The Iranian President Gets Stronger at Home

The Economist:

Sporting his trademark Palestinian kaffieh round his neck, he fulminates against the governors at the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the United Nations' nuclear watchdog, which reported Iran to the UN Security Council on February 4th on suspicion of trying to make nuclear bombs. He accuses those European newspaper editors who invoke freedom of expression while caricaturing the Prophet Muhammad of hushing up the suffering of Palestinians at the hands of Israel. If anyone is enjoying the recent turn for the worse in relations between the western and Islamic worlds, it is Iran's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Iran reacted boldly to the governors' resolution, which was passed, ominously for the Islamic Republic, with the support of all five permanent members of the UN Security Council. The Iranians have scaled back their co-operation with IAEA inspectors and announced that a date, revealed only to the agency, has been fixed for resuming the uranium-enrichment research that they suspended three years ago. Iran's calibrated escalation—officials have disclaimed, for instance, any intention of leaving the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty—bore the imprimatur of the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. But it is Mr Ahmadinejad, in the eyes of the world, who embodies Iran's assertiveness.

From the perspective of the country's religious establishment, this may not be a bad thing. As recently as last autumn, senior members of the clerical aristocracy derided Mr Ahmadinejad's unpolished style as a liability to efforts then under way to win international acceptance for Iran's nuclear programme. Now that those efforts have ended, and confrontation is in the air, the president's populist rhetoric of religiosity and social justice, combined with his rabble-rousing nationalism, is proving quite a help.

It would be ironic if increased international pressure, which some American conservatives hope will encourage Iranians to rise against their clerical leaders, were to elicit a nationalist reaction from citizens who otherwise have little love for the Islamic Republic. But this is what top Iranians, aware that Iran faces formal referral to the Security Council and, in turn, the prospect of sanctions when the IAEA governors meet next month, are counting on. READ MORE

The president's imaginative diatribes against leading western nations (“lions whose mane and fur have moulted”), coupled with a series of anti-Israel outbursts, have earned him notoriety in the West and renown among many Muslims, not all of them fellow Shias. His ban on business between Iran and Denmark, which was announced on February 6th, was largely a symbolic act; there is not much business to ban. But he did not criticise the Islamic militiamen, known as the basij, who spent February 6th and 7th attacking Denmark's (evacuated) embassy in Tehran; ideologues such as these voted him into power.

Mr Ahmadinejad's other asset is his popularity in poor, neglected provinces. This was illustrated during a recent visit to the impoverished coastal province of Bushehr, where the Russians have been dragging their feet over completing Iran's first nuclear reactor. Like George Bush, although neither man would feel flattered by the comparison, Mr Ahmadinejad is more comfortable working sympathetic crowds than fielding questions from sophisticates in the capital. In Bushehr, he promised to create wealth, and also to have Mr Bush tried before a “people's tribunal” for supporting Israel. He was rapturously received.

Nationalism is easier on a full stomach and Mr Ahmadinejad is the rare and fortunate president who expects to receive, over the coming Iranian year, some $36 billion in oil export revenues to help buy loyalty. In his first budget bill, now before parliament, the government has promised to build 300,000 housing units, two-thirds of them outside big towns, and to maintain energy subsidies that amount to a staggering 10% of GDP. MPs may trim the budget, which they claim is inflationary in its present form, but they dare not blunt its populist thrust.

It is also notably generous to state entities that disseminate the official ideology. According to the draft before parliament, the state broadcasting monopoly and the Institute for Islamic Propagation, whose activities range from publishing books to proselytising abroad, are to benefit from budget rises of 46% and 96% respectively. The budget also formalises the subcontracting of public works to the basij–another step towards what some Iranians fear is the militarisation of public life.

Nonsense. Actually, his popularity, which is growing among Arab populations is on a serious decline inside of Iran. True, he is attempting to revive nationalistic feeling for the Islamic Revolution, but his trips to the poorer regions have not played well and after several possible assassination attempts on his life on these trips he was forced to cancel several of them. He has not delivered on his promised economic relief and now many fear he is bringing the country to the brink of war.

This is why the recent demonstrations at western embassies in Tehran have only attracted several hundred protesters. If the Iranian people were with him their would be hundreds of thousands at these demonstrations. Tehran is a city of 12 million.

When the regime wants a big show, they bus them in. It makes good video to show angry demonstrators which Western TV networks gladly broadcast, while these same journalists are not permitted to film any of the many anti-regime demonstrations or most recently the Striking Bus Strikers?

Did the Western media learn nothing from its complicity in Saddam's Iraq?