Making Ahmadinejad's inauguration even sweeter must have been the White House's official media flack, Robert Gibbs, calling the Orator-in-Chief, "the elected leader." This is more than previous administrations have done when perversions of election have been employed to sanitize the assumption of public office. This is definitely an honor for Mr Ahmadinejad.
And, to really start off the Ahmadinejad second term in fine style, Iran has three, count them, three honest-to-Allah American hostages. This out performs North Korea, which only managed to snatch two of the highly desirable bargaining commodity.
Perhaps the re-elected(?) president hopes to emulate Kim Jong-il. Mayhaps he entertains happy visions of "private citizen" Bill Clinton jetting in to have a few hours happy talk and then depart with the "pardoned" US spies.
What a way to start off the old second term: Fantasies of secret high-level, back channel talks with senior US diplomats leading to an agreement. You send us one former American president and we give you three captives.
Great photo op. Great chance to create speculation that this shake-grin-and-pardon dynamic will lead to further diplomatic exchanges. Great way to buy more time as the centrifuges spin merrily along.
Even if the dream does not become reality, President Ahmadinejad has one thing going for him. Iran is probably close enough to having break out capacity that there is no need to worry about the very remote possibility of the US orchestrating the ever-rumored "crippling" sanctions.
The highest probability is that Iran will possess a rudimentary but diplomatically effective nuclear arsenal by this time next year. The Hillary Clinton "defense umbrella" statement is virtual confirmation that the US National Intelligence Estimate of 2007 was based on a false predicate.
The correct predicate as has been hinted at by recent European estimates is that the Iranian technicians developed and tested (without fissionable materials) the "physics package" for an implosion type uranium bomb by the time the US invaded Iraq. That, more than fear of the US doing the same to Iran, caused the suspension of the active R&D effort pending the availability of sufficient weapons grade uranium.
Since there is no indication the Obama administration is willing to run the risks which attend automatically upon the employment of the "military option," there is no reason to believe that Iran is going to remain a nuclear-free zone much longer. With sanctions irrelevant and the use of force unrealistic, the only remaining option is the acceptance of Iran as a very junior member of the Global Nuke Club. Kind of gives the shivers, doesn't it?
Of course, Mr Ahmadinejad has ambitions beyond presiding over the creation of the "Mahdi" bomb. He is possessed of global ambition. On Ahmadinejad's first watch Iran made strenuous efforts to penetrate the Horn of Africa from Djibouti to Tanzania. Not content with outflanking the Gulf States, Statesman Ahmadinejad has pursued a love match with Hugo Chavez too well known to deserve comment. This (perhaps) folie a deux has been complemented with flirtation directed at Nicaragua, Bolivia, and Ecuador.
One must never overlook the blushing successes of Ahmadinejad's version of diplomacy in the heart of the Mideast. The relation with Syria. The proxies Hezbollah and Hamas. The prongs of subversion in the Gulf. And on, and on. It has been a sort of mirror image of the "pactomania" which typified the days of John Foster Dulles fifty years and more ago.
Then there has been the big event, backroom relations with China and, to a slightly lesser extent, Russia. These, in turn, have protected Iran's connection with fellow rogue state, North Korea, which has so often served so well as a stalking horse for Tehran.
All in all, Mr Ahmadinejad has crafted a lofty inverted pyramid of diplomatic and economic relations balanced on the thin point of revolutionary Islamist ideology buttressed by terror, subversion, oil revenues, and case hardened intransigence. A magnificent edifice of threat and bluster with little to support it beyond a will and ability to go nuclear, risk civilian lives, employ terror without end, and sheer effrontery.
So much for the upside of the Years of Ahmadinejad and his patron, protector, and soulmate, Grand Ayatollah Khamenei. Now for the termite riddled foundation.
Ahmadinejad may not last his second term. The population of Iran in large part is both restive and sullen, freighted with distrust and disillusion. The opposition has been inefficiently and incompletely suppressed. Fear, not affection nor widely perceived legitimacy sustains the reactionary mullahs and their secular kinsmen in power.
The mullahs themselves are more openly and deeply split between pro- and anti-Khamenei factions than has been the case previously. Not even the Revolutionary Guard is immune to the effects of both the split and the dynamics of personalism which color so much of Shia Iranian institutions. Certainly the Iranian regular army and police have already shown the effects of the divisions within; the Revolutionary Guard is not far behind.
The economy is in the tank. Inflation and unemployment are in a neck-to-neck race to see which can reach lunar orbit heights first. Un- and underemployment have hit the educated urban youth the hardest. No future and a lot of time to think about it on the part of people young enough not to be risk averse has been the ruination of previous centralised regimes. Iran is not immune to this.
Much of Ahmadinejad's base of support is bought and paid for. His version of Islamist populism does not come free--or even cheap. If the promised goodies do not keep flowing, the ranks of the discontented, disaffiliated, and potentially violent will grow.
Further growth of unrest will necessitate further repression. Repression must finally be bloody. Given the martyrdom oriented values which permeate Shia generally and recent Iran in specific, the dynamic is martyrdom breeds more martyrdom. In short, the regime may find itself killing its way not to victory but to defeat.
Ahmadinejad may be able to crow about Iran's "Mahdi" bomb within the next twelve months, but the Iranian people will discover an unpleasant truth or two. They will find out that money spent on bombs and delivery systems is money not spent on economic development. They will discover that atomic bombs do not provide nourishment, jobs, longer lives, better lives, international respect, or even absence of fear.
Most of all, the Iranians, the whole long-suffering lot of them, will be hit in the face with the hard fact that the ambitions of True Believers--of Khamenei, of Ahmadinejad, of those who circle around the center of power--are based upon the misery, fear, and blood of the people in general. They will find out the leaders--from the Grand Ayatollah on down--do not give a dessicated camel turd for the commonweal of the common Iranian.
When that happens, no matter how many the Basji and Revolutionary Guard might kill, the edifice Ahmadinejad and Khamenei built will fall. And fall fast. And fall hard.
It will be like what happened in the Democratic Republic of Germany when the hoi polloi discovered how the leaders lived, how they exploited faith and folk. Here, seemingly secure in power now and forever. A day later, gone, dead, buried in the rubble of the Wall.
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