In haze of normalcy, Iran's new president carves a hard line

TEHRAN -- On the surface, little seems to have changed in the Iranian capital since President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad took office in August.

But underneath the veneer of normality, Iranians are watching as their controversial president settles into office -- and their country hardens under his fundamentalist leadership.

In his first five months in power, Ahmadinejad has carved an image of himself as a religious extremist and political radical. To many in the most conservative circles, this is a welcome change. But in Tehran's usually hectic bazaar, merchants complain of stagnant business. Inside homes, families wonder whether they need to brace for stiffer economic sanctions or international isolation.

To both insiders and outsiders, the political face of Iran seems to have drastically changed. Gone is the well-groomed, rosy-cheeked reformist President Mohammad Khatami, who coined the phrase ''dialogue of civilizations." Ahmadinejad, draped in a Palestinian kaffiyeh, the scarf that he has appropriated to signal his struggle against perceived injustice, has stirred international ire with virulent anti-Israel rhetoric. (He was quoted as saying Thursday that he hoped Ariel Sharon, the ailing Israeli prime minister, died.)

Meanwhile, his habit of immersing politics in sacred Islamic tradition has chafed critics within Iran.

At home, Ahmadinejad is known for his populist ways. As mayor of Tehran, he shunned the large office accorded him in favor of a smaller side office and remained in his small apartment in a working-class neighborhood instead of taking the luxurious mayoral house on the capital's north side.

Upon his election, Ahmadinejad visited the shrine of his idol, the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. In choosing his ministers and governors, he has relied on officials with backgrounds in the Revolutionary Guard as well as the intelligence apparatus.

An ideological transition appears to be underway. The director of Tehran University, for example, was replaced by a cleric. Western music was banned on state television and radio.

Internationally, Ahmadinejad's reputation is quickly growing as a result of his vitriol. The Iranian president has called the Holocaust a myth and proposed that Israel be moved to Europe, the United States, or Canada. Last Sunday, he accused European nations of seeking to complete the genocide by establishing the ''Jewish camp" of Israel in the midst of Muslim countries, according to the official Islamic Republic News Agency.

''I'm happy to see the Western world ache," said Amir-Reza Vaezi-Ashtiani, a city councilman who worked with the president, ''because that means the president is putting his finger on the right spot. They know the Holocaust is a scenario spun in their own hands."

Analysts have read varied intentions in the president's words. Western countries uniformly condemned the remarks, and Israel and the United States urged the three European nations negotiating with Iran on its nuclear program -- France, Germany, and Britain -- to take his statements into consideration.

Moderate Tehran legislator Mahmoud Mohammadi said the president has many supporters in parliament ''who feel that no one protects the rights of Palestinians, and the West unashamedly supports Israel and its terrors."

But even in Iran's mostly conservative parliament, the hard-line president has found himself unable to get traction. In a first for the Islamic Republic, lawmakers turned down four of the ministers Ahmadinejad asked them to approve. It took him three months and four candidates to seat an oil minister. Some reformist legislators even agitated for hearings on the president's ''lack of political competence."

''The representatives did not believe the president was taking advantage of the superb human resources that we have for filling government posts," Mohammadi said, ''and was instead more interested in bringing people from a very narrow circle of ideologically like-minded supporters."

Ahmadinejad is regarded as ''more revolutionary than the revolutionary fathers," and some analysts believe this could ruffle feathers at the top.

In October, top leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei increased the powers of the Expediency Council, which resolves conflicts among government branches.

It is headed by old-guard revolutionary Hashemi Rafsanjani, whom Ahmadinejad bested in the election, and some saw it as an attempt to keep the new president's powers in check.