Ahmadinejobless

Majid/Getty Images NewsIt hurts: Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is feeling the political pain.

In Tehran, the mood is quickly shifting. And its easy to feel it every time you stop to buy a newspaper, have a coffee, or wait in line at the grocery store. Mahmoud Ahmadinejads star is fading fast.

Since his election in June 2005, Iranians have had conflicted feelings about their president. At first, he evoked interest and curiosity. And there were great expectations from this humble man who was promising economic reform, an anticorruption campaign, and a rigid moral scheme for daily life. Then came fearwhen Ahmadinejad began to destroy any chance of good relations with the outside world.

But today in Iran, laughter is supplanting fear. Mocking the president has become a pastime not only for rebellious university students, but also members of the establishment and the government itself.

Behind the high walls of Iranian palaces or in the quiet of Tehrans parks, Iranian elites will indulge in a quick laugh about the presidents intelligence or his populist bombast. Jokes about his rsum are especially popular. Many refer to his Ph.D. in traffic or his letter last May to U.S. President George W. Bush, in which he proclaimed, I am a teacher.

The jokesand who is delivering themtell the story of a man whose power is on the decline as Irans economy collapses around him. Prices for basic goods are skyrocketing, and the government is unable to cope with increasing poverty. Just last month, over 50 Iranian economists sent an open letter excoriating the presidents mismanagement of the economy.

For each public gathering, his loyalists must now arrange hundreds of buses from the remotest and poorest regions of the country. The presidents rented crowds shuffle off the buses for an hour or two and then enjoy Tehran sightseeing, lunch, and dinner paid for by Ahmadinejads inner circle in the administration.

Perhaps the best evidence of the presidents decline, though, is the single-digit support obtained by his party in last Decembers administrative elections. A personal defeat for Ahmadinejad, the loss reduced his base of support to an elite minority inside the powerful, hard-line Revolutionary Guards, also known as the Pasdaran. Its this same minority that struggles against any attempt to open Irans economy and political system; with their extensive oil holdings, they are unperturbed by the countrys isolation or its economic woes. But even inside the Pasdaran, one can find distinct viewpoints and conflicting interests, which is why Ahmadinejads political stronghold is far from secure.

In fact, there are already signs that his job is in jeopardy. Tehran is rife with speculation that Ali Larijani, who is now widely seen as positioning himself for the post-Ahmadinejad era, and Mohammed Baqer Qalibaf, who competed against Ahmadinejad in 2005 and is still popular with members of both conservative and reformist camps, are already working to undermine the president. The next presidential elections are scheduled for June 2009. As a pragmatic conservative and one of Irans most prominent politicians, Larijani in particular is likely to do well. To be sure, he is no reformist along the lines of Ahmadinejads charismatic predecessor, Mohammed Khatami; in fact, Larijani was happy to see the reformists swept from the political scene following Ahmadinejads election. And as his tenacity as Irans top nuclear negotiator shows, he would be no shrinking violet on the international stage. At the same time, however, Larijani fairly drips with disdain for his boss, a president he sees as devoid of skill or rational stratagem in dealing with the rest of the world.

But its likely that Ahmadinejads power will decrease dramatically even before 2009. The elections for Irans parliament in March 2008 could represent a turning point if the majority inside the parliament shifts against him. Ahmadinejad still has a strong supporter in Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati, who heads the 12-member Guardian Council that holds the political reins in Iran. The Council must clear all candidates for the presidency and parliament. But the Council itself is not monolithic, and it will be impossible to keep all the reformists and pragmatist conservatives out of the electoral race. But even if Ahmadinejad makes it through next spring, many analysts in the country are ready to bet that he wont be reelected in 2009; the opposition is just too strong, and the economy will likely be in worse straits by that time.

In fact, the only thing that could save him now is the United States. Nobody knows this better than Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. As his support within Iran has evaporated, he has cranked up the anti-American rhetoric, and the U.S. military has publicly accused the Pasdaran of arming insurgents in Iraq and even Afghanistan. At this point, the only way Ahmadinejad can revive his flagging fortunes is by uniting his country against an external threat. U.S. officials adamantly maintain that Washington is committed to using diplomacy to resolve the conflict over Irans nuclear program and its aggressive role in the region. Yet pressure is mounting in some branches of the Bush administration to take military action against Iran. That pressure should be resisted. For military action would give Mahmoud Ahmadinejad exactly what he wants most: job security.