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15 May 2011 By Tariq Alhomayed News coming from Iran suggests that the Supreme
Leader has given the Iranian President a few days to
restore Iran's intelligence chief to his post, or
resign. So will Ahmadinejad fall before the other
leaders who are facing a similar fate in our region?
Nothing can be ruled out of course, and it seems
that something indeed has been developing in Iran ever
since the blow dealt to Tehran when the Joint
Peninsula Shield Force entered Bahrain, and the
subsequent hit which Tehran received from the Syrian
people rebelling against their regime. Iran now seems
to be in a state of bewilderment. Even Iraq is not
excluded from the demonstrations in the region, and
all of this means a failure in Iran's foreign policy,
which has been struck a violent and degrading blow.
All of Iran's allies in the region are in real
trouble; the government of Lebanon is yet to be
formed, and Hamas has rushed into the arms of Mahmoud
Abbas, to save it from the wrath of the Syrian regime,
for reasons Mishal and his associates know well, and
not because the absence of Mubarak has accelerated the
reconciliation, as has been said, for this is a big
lie. In Damascus there is a genuine feeling of
indignation regarding Hamas and its leadership. Another indicator of the failure of Iran's foreign
policy, and the depth of its crisis, as revealed by
U.S journalist David Ignatius in his article the day
before yesterday in the Washington Post, is that the
Iranians recently sent messages to Washington,
intimating their desire to talk with the Obama
administration. Washington is still trying to confirm
whether the messages came from Ahmadinejad or the
Supreme Leader. It seems that the Americans have
listened carefully to the advice of the Syrian
President, where the "Wikileaks" documents revealed
that al-Assad had told the Americans that the real
Iranian President was Khamenei, not Ahmadinejad. Of course, what prompted Tehran to try to talk to
Washington was another matter, and not the failure of
Iran's foreign policy, namely that America has killed
Osama Bin Laden, and this means that the exit route
from Afghanistan has become more visible. The U.S.
Defense Secretary Robert Gates says that killing Bin
Laden may change the rules of the game in Afghanistan,
and the interests of the Taliban today mean that the
time to negotiate with America has come, as the
mediation gates have opened. We can remember how the
Saudis refused to respond to the invitation of the
Afghan President to mediate, as long as the Taliban
refused to abandon Bin Laden! The erosion of the
regime in Syria may open opportunities for the
Americans to reorder the situation in Iraq, as well as
taking new steps in the peace process. The Oslo
Accords came after a major political earthquake, the
liberation of Kuwait, and today the earthquakes around
us are many and great. Once Gaddafi is overthrown,
Washington and the international community will turn
their attention to the next enemy, and that is Iran
without a doubt. Thus Ahmadinejad will either resign or be sacked,
or perhaps remain in his position, if the intelligence
chief supported by the Supreme Leader remains. This
means that Ahmadinejad may actually fall, unless there
is a surprise and Ahmadinejad himself ousts the
Supreme Leader. This would be a momentous event, but
nothing can be ruled out. Ahmadinejad would fall because of the failure of
his foreign policies, as Iran today is completely
isolated. Ahamdinejad would also fall due to the blow
dealt to him by Khamenei, when he was ordered to keep
his intelligence chief, as if he was the Iranian
"secretary", not the Iranian President. But will
Ahmadinejad leave the political scene in the near
future? Let's see, although no one would miss him! |