Critics in the Majlis have started mounting new attacks on Ahmadi-nejad, who is much-disliked in the legislature.
A total of 216 of the 290 deputies in the Majlis—a three-quarters majority—last week signed an open letter demanding that Ahmadi-nejad formally reinstate Moslehi. The letter said the president must obey an order from the Supreme Leader
Ahmadi-nejad announced April 17 that he had accepted the resignation of Moslehi. Just two hours later, Khamenehi’s office told reporters orally that the Supreme Leader had ordered Moslehi to stay on the job.
Moslehi has been at his office daily since then and has participated in several public functions. Ahmadi-nejad, however, has been totally silent. He has not issued a statement rescinding Moslehi’s “resignation” or recognizing Khamenehi’s order. According to news reports, he has dis-invited Moslehi to the last two cabinet meetings.
Khamenehi has made some public statements lauding Moslehi, underscoring that Ahmadi-nejad could not make the issue go away just by being silent.
Khamenehi’s direct order over-riding the resignation—which resignation everyone understands was demanded by Ahmadi-nejad—was a stark repudiation of the president and delighted the president’s critics. But Khamenehi is not trying to give aid and comfort to Ahmadi-nejad’s critics. To the contrary, Khamenehi has made statements lauding the president in recent days.
It is an unwritten law in Iran that the Supreme Leader must approve four critical cabinet slots—intelligence, foreign affairs, defense and interior. Theoretically, the president can fire those ministers without the prior agreement of the Supreme Leader, just so long as the Leader approves any replacement. Still, it isn’t very respectful for a president to remove one of those ministers without prior consultation with the Leader. It is widely believed that Khamenehi took offense when Ahmadi-nejad acted on his own.
A few months ago, Ahmadi-nejad fired Manouchehr Mottaki as foreign minister. Khamenehi said nothing at that time. The firing of Moslehi may have been one offensive action too many.
Khamenehi has publicly disciplined Ahmadi-nejad several times during the six years of his presidency. The first such case came just a few months after Ahmadi-nejad took office when he announced that he had ordered all soccer stadiums to admit women, an initiative that made many ultra-conservative clerics furious. After a few days, Khamenehi issued an order countermanding Ahmadi-nejad’s order.
The most recent intervention came just a few months ago after Ahmadi-nejad named his close buddy, Esfandiar Rahim-Mashai, to be first vice president. Mashai is detested by many in the establishment, but is also simply an easier target than the president for the president’s opponents. Khamenehi told Ahmadi-nejad privately that he couldn’t have Mashai as first vice president. Ahmadi-nejad did nothing. Khamenehi’s office then let reporters and Majlis deputies know what the Supreme Leader had told Ahmadi-nejad. That brought down the roof on Ahmadi-nejad and forced him to replace Mashai.
The issue then is the same one now—Ahmadi-nejad’s failure to bow down to the Supreme Leader. Many are charging that the president is seeking to steal political power from the Supreme Leader and make the presidency superior—an executable offense. (However, to others it appears to be little more than juvenile pouting at not being able to get his own way.)
Now it appears to be open season on Ahmadi-nejad. Some even speculate he will be removed from office before his term is up—but that appears doubtful, given Khamenehi’s continued public words of support for the president.
The Ahmadi-nejad camp tried to resist Khamenehi’s edict on Moslehi. The Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA), which is under the control of the president, pretended that Khamenehi had issued no order. “Some domestic news agencies,” it said, “appear to be under the influence of political groups and so have not published news of the resignation of Heydar Moslehi and its acceptance by the president, and then publishing unsubstantiated claims that the Supreme Leader has opposed Moslehi’s resignation.”
Later, IRNA, whose boss is an old friend of Ahmadi-nejad, cited the absence of any formal decree published by Khamenehi’s office as proof that the Supreme Leader did not really oppose Moslehi’s departure. More likely, the failure to post a formal decree was an act of kindness to Ahmadi-nejad.
A week after the firing incident, Khamenehi gave an explanation for his action, saying he didn’t believe in interfering with government actions but for exceptional circumstances.
In a speech Saturday, he said, “In principle, I have no intention to intervene in government affairs … unless I feel an expediency is being ignored, as was the case recently. With the help of God,… I firmly adhere to our right stance.”
As is his norm, Khamenehi blamed the Western world for the appearance of conflict inside Iran. “Our enemies have tried to suggest that there is a rift within the Islamic Republic of Iran,” Khamenehi said, “that there is a dual ruling system and the president has not listened to the Leader. This shows that they are like wolves in ambush waiting for an excuse to start negative propaganda against the Islamic Republic of Iran.”
Khamenehi went on to say that the president and his ministers were working ceaselessly to serve the public.
IRNA carried only the quotes lauding Ahmadi-nejad. That prompted Khamenehi’s office to post a formal statement on the Leader’s website denouncing IRNA for carrying an “incomplete report,” and directing all other media to reject the IRNA story.
The most likely reason Ahmadi-nejad wanted to dump Moslehi is that Moslehi had just fired a deputy minister, Hossain Abdollahian, who is known to have been the president’s man inside the intelligence ministry—in effect a presidential spy watching Moslehi.