WASHINGTON — The surprise victory of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in Iran's presidential election is likely to exacerbate tensions within the Bush administration over how to deal with Tehran and its possible quest for nuclear weapons, analysts said Saturday.
As the mayor of Tehran, Ahmadinejad is a relative newcomer to the national political scene. Despite his reputation as an ultraconservative, he has virtually no track record with major international issues.
Because of this, Bush administration officials who advocate engagement with Iran as well as administration hard-liners who seek to isolate the Islamic Republic are likely to portray the outcome as buttressing their positions, several U.S.-based experts said.
Despite Bush's inclusion of Iran as part of an "axis of evil" in early 2002, his administration has been so divided on Iran that it has yet to produce a unified policy directive.
But hard-liners have lost ground, and voices within the administration arguing for some form of engagement have grown stronger. In February, for example, Bush agreed to support a European Union effort to negotiate an agreement in which Iran would give up its quest to enrich uranium in return for economic and security incentives.
U.S. hard-liners may now point to the victory of Ahmadinejad, who has called for Iran to move ahead at full speed with "peaceful nuclear technology," as evidence that even indirect engagement has failed.
"They will argue that they've been vindicated," predicted Allen Keiswetter, who served both President Clinton and Bush as a deputy assistant secretary of State for Near Eastern affairs before joining the Middle East Institute, a Washington-based think tank. He said advocates of engagement would urge a wait-and-see response to Ahmadinejad's victory, noting his mainly domestic background and the prominence of domestic issues in the election.
Ahmadinejad used hard-edged rhetoric against Iran's foes during the campaign, and he strongly endorsed Iran's right to pursue nuclear technology -- as did all the other candidates. But it was other issues, including tax policies, job creation and corruption, that appear to have influenced the electorate the most.
"It's difficult to say this is not a referendum on relations with the United States, but I really think it was his domestic platform that appealed to voters," Keiswetter said.
