The way the ousting of Manouchehr Mottaki from his post as foreign minister happened, came as a reminder of the fact that the Iranian authority is not as unified as one might think, that the conflict among individuals and maybe even the ideas within it is existing and effective and that the “perfect” republic which is entirely compliant with the power centers, is the object of differences revolving around its individuals, methods and policies. One can even say that the conflicts of the individuals and their intersecting ambitions and interests, are expressed by domestic outbidding over certain files or over loyalty to the Guide. As for the dismissal of Mottaki, who is not known for his initiatives as a foreign minister or for holding a position of power on the domestic arena, it reflects these conflicts by proxy, especially since he is considered to be affiliated with the current head of the Shura Council, Ali Larijani, the main adversary of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. The two men, who competed for the presidential seat in 2005, constitute the main polarization points. Indeed, Larijani comes from the general secretariat of the National Security Council and has sponsored the previous stage of the nuclear file and its negotiations, while Ahmadinejad currently conveys the military-economic amalgam represented by the Revolutionary Guard. However, since the plurality and divergence of opinions and personal confrontations are not allowed under the Iranian regime, the competition between the two men was expressed through a confrontation between parliament and the government, but with a legal cover. Iran may currently be witnessing the worst stage in the relations between parliament and the government due to this rivalry, while in order for the weakest side in the equation to pay the price, Ahmadinejad ousted its foreign minister. There has been talk about Ahmadinejad's establishment of a parallel structure at the presidential office to manage the foreign files. However, he could not have done this, had it not been for two factors. The first is his action which is linked to his unending dynamism, while the second is the absence of any initiative at the level of the work of the ousted minister who did not prove to enjoy a strong presence on the diplomatic level. These two patterns coexisted throughout Ahmadinejad's first term and throughout the time he has already spent in office until now. Indeed, the latter was reassured by the limited presence of his minister, and Mottaki was unaffected by the action of his president as long as he maintained his post. Nonetheless, this coexistence stopped serving Ahmadinejad's interests, as he had to prove his ability to face his opponents. And just like in any other domestic confrontation in Iran, the most acute file is adopted as the headline of the competition. In this case, it was the nuclear file and the negotiations over it. This would explain Ahmadinejad's timing for the ousting of Mottaki while he was on an official mission in Senegal upon an assignment from his president. Mottaki “committed the mistakes” that helped Ahmadinejad justify his decision. He spoke about the positive character of his contacts which paved the way before the resumption of the talks with the P5+1, but the straw that broke the camel's back was his participation in the Manama conference on regional security and the statements he delivered there, especially in regard to what he said while commenting on the positions of US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton who also attended the conference. Indeed, he sat beside her during an official dinner and responded to her greetings, but more dangerously – according to Ahmadinejad's surrounding – praised what she said regarding the nature of the negotiations with Iran. This reached a point where Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu, Iran's main interlocutor at the level of its nuclear file and the engineer of the tripartite Turkish-Brazilian-Iranian enrichment agreement, considered what happened in Manama to be “an aperture in the window” of Western-Iranian communication. Consequently, Mottaki committed lethal “mistakes” in Manama, since he announced unresolved positions in the ranks of the Iranian command in regard to the security of the region, and conveyed a positive assessment of an American position toward the negotiations. This constituted the right opportunity to address a blow to the camp to which he belongs, on charges of leniency in confrontation the United States. These are the same charges that had led his predecessor Sadegh Ghotbzadeh to the noose during the days of the late Imam Khomeini.
