent. However, below the fiery surface, officials in Iran have carefully gauged the current situation. They know that if Europe is to fall in line with the American demand to turn the Iranian nuclear issue over to the Security Council, the Europeans will first want to know what the US expects the outcome to be, a caution or a condemnation, and if the latter, economic sanctions or military action? The Europeans have too many vested interests in Iran and the region as a whole to give Washington a blank check on the matter. The Iranians have also placed a certain degree of confidence in China, a permanent member of the Security Council. With more than $100 billion worth of oil and gas exploration contracts with Iran at stake, China is unlikely to agree to sanctions against Iran and even to abstain should the issue be put to a vote in the Security Council. The rising prices of oil and the heavy Iranian influence in Iraq have also compelled the Bush administration to restrain its inclination to escalate the confrontation with Tehran. The Ahmadinejad government is certain to capitalise on these considerations in its next rounds of negotiations with Europe.
