The Sacking of the Iranian Minister of Oil
Randa Takieddin Al-Hayat - 22/08/07//
It is difficult to explain what is happening in Iran in terms of its domestic politics, particularly when it comes to the oil sector. How can Iranian officials explain to their people that, with Iran currently the second largest country in OPEC, the country has to ration its gasoline because it is suffering from a shortage in oil-derivative supplies?
No doubt that this large country with its ever-increasing population and massive oil and gas resources is suffering from a strange and bizarre political administration. Iran has been relying on oil derivative imports for years because it lacks the ability to refine oil, and since the imposition of American and international sanctions, Iran's problems with importing oil derivatives have grown. American economic sanctions and pressure on international banks not to deal commercially with Iran have also played a fundamental role in the availability of imported oil derivatives.
What is peculiar is that Iranian president Ahmadinejad's sacking of oil minister Kazem Vaziri-Hamaneh and his temporary appointment of the head of the state-owned National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC) Gholamhossein Nozari (considered to be a conservative) as caretaker minister appears to be a move designated to make Vaziri-Hamaneh a scapegoat and victim of bad policymaking by the Iranian administration over the past few years. The Iranian president had nominated Vaziri-Hamaneh after his 3 previous nominees for the ministerial position were rejected by parliament in 2005. Ahmadinejad was elected in August 2005 and was not able to appoint an oil minister until December of that year. Vaziri-Hamaneh's sacking reflects deep divisions among different parties within the Iranian political system.
Analysts of the situation had been betting since Ahmadinejad was first elected president that within two years his failure to deal with domestic issues would be revealed, as would his failure to keep his promises to the constituency which elected him. Sure enough, ever since Ahmadinejad became president, Iran's problems with the West and with its regional neighbors have been aggravated, and everyone in Iran perceives real authority to be in the hand of the Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. Ahmadinejad's failures, especially in an issue which concerns every Iranian citizen, fuel rationing, are the responsibility of a president who was elected by a nation under the impression that he would improve the situation. Instead however, the problem appears to have only gotten worse, for the Iranian president is more concerned with external than internal politics. He values his strategic alliance with Syria and intervenes to help his allies in Lebanon and supplies them both with financial aid while his own countrymen cannot use their cars or public transportation as they wish because they cannot secure even the lowest level of an easy, normal life in a rich country which produces nearly 4 million barrels of oil a day.
The Iranian oil sector is currently facing grave challenges, the biggest of which is a large decrease in the production capacity of several oil refineries, whose number is dwindling and which are in need of new projects and financing for development. Oil sector officials are facing a challenge when it comes to securing such investments and new projects which would entail the implementation of advanced techniques. Additionally, the Iranian oil refining sector requires expansion and new refineries to be built, and how can that happen with Iran in a standoff with the West, adopting policies which are not in the interest of its people, which are built on offensive principles and intervention in the affairs of countries such as Iraq and Lebanon and other Arab countries? Iran's hegemonic ambitions in the region must go; the great Iranian people are thirsty for comfortable and trouble-free domestic conditions. The current Iranian regime does not realize that the Iranian Revolution which brought Khomeini to power was the result of the Iranian people's discontent with the Shah's foreign policy decisions which neglected the people in favor of external hegemony, and because the Shah wanted to be the third military power in the world.
Iran should be more concerned with its resources and internal politics, and less so with who will become the next president of Lebanon, how to secure more authority for its allies there, and how to support Hamas against the Palestinian Authority.
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