By CLIFFORD KRAUSS
The Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, is expected to lead next month’s OPEC conference in Vienna as he presses for higher oil prices to aid Iran’s struggling economy, while also seeking to protect and consolidate his power at home as he confronts a growing split with the nation’s supreme leader.
As chairman of the meeting on June 8, Mr. Ahmadinejad is likely to inject a bit of drama into the usually predictable proceedings, in which members of the 12-nation bloc generally follow Saudi Arabia’s lead in promoting moderate oil prices. His position may complicate Saudi Arabia’s ability to direct policy at a time when industrialized nations are pressing for more production to restrain oil price increases.
But the issue for the Iranian president appears to be at least as much about his political fight with Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, as about his desire to seek increased prices, analysts said. Mr. Ahmadinejad has been engaged in a power struggle with Ayatollah Khamenei that has already diminished the president’s standing and undermined his authority, analysts said.
“Ahmadinejad is looking for a public stage to both proclaim his own importance in the Iranian leadership and assert his views in a very public way for the first time since the Arab awakening,” said Suzanne Maloney, an Iran expert at the Brookings Institution.
The Iranian news media on Thursday reported on Mr. Ahmadinejad’s plan to lead the OPEC meeting, only days after he shook up his cabinet, making himself the acting oil minister. Iran holds the organization’s rotating presidency for the year. If Mr. Ahmadinejad does not appoint a new minister by the time of the meeting, he will deliver the opening remarks.
The split with Ayatollah Khamenei, who was the president’s strong ally when he was first elected in 2005 and again in 2009, emerged last month when Mr. Ahmadinejad sought to dismiss Heydar Moslehi, the chief of the powerful intelligence ministry. Ayatollah Khamenei, who insists on maintaining control of the intelligence ministry, ordered that Mr. Moslehi be restored to his post. For the next 11 days, Mr. Ahmadinejad stayed home and missed cabinet meetings in a visible sign of pique.
Mr. Ahmadinejad now appears to be making another move to assert his authority. In recent days he fired three ministers in a cabinet streamlining effort, temporarily taking over the oil ministry just in time for the OPEC conference where he can project himself on the world stage.
But at home his conflict with the supreme leader has left him vulnerable to conservatives who already opposed him, and even to some of his allies, including Ayatollah Mesbah Yazdi, his spiritual mentor, who has sided with Mr. Khamenei in this dispute. The political maneuvering has followed the pattern of several past Iranian presidents who tried to assert their authority in their second terms, only to be ultimately restrained by the supreme leader.
“This is an internal story about who is going to be in control of Iran’s policies,” said Helima L. Croft, a senior geopolitical strategist at Barclay’s Capital. “Ahmadinejad is trying to demonstrate his mastery.”
But the economic aspect is also important to Iran, a fact the president seems to be trying to exploit for political gain. As OPEC’s second-largest oil exporter, Iran has long been a powerful voice in the organization for higher prices. Iran relies on oil exports for about 80 percent of its public revenues and to offset the impact of international sanctions.
But Tehran’s efforts have been blocked over the past two years by Saudi Arabia, by far the biggest OPEC exporter. Saudi policy has become less clear since the outbreak of public unrest and demand for democratic change throughout North Africa and the Middle East in recent months.
The Saudis boosted production as world oil prices began to rise late last year, and promised to keep production at higher levels to compensate for the loss of 1.3 million barrels a day of Libyan oil because of the unrest there.
But in recent months, Saudi Arabia curbed its output, saying that the world market was saturated and the increase in crude oil prices was due to speculation, not lack of supply. Concerned about its own stability, Saudi Arabia has sought to mollify its own citizens by instituting expensive social programs and increased defense spending, which require higher oil prices to pay for. That change has put the Saudis’ position a bit closer to Iran’s, although Mr. Ahmadinejad can still be expected to push for still higher prices.
There are other pressures to hold prices down, too. The International Energy Agency, which represents the industrialized nations, said in a statement that “there are growing signs that the rise in oil prices since September is affecting the economic recovery.” It urged producers to boost output to “help avoid the negative global economic consequences which a further sharp market tightening could cause.”
World supplies could be at a tipping point if turmoil spreads to more oil producers. Libyan crude is difficult for many European refineries to replace because of its high quality. Nearly 90 percent of Yemen’s usual 260,000 barrels a day of crude production has been lost as a consequence of a pipeline explosion and strikes, and bombings around oil pipelines and other infrastructure is on the rise in Iraq. In the meantime, foreign oil companies are considering evacuating employees from Syria, which exports over 100,000 barrels a day, because of rising violence there.
Oil prices have eased over the last month by about 8 percent, but they are still nearly 40 percent higher than a year ago. More than half of that increase has come since the last time OPEC formally met last December in Quito, Ecuador.
David Goldwyn, until recently the State Department’s coordinator for international energy affairs, said Mr. Ahmadinejad’s presence at the next OPEC conclave would probably make for “a difficult meeting” but not one that significantly shifted the balance of power in the organization.
“Ahmadinejad may be in the captain’s chair,” Mr. Goldwyn said, “but the Saudis are still at the helm.”
