Anyone but Bush Ahmadinejad?

By Steve Hynd

Leading Iranian reformist presidential candidate Mohammad Khatami has dropped out of the race with just under three months to go until elections. There's a very astute analysis of why and what might happen by Meir Javedanfar over at RealClearPolitics.

In short, it's an "anyone but Bush" situation and the opposition reformists and moderates are coalescing around a compromise candidate, former prime minister Mir Hosain Mousavi. The latter isn't anything like as well known as Khatami, but he now has a big electoral machine at his disposal and, crucially, he gets on far better with the Supreme Leader than Khatami does.

If elected, Mousavi would be far less controversial a figure, and far more likely to want to bring Iran back into mainstream international relations - but Ahmadinejad is his main opponent now. I worry that Mousavi is a "compromise by grey man", like John Kerry in '04 and unable to inspire or captivate the way Khatami might have. All it would need would be a small international crisis to boost Ahmadinejad's hardline credentials and make voters forget the awful economy to boost the latter into a second term, Bush-style.