Will Ahmadinejad fall before them?

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!