Iran: biding her time

Iran’s state of play is as follows.

1. Ahmadinejad wants Barack Obama, not John McCain, as the next US president.
2. Ahmadinejad is facing severe inflation at home, brought about by an oil windfall combined with US financial sanctions. This constitutes a political threat to his survival.
3. The Ahmadinejad faction of the Iranian military-industrial apparatus has the most to lose in Iran’s upcoming second parliamentary round, and both presidential rounds of elections, scheduled for May 7, June 17 and June 24, 2008, respectively.
4. Ahmadinejad appears to be losing control of its Iraqi proxies under heavy US and Iraqi pressure. Nouri al-Maliki’s Dawa party seems to be the main Iranian faction gone renegade, but segments of the Mehdi Army appear to be disobeying Iran as well.
5. Nouri al-Maliki’s Dawa party, and the normally reliably pro-Iranian ISCI, are using the security operation to strengthen their own political hands at the expense of the Sadrites, Fadhila, and other smaller groups in Basra (Iraq’s richest province), ahead of Iraq’s October 1 elections.
6. Therefore, Dawa and ISCI — who call the shots from Baghdad — have the motive as well as the means for destabilizing Iraq, 2 months before Ahmadinejad faces Iranian voters.

So what does Ahmadinejad do? He has one of his main allies, Ahmad Jannati, call for “dialogue” and “reconciliation”: “Oh [al-Sadr], if you have something to say, come sit with the government. The government is popular and so are you.” A day later Sadr had received Teheran’s orders, so he called upon his militias to stand down.

Iraqi Shia cleric Moqtada Sadr has ordered his fighters off the streets of Basra and other cities in an effort to end clashes with security forces.

He said in a statement that his movement wanted the Iraqi people to stop the bloodshed and maintain the nation’s independence and stability.

The government, which had set a deadline to hand over weapons in return for cash, called the move “positive”.

The fighting has claimed more than 240 lives across the country since Tuesday.

In Baghdad, the city’s military command has extended a round-the-clock curfew for an indefinite period. The curfew had been due to end on Sunday morning. …

Al-Maliki, however, prefers to continue consolidating power, and the Americans want to turn the screws on Ahmadinejad with as much local help as possible, because they believe Ahmadinejad will do likewise after he wins Iran’s presidential election. Since Sadr’s call falls short of what the Iraqi government is calling for, my guess is that the crackdown will continue, despite the Sadrites’ attempted voluntary cease-fire.

March 30, 2008 | 1545 GMT

Iraqi troops will continue their operation in the southern city of Basra even though Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr called on his followers to stop fighting, Reuters reported March 30, citing comments from Iraqi government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh. Al-Dabbagh said the six-day-old operation is targeting criminals, not al-Sadr’s followers.

Iran seems to have elected to spend the next three months in a defensive crouch. Judging from everything out of Iraq and Syria, they have a lot of militia reorganizing to do on multiple fronts. Asif Shawkat, Syria’s head of intelligence, is suspected to be complicit in the Mughniyeh assassination, which means that Syria is effectively immobilized until Shawkat is eliminated.

If Ahmadinejad survives June 24, he will have a lot of new leverage, the Iraqi militias will snap out of their defensive crouch, and Iran will hold the initiative in Iraqi bloodletting while McCain prays that the violence doesn’t cripple his election prospects.

Until then, it appears that the initiative will be with the United States and its Iraqi allies.

The three months between now and June 24 would also be the ideal time for Israel to hurl a body-blow operation at Hamas, in Gaza. It would further diminish Ahmadinejad’s credibility, but would probably not provoke a response from Hezbollah.

I’m not sure anyone knows the extent to which Ahmadinejad might be able to rig the outcome of Iran’s elections. My impression is that so many Iranian elites hate Ahmadinejad, that Ahmadinejad’s “freedom to fudge” is fairly limited.

In terms of market outcomes this would imply a moderate tempo of oil-related bombings, and geopolitical jolts to the price of oil, over the next three months, followed by a dramatic upswing if Ahmadinejad goes all-in to secure a better bargaining position, by getting Barack Obama, not John McCain, elected to the presidency (through a cycle of Teheran-driven unrest in July through October).