Whatever the pretexts provided by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's government for its decision to lower government subsidies on what Iranians consume in terms of energy, bread, water and other essential needs, the only explanation that ordinary Iranian citizens are thinking of is that their government being forced to take such measures at this time is due primarily to the international sanctions imposed on their country, because of the current conflict over its nuclear program. Indeed, we are talking about a country which is the fifth largest exporter of oil in the world, and yet Iran imports 40 percent of its needs in gasoline, in view of the fact that its refineries cannot process its oil, due to the embargo on the sale of equipment that can be used in the refining sector. In other words, the crisis being faced by Iranian citizens because of the measures taken by Ahmadinejad is due to reasons that are essentially political, not economic. Those citizens will thus require a tremendous amount of effort from the government to convince them that such “economic surgery”, as it was described by the Iranian President, is necessary for resolving the economic ills suffered by Iran under the current regime. And because it has become difficult to convince Iranians of policies that have come to reach their daily lives, precautionary security measures were resorted to in the event of acts of violence taking place against the government's decision. This is why police forces were deployed intensively in the streets of the capital Tehran and other Iranian cities, to prevent from being repeated the riots that took place three years ago, when the government started rationing gasoline distribution, or those that opposed the reelection of Ahmadinejad, which the opposition considered to have been marred with a process of large-scale falsification, last year. Government concern regarding the repercussions of the economic policy is reminiscent of the events of this electoral campaign. At the time, opposition slogans had been focused on criticizing the vast spending on funding organizations loyal to the policies of the Islamic Republic abroad, while economic difficulties assailed Iranian citizens domestically. This explains the fears of the leaders of this regime of domestic struggles turning into instruments of pressure on foreign policy. Indeed, internal stability and the ability to manage a successful foreign policy have become closely linked, as weakness on the domestic front greatly weakens Iran's ability to negotiate from a position of strength over its difficult issues, whether those regarding its ties to regional neighbors, or those connected to its relations with the West in terms of the nuclear crisis. Nothing is more indicative of the confusion and mutual accusations over the management of foreign policy than the “surgery” performed by Ahmadinejad at the Foreign Ministry, which ended with the dismissal of Minister Manouchehr Mottaki. Indeed, any amateur following the situation in Iran knows that the one holding this portfolio, or any other in Iran, is merely an executive tool in the hands of the decision-maker, namely Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, or Ahmadinejad as long as he continues to hold the trust of the Supreme Leader and to abide by his orders. Consequently, justifying Mottaki's removal by saying that he failed to achieve the results expected of him is a laughing matter. And although Mottaki did not wish to defend his work, his merely saying that the decision to dismiss him was “contrary to Islamic teachings” raises the ceiling of criticism quite high in a regime that calls itself the “Islamic Republic”. Manouchehr Mottaki does not have the status of a Mohammad Khatami, a Mir-Hossein Mousavi or a Mehdi Karroubi, but it is important to remember that he represented the outward image of Iran throughout the past five years, and that his surprising shift to the ranks of critics of the regime increases the pressure of the internal struggle and reinforces the accusations leveled against Ahmadinejad and his team of dictatorship and despotism. Indeed, Mottaki has never been known to deviate a hair's width from the instructions he received, especially in negotiations over the nuclear issue. That is why his appointed successor Ali Akbar Salehi says nothing new when he calls for special relations with neighboring countries, especially Saudi Arabia and Turkey. Indeed, Mottaki was never known to be against relations with those two countries, or against establishing relations of cooperation with European countries instead of the policy of confrontation. And if there has been failure in this respect, responsibility for such failure falls on those who designed the policies, not on those who merely implemented them.
