PARIS - The call by Iranian
President Mahmud Ahmadinejad on Wednesday for
Israel to be "wiped off the map" has drawn instant
and bitter condemnation, with Israel urging Iran's
expulsion from the United Nations, and other
countries saying that Tehran should now definitely
be hauled before the UN Security Council over its
nuclear program.
Ahmadinejad's outburst,
however, also signifies deep rifts within the
country between his administration and Supreme
Leader Ali Khamenei and his small clique that
ultimately controls the levers of power.
Populist Ahmadinejad, a veteran of Iran's
hardline Revolutionary Guards, took office in
August after scoring an unexpected
landslide win in June's
presidential elections, in which he was backed by
Khamenei at the expense of the more moderate
former president, Hashemi Rafsanjani.
However, contrary to most predictions, the
victory of Ahmadinejad, following the rout of
reformists in February's legislative elections,
has not led to a "homogenization" of power in the
country.
This is evidenced by Iran's
stance with the international community over its
nuclear program, with its position swinging wildly
from reconciliation to confrontation. Most
recently, the International Atomic Energy Agency
(IAEA) voted to declare Iran in "non-compliance"
with the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, and
next month will decide whether or not to send it
to the United Nations Security Council for
possible sanctions.
Ahmadinejad's
performance on Wednesday puts Iran firmly on the
path of confrontation.
"The danger of such
a radical statesman [Ahmadinejad] is that by
knotting religious beliefs with the nuclear issue,
it makes for an explosive issue that will explode
in the face of all Iranians," an Iranian analyst
told Asia Times Online, adding that Ahmadinejad's
statement would certainly strengthen the
international consensus against Iran.
"It
is exactly for this reason that Khamenei,
realizing his mistake in promoting Ahmadinejad,
placed the pragmatic and experienced Hashemi
Rafsanjani above him in order to repair the damage
the new, inexperienced but zealot Muslim might
cause to the regime," the analyst said.
The analyst was referring to the recent
decision by Khamenei to transfer some of his
immense and unlimited power to the Assembly of
Discerning the Interests of the State (ADIS, or
Expediency Council), which is headed by
Rafsanjani.
According to a new regulation,
the ADIS will have the power to supervise the
regime's macro-policies and long-term plans and
projects, a power that had belonged to the Supreme
Leader. This means that all the theocratic
regime's three powers - legislative, judicial and
executive - must submit their planning and
policies to the 32-member, leader-controlled ADIS
for approval before implementation.
Until
this change, ADIS's main role was to mediate
between the Council of the Guardians (CG) and the
majlis, or parliament, as the 12-member,
leader-controlled CG is in charge of both vetting
all candidates in all elections and making sure
that laws passed by the majlis are in conformity
with Sharia law.
The increased powers
given to ADIS were interpreted as a clear warning
to Ahmadinejad and the Revolutionary Guards who
provided him with millions of votes, against
trying to wrest any powers from the clerical
establishment.
The warning appears to have
fallen on deaf ears, as Ahmadinejad, a former
mayor of Tehran, would have been perfectly aware
of the reaction - and consequences - of his verbal
assault on Israel: if the US needed any further
reason to put screws on Iran, Ahmadinejad has
provided it.
White House spokesman Scott
McClellan said Ahmadinejad's opinion "just
reconfirms what we have been saying about the
regime in Iran. It underscores the concerns we
have about Iran's nuclear operations".
Playing to the
gallery Addressing a conference in Tehran
on Wednesday, entitled "The World Without
Zionism", Ahmadinejad said, "To those who doubt,
to those who ask is it possible, or those who do
not believe, I say accomplishment of a world
without America and Israel is both possible and
feasible."
To a cheering audience that at
several points erupted with chants of "death to
Israel, death to America, death to England",
Ahmadinejad continued, "Once, his eminency Imam
[Ruhollah] Khomeini - leader of the 1979 Islamic
revolution], stated that the illegal regime of the
Pahlavis must go, and it happened. Then he said
the Soviet empire would disappear, and it
happened. He also said that this evil man Saddam
[Hussein] must be punished, and we see that he is
under trial in his country. His eminency also said
that the occupation regime of Qods [Jerusalem, or
Israel] must be wiped off from the map of the
world, and with the help of the Almighty, we shall
soon experience a world without America and
Zionism, notwithstanding those who doubt."
Israel views Iran as its main security
threat. Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz has said that
Tehran could be capable of developing a nuclear
weapon within months, and that there was a need
for urgent action to prevent this from happening.
According to Iranian news agencies,
including both the official Iranian news agency
IRNA and the semi-independent Students News
Agency, ISNA, "thousands of members of Islamic
associations of schoolchildren, but also
representatives of Palestinian combatant groups
like Hamas and the Iran-backed Islamic Jihad of
Palestine, the Lebanese Hezbollah, members of the
Association for the Defense of Palestinian People,
senior clerics and officials attended the
meeting".
Speaking before Ahmadinejad, Ali
Akbari, a personal representative of the Supreme
Leader at the Association of Islamic
Schoolchildren, and who is also an assistant to
the president, stated that "young Iranians are
being readied to be the flagbearers of wiping off
Israel from the world map".
As he was
speaking, the Islamic Jihad of Palestine took
responsibility for a suicide attack in the Israeli
town of Hadera in which at least five people were
killed.
Ahmadinejad has clearly raised the
stakes, not only with the international community,
but also - and perhaps potentially even more
critically - within his own country.
Safa Haeri is a Paris-based
Iranian journalist covering the Middle East and
Central Asia.
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