Ahmadinejad Steering Iran to Isolationism

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By ALI AKBAR DAREINI, Associated Press Writer

Fri Nov 4, 4:20 PM ET

Since taking office in August, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has jettisoned Iran's foreign policy of detente and moderation, provoking international outrage and deepening the country's isolation. Some in Tehran's leadership cadre are searching for a way to rein him in.

It took the ultraconservative Ahmadinejad less than three months to re-stamp the country's international and social agendas with the radicalism of the late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini and to largely bury the reforms crafted by his predecessor, Mohammad Khatami, during an 8-year struggle to loosen the control of the country's Shiite Muslim clerical ruling class.

Ahmadinejad replaced all the pragmatists on the Supreme National Security Council, a powerful body that handles Iran's nuclear negotiations with Europe, with hard-liners.

His interior minister replaced all reformist provincial governors with hard-liners supporting Ahmadinejad's anti-reform domestic agenda.

Then, the president provoked global condemnation after he said Israel should be "wiped off the map." The call sounded alarm bells in the United States and some European capitals, prompting fresh calls for containment of the Islamic republic and its nuclear ambitions. Washington says Tehran wants to build a weapon. The Iranians say their atomic program is for generating electricity.

Ignoring global and domestic outrage, perhaps even relishing it, an unrepentant Ahmadinejad renewed his call for the Jewish state's destruction just days later. His comment sent the stock exchange plummeting 30 percent despite continued high oil prices. Iran is the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries' second largest producer.

U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan also canceled a planned trip to Iran, saying it was "not an appropriate time" for him to go because of the "ongoing controversy" surrounding Ahmadinejad's remarks, according to a statement Friday from his spokesman, Stephane Dujarric.

Further consolidating the changes, Ahmadinejad's foreign minister announced Wednesday that 40 of Iran's ambassadors and senior diplomats — all of whom supported warmer ties with the West — will be removed from their posts by March. Some have already lost their jobs.

Reformists from other key ministries have also been ousted in the largest shake-up inside Iran's ruling establishment in more than 20 years.

"Ahmadinejad believed democratic reforms pursued by Khatami betrayed the goals of the 1979 Islamic revolution that brought hard-line clerics to power," said Hashem Sabbaqian, a liberal dissident and former interior minister. "He seeks to take Iran back to its days of radicalism in the 80s."

Sabbaqian said Ahmadinejad — a former Tehran mayor and Republican Guard commander — is fulfilling his campaign pledge to fight Western influence and return Iran to the fundamentalist state that emerged under Khomeini after the ouster of the U.S.-allied shah.

Ahmadinejad's cultural policy seeks to re-impose many social restrictions Khatami had eased step by step.

His minister of culture, Hossein Safar Harandi, has banned women employees at his ministry from work after sunset, saying females need to be home to look after their families.

The all-powerful clerics who have the last say in national affairs appear to be watching developments closely.

"The establishment is now thinking about how to contain this president whose actions risk global confrontation with Iran," said Davoud Hermidas Bavand, a professor of international relations at Tehran's Imam Sadeq University.

It's not clear how far Iran's supreme ruler, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, can comfortably back Ahmadinejad. So far, Khamenei has refused to say anything for or against Ahmadinejad since his anti-Israel comments. But some observers say Khamenei is not entirely pleased.

He has increased the powers of the Expediency Council, which arbitrates between the parliament and the government. That effectively undercuts the authority of Ahmadinejad's government and hard-line voices in the parliament, many of them former military commanders opposed to the United States.

"Khamenei is worried that Ahmadinejad, his trusted agent, is causing too many problems for Iran. It appears that Khamenei doesn't like everything Ahmadinejad does but wants to give him time," Bavand said.

Meanwhile, moderates including former president Hashemi Rafsanjani have sought to dial back the rhetoric and assure the world that Ahmadinejad won't be allowed to turn Iran into a full-fledged rogue nation.

Rafsanjani told King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia during a recent visit to Saudi Arabia that Ahmadinejad will be contained, a close aide to Rafsanjani said on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the press. ___ Ali Akbar Dareini has covered Iran for The Associated Press in Tehran since 1999.