Ahmadinejad's Faux Pas?

Orly Halpern, The Jerusalem Post:

He did it again. Less than three months on the job, Iran's zealous president made another diplomatic gaffe, which may cost his country dearly. Calling for Israel "to be wiped off the map" will not only make negotiating over nuclear power more difficult, it will further isolate Iran as a pariah state. The question is: Was this rhetoric of a political novice or words from a man of action? READ MORE

The answer is both, but experts say that the Supreme Leader Ali Khameini is not likely to allow the words to translate into missiles on Israel.

"He sincerely believes that if Iran were vigorous then Muslims could achieve this objective," said Patrick Clawson, the deputy director of research at the Washington Institute for Middle East Policy. " But the supreme leader and many others in the regime do not share the perspective of the Ahmadinejad crowd."

Venomous rhetoric against Israel is not new to Teheran.

It was common since the Islamic revolution in Iran in 1979, but not considered problematic by Israel during the 1980s. At that time, Jerusalem saw Teheran as its strategic ally against Baghdad. Israeli decision makers made a clear distinction between rhetoric and action.

In the '90s, Shimon Peres began depicting Iran as a major threat to Israel and Iran ratcheted up the rhetoric.

But when Muhammad Khatami became president in 1997, he put a lid on anti-Israel rhetoric by top officials so that it would not escalate to confrontation.

He was succeeded this summer by Ahmedinejad.

According to an Iranian-American expert on Iranian-Israeli relations, the problem is that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is a political novice with a streak of ultra-nationalist tendencies.

"I think [Ahmadinejad's statement] certainly is a diplomatic blunder," said Trita Parsi, a Middle East specialist at Johns Hopkins University.

"This is an inexperienced politician who has yet to understand the consequence of his statements,"said Parsi. "That's clear from his statements at the UN, which caused Iran great damage."

Ahmadinejad is a conservative ideologue who beat the more moderate and more experienced Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani by a landslide in July on a help-the-poor anticorruption platform.

But he has gotten off to an unsteady start.

First he flopped in the Majlis. The parliament, which was filled with his supporters, rejected a number of his choices for cabinet ministers.

Then he gave a speech at the UN, which came at a critical time when his country was being threatened over its nuclear program. But the speech, according to Parsi "was more like a Friday prayer in Teheran than attempt to address the inter national community at the UN [General] Assembly."

It came as little surprise many that shortly thereafter the spiritual leader and over all ruler of Iran, Ayatollah Ali Khameini, gave the Expedi ency Council, which is head ed by Rafsanjani, "supervisory" powers over all branches of government, including the presidency. In other words any policy made Ahmadinejad must approved by Rafsanjani.

"That's the way that limits on the presidents were put the past," said Clawson "Let's hope it works this time."