President Khatami hints at Ahmadinjead's rolling back the reformist dialogue foreign policy to a more fundamentalist one

I have rewritten this post on 19 July 2005 as a friend pointed that my argument in this post is a bit   tautological. If the Supreme Leader was already in charge of foreign policy, what has really changed from before? What is the significance of the apparent change of guard? In the following paragraphs I have further elaborated how the hardliners have already started to consolidate power in the area of foreign affairs, even before officially forming the government.

Two events, one after another, have taken place that hint at the fact that the rollback of Khatami's foreign policy is in the cards. These events show that the consolidation of power at the executive level in a way that is completely in accordance with the whims and wishes of the Supreme Leader is taking place at a very fast pace, even before Ahmadinejad is officially President.

My argument is very simple, the Supreme Leader was forced to have his confidant, Mr. Rohani, acting as the country's negotiator, because he did not want to grant any negotiating role to Khatami's government. It is true that Mr. Kharazi was and is a relatively conservative person, but the fact that Khatami eagerly pursued his dialogical policy was never welcome at the highest level.

Ahmadinejad's regime is eager to make a point that it is different in all respects from the previous administrations. Loyalty to the fundamental principles of the revolution, that is supporting the oppressed Muslim nations (read Palestine) and exporting the message of the revolution are certainly and essentially part of their Foreign Policy Doctrine. Several events of the past fortnight indicate that such an analysis is not far-fetched.

First, Ahmadinejad has clearly indicated that he expects "just" relations with foreign countries. In other words, even the constructive dialogue of the Europeans may not be deemed tolerable by his regime. Ayatollah Rohani's confirmation (on the left photo from here) that he would like to completely delegate the negotiations concerning Iran's nuclear enrichment ability with IAEA to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (that is Ahmadinejad's cabinet minister) now sheds light on an earlier news/rumour that he intended to resign. This event proves yet another major, and yet untold, maxim in Iranian politics, that is, before the regime "really" does something, its rumour comes out in some twisted way.

Indeed, those who leaked the news of Rohani's resignation either did not get it right, or twisted it. He intended to resign from being Iran's negotiator with the IAEA in a different sense. He intends to put Ahmadinejad's government in the front row, while he himself sits in the back coordinating and receiving orders from Khamenei. Rohani's intention to delegate the matter of Iran's nuclear ambitions back to the ministry of Foreign Affairs is a strong evidence that the Supreme Leader expects that all matters to be streamlined to his most trusted servants, that is Ahmadinejad's cabinet. Rohani does not need to keep the government, which was Khatami's so far, at bay any more, so that the world would know who actually calls the shots in Iran. Now, with Supreme Leader's favourite man in power, there is no need for Supreme Leader's agents, i.e. Rohani, to play on the stage as actors and at the same time direct the most sensitive aspects of foreign policy.

Very little trust has the Supreme Leader ever shown towards the initiatives the ministry of Foreign Affairs under Khatami. Nor had he believed that he could totally trust Rafsanjani's foreign policy until Rafsanjani's second term that the hardliners forced him to consult with them over the issues of foreign affairs, economy, intelligence, and home affairs (the confirmation and appointment of all of their ministers took place with the direct participation of the present hardliner faction that then, as now, had a strong majority in the Parliament).

Second, ISNA reports that President Khatami, in a comprehensive interview with the Al'Arabiya news channel, has indicated that the chances that Iran and the United States would ever directly negotiate will much lower under Ahmadinejad.

This is not just because the Supreme Leader's favourites are in power. It is also because Islamist militants of orthodox orientation are going to show their allegiance to the fundamental principles of defending the oppressed Muslims is once again a solid part of the Foreign Policy agenda, and not pragmatism (unless the survival of the regime would be at stake indeed, but the test for that threshold is yet to be set).

I think this comprehensive report from Radio Free Europe that analyses how the old militant hardliners of the pre-revolution era are in full co-operation with their post-revolution disciples. In my earlier investigation on the consolidation of power by a very militarist minded combination of old pre-Islamic Revolution militants and their post-Islamic revolution militant disciples, I had mentioned that such an alliance will sweep  through all areas of domestic and foreign security policy. Nuclear power development is certainly an area that will expose profound differences between the newly uniformed and totalized Ahmadinejad-Khamenei regime from Khatami's era.

In the past, even though Rohani, Supreme Leader's agent, was in the driver's seat of Iran's foreign policy on nuclear issues, Khatami was still the back-channel that Europeans could use to communicate their other concerns (such as the ones concerning human rights) to the Supreme Leader. The incoming administration considers all human rights and related issues a subject already determined and decided by Shiite orthodox juristheologians (to use Ian Richard's equivalent for faqih). The moral interlocutor in foreign policy, i.e. Khatami, will no longer even be present in any official capacity.

Certainly, the hardliners very soon realised that the process of bringing the regime's apparatus in line with their radical ideology could happen much faster at the foreign policy/affairs level. It remains to be seen how they will thread next when it comes to dealing with the economy and social policies.