by Mehdi Bagheri
TEHRAN, Dec. 29 (Xinhua) -- Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who started his second term of presidency in the summer following a highly controversial election, faces a mixture of old and new challenges both inside the country and in the world arena.
Domestically, he has to tackle the old economic issues and new challenges from the defeated opposition leaders in June election. Internationally, he still faces Western pressure over Iran's nuclear issue and deals with the United States with a new leadership.
SUBSIDY REFORM TO SAVE ECONOMY
Ahmadinejad's campaign slogan of establishing equality and justice by distribution of wealth for his first term in 2005 still needs a lot to be done, as the Iranian economy remains hamstrung by high unemployment rate and high inflation rate over the years.
The inflation rate, which has been floating between 15 percent and 25 percent during the past years, has been the indicator of Ahmadinejad's unfulfilled promise to save the economy, some local economists said.
The president has advocated an economic reform plan, which is aimed at cutting government subsidies on key consumer goods, including energy and bread, and redistributing the saved money among lower-income families.
He claimed that if the plan is implemented, "there will be no poor person in the country" and the public's economic status will "definitely improve."
However, a number of Iranian financial experts and economists have raised concern that scrapping subsidies may cause further inflation to have negative impact on the lives of the people and on the economy.
The Iranian Majlis (parliament) recently passed the subsidy reform bill with many modifications amid Ahmadinejad's discontent and the bill was sent to the Guardian Council, a powerful legislative body that can veto any law passed by the Majlis, for final approval.
The Guardian Council announced later that it finds problems with the subsidy reform bill and will send the draft law back to the Majlis for more work. More arguments over the bill between the government and the Majlis are expected in the near future.
POST-ELECTION CRISIS STILL LINGERING
Ahmadinejad won the June 12 presidential election with 62.63 percent of the total ballots amid claims that the election had been rigged in favor of the incumbent president. Protests gripped Tehran and other Iranian cities afterwards with thousands of people arrested but most of them released later.
Iran's state media said about 30 people had been killed in relevant clashes, including some in custody. However, the opposition claimed that at least 72 protesters were killed in the post-election unrest.
The wide-spread protests in Tehran and other Iranian cities after the June 12 presidential election have become sporadic, but it still remains a serious challenge for the government to control the socio-political climate.
The reformist opposition, led by the two defeated candidates, Mir-Hossein Mousavi, the former prime minister from 1981 to 1989, and Mehdi Karroubi, the two-time parliament speaker from 1989 to 1992 and from 2000 to 2004, has not stopped its challenge to Ahmadinejad's legitimacy.
But with the support from Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the powerful Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) and most of the conservative camp, so far Ahmadinejad has been strong in his position.
However, as part of the most serious crisis for the Islamic Republic since its establishment three decades ago, opposition supporters still stage-unauthorized protests on some major anniversaries or official events to "hijack" state-sanctioned rallies.
It remains to be seen how the Islamic Republic establishment will deal with the lingering unrest, which has been so far contained with high-handed measures, and manage to cure the rift in the society.
MORE PRESSURE OVER NUCLEAR STANDOFF
Ahmadinejad's controversial re-election and Iran's crack-down on protests irked the Western countries and threatened to worsen the prolonged standoff over the Iranian nuclear issue.
However, the dispute over Tehran's atomic program showed signs of relaxation in early October when Iran resumed direct discussions with the five UN Security Council permanent members plus Germany (5+1) and, most significantly, with U.S. officials in Geneva.
EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana told reporters following the Geneva meeting on Oct. 1 that the Iranians agreed to open a newly-disclosed nuclear facility to UN inspectors and all parties agreed to resume talks later that month.
Later in October, four inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) arrived in Iran to visit its newly-disclosed Fordo uranium enrichment plant near Qom, about 150 km south of Tehran.
Meanwhile, representatives from Iran, the United States, Russia, France and the IAEA met in Vienna from Oct. 19 to 21 to discuss the nuclear-fuel supply for a research reactor in the capital Tehran.
A draft agreement, presented by then IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei, calls for shipping most of Iran's existing low-grade enriched uranium to Russia and France, where it would be processed into fuel rods with a purity of 20 percent.
The United States, Russia and France agreed to ElBaradei's proposal, but Iran demanded more talks. The Ahmadinejad administration's latest counter-proposal suggested that a simultaneous swap of Iran's 400 kg of 3.5 percent enriched uranium with higher-level fuel be taken in the Iranian island of Kish, which has been rejected by Washington.
Moreover, after the IAEA board of governors passed a resolution in late November calling for the "full cooperation" of Iran over its nuclear program, the Ahmadinejad administration retaliated by announcing that Iran will produce 20 percent enriched uranium itself and plans to build ten more uranium enrichment facilities.
Faced with a stubborn Iran, the United States and some other Western countries have floated the idea around of imposing fresh sanctions against the Islamic Republic.
Responding to Ahmadinejad's defiance over a year-end deadline to accept the nuclear fuel deal, White House spokesman Robert Gibbs made clear that December is "a very real deadline" for Iran to "pursue its responsibilities" on the nuclear issue.
NO SIGNS OF RESUMING TIES WITH U.S.
An important question still needs to be answered cautiously: Would it be possible for Ahmadinejad to restore the long-broken relations with the United States, as new U.S. President Barack Obama has offered to "extend a hand" to Iran?
The United States broke off diplomatic ties with Iran in April 1980 after a group of Iranian students seized the U.S. embassy in Tehran in 1979 and captured some U.S. diplomats for 444 days in the hostage crisis.
A vague sign of possible thaw in the relations between the two arch foes emerged in 2009 as Obama took office in January with a slogan of "change" in the ties with the Islamic Republic with which the United States has had no diplomatic ties for nearly 30 years.
Iran's semi-official Fars news agency reported on Aug. 30 that Ahmadinejad's new government opted for a study of relations with the United States.
"Studying negotiations (with the United States), its consequences, advantages and disadvantages ... are on the agenda of the government's foreign policy," an informed source told Fars, adding that the government "seeks to persuade the new U.S. administration to avoid bragging and be practically committed to its change slogan."
Ahmadinejad has repeatedly said he was ready for holding a public debate on international issues with the U.S. president. "We are ready for debates and talks on global issues... and I think this is the best way to solve world issues," he said.
On Oct. 1, bilateral meeting was held between U.S. Under Secretary of State William Burns and Iran's chief nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili on the sidelines of the Geneva nuclear talks. However, Iranian officials claimed later that the meeting was held in the framework of Iran's nuclear talks and had nothing to do with the relations between the two countries.
Meanwhile, there was no significant development in Tehran and Washington's cooperation in Iraq. Iran also accused the United States of kidnapping an Iranian nuclear scientist on a pilgrimage in Saudi Arabia and supporting the Jundallah rebels in Iran's border areas near Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Iran also denounced Obama's interference in Iran's domestic affairs after the U.S. president expressed full support for the reformists' post-election unrest when receiving his Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo, on Dec. 10.
In order to deter Iran from pursuing its nuclear program, the U.S. House of Representatives on Dec. 15 approved a legislation to impose sanctions on foreign companies that help to supply fuel to Iran. Tehran has denounced the measure and insisted it will fail.
With never-ending disputes over a series of issues and piled-up grievances, animosity runs deep between Iran and the United States and there was no sign so far of possible resumption of ties between the two countries in the near future.
Special report: Yearender 2009
