Keep in mind that Ahmadinejad is a populist conservative politician who has been and is increasingly defined not by his opposition against the slightly less conservative reformists around Khatami but rather by his opposition against the clerical conservatives of the Supreme Leader's institutional government. Meaningful, successful opposition to Ahmadinejad -- which is to say, his likely successor -- probably will not come from Khatami's fold. Rather, a clerical regime loyalist is more likely the next president, which would fit nicely into the current Supreme Leader's campaign to consolidate his own power over the bureaucracies ahead of his own eventual succession.

The interesting question will be whether the next president is closer to Khamenei or Rafsanjani; Ahmadinejad's best hope would be for the Guardian Council to reject all Khatami-allied candidates and for the Khamenei and Rafsanjani factions to oppose each other with strong candidates. A-jad might just survive such a split, although he'd still be the underdog in any conceivable runoff. Domestically, A-jad is the George W. Bush of Iranian politics; even many of his prior supporters regard him as an embarrassing failure. He will need to be blessed by terrible opposition -- and by public support for his new campaign against "corruption" in the clerical establishment -- even to have a prayer of reelection.

Rhubs - analysis is dead-on, as usual, although I doubt if it will be a cleric.  The two front-runners right now are Larijani (the Speaker of the Parliament) and Makhmalbaf (the Mayor of Tehran and former head of the Revolutionary Guards), but of course, in Iranian politics fifteen minutes is a long time, so who knows.

And this is assuming that A-jad himself is not impeached in the meantime.  Several of his supporters in the Parliament have been arrested recently over revelations they made about the depth of corruption in the establishment.  The Minister of Interior he sacked last month has been named the country's Auditor General, which could mean that the judiciary (the subject of corruption revelations) has begun collecting information to get rid of the pesky President.  

Khatami?  The "reformists" are so stupid these days it is a wonder that any sort of reform movement is left in Iran.  The reformist minority backed Larijani for the post of Speaker, in the hope of keep A-jad's allies off the coveted seat and in return for certain Committee membership promises.  Having won the Speakership (for the next four years), Larijani reneged on his promises and shut the reformist minority out of all committee memberships.  If A-jan is Iran's W, Larijani is Iran's DeLay.

I think by this time next year it will be too late to worry about the new president of Iran. Israeli intelligence believes that the next six months constitute the make-or-break period on the Iranian nuclear program. In other words, Iranians will be voting next year after an Israeli airstrike on Natanz. Unfortunately, this may mean that they rally around Ahmadinejad. It's not even clear under that kind of environment that Ayatollah Khamenei would even allow a remotely competitive election to take place. In any case, I think it's premature to talk about the demise of Ahmadinejad.

I find the idea of the Israelis and/or Dick Cheney rushing to ensure Achmadinnerjacket's return to power for a second term somewhat depressing.

Rozenson, I am not sure whether, even in the event of a strike on Iran, that the people will rally around him.  I am not sure where Israeli intelligence gets their info on Iran - this is fast becoming like the "mushroom cloud" alarm in respect of Iraq.  Iran does not have a reactor; it does not have a lot of Uranium of its own, it has managed to tied 600-3000 centrifuges together with mixed results (you need 50,000 to get weapons grade enriched Uranium), it is not clear if it has the knolwedge or the technology to manufacture nuclear weapons - in short, quite a lot of speculation but no concrete information, and the information there is, does not suggest a 6 month timeframe for nuclear capacity.

Olmert's job is on the line and this is the tale wagging the dog at this point.

Icarusr -- I'm not sure why you'd need 50,000 centrifuges to enrich uranium highly enough so that you can build a bomb. The number of centrifuges is irrelevant to how much each one has produced already. The EU issued a report earlier this year saying that if Iran used all 6,000 of its centrifuges at top efficiency (which I will concede is highly unlikely), then it would have enough HEU for a bomb by the end of this year. This comes amid the development that Iran has upgraded its centrifuges to the more advanced IR-2 model, which enrich uranium at 2.5 times the speed of their old centrifuges.

David Albright confirms this: "Albright of the Institute for Science and International Security said that in one year 3,000 flawlessly running P-1 centrifuges could produce enough weapon-grade uranium for one nuclear weapon. Or, he added, the same could be achieved with 1,200 IR-2 machines." -- International Herald Tribune, 4/29/2008

And your information is out of date when you say Iran has no nuclear reactor. There is one in operation at Bushehr, if I'm not mistaken. A dozen more will be built over time, according to announcements.

It's not just Olmert who is worried about the time frame for Iran, but every major politician in Israel, save for the Arab parties. Even the dovish Haaretz knows that Iran cannot be allowed to pass the point of no return. This is not saber-rattling; this is a concern for a country's short-term existence. Given just the remarkable technical advancements Iran has made in one year, Israel does not feel that another year can go by without Iran's progress being halted.

Bushehr is not in operation.  It has taken 38 years to build.  And Iran does not have the fuel to run it.  Iran's a menace, but n'exagerons pas.