Ahmadinejad's most visible foreign policy successes were in Africa. How will these relationships be affected when the new president, Hassan Rohani, takes power?
When Iran's outgoing president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, steps down from office on 3 August, he will leave behind a complex range of challenges for his successor, Hassan Rouhani, and a mixed legacy for his country.
Internationally, Ahmadinejad is well-known for his pursuit of a nuclear programme and his strident - though sometimes mistranslated - criticisms of Israel. However, Iranian foreign policy during his two terms in office has been about more than just Israel and the International Atomic Energy Agency. And perhaps the most dramatic shift in Iranian foreign policy under Ahmadinejad was his diplomatic and economic outreach to Africa.
Ahmadinejad, Africa's ally?
The most noticeable and memorable moment in the strengthening of ties between Iran and Africa may well have been the historic trip to Cairo this February, when Ahmadinejad became the first Iranian president since Iran's Islamic revolution of 1979 to visit Egypt. However, this visit was in fact just one of Ahmadinejad's five visits to Africa during his two terms in office, and Egypt is one of over a dozen African countries Ahmadinejad has visited as president.
Africa has been a key focus of Iran's foreign policy ever since Ahmadinejad took office in 2005. In 2008, the president said that he saw "no limits to the expansion of ties with African countries", and Iran has made a range of commercial and diplomatic deals with African countries in the past 8 years. Before the end of his tenure, President Ahmadinejad ensured he cemented ties with West Africa by visiting Benin, Ghana and Niger this April.
Historically, energy has been one of the main driving forces in Iran's relationship with Africa. During the era of apartheid South Africa, for example, pre-revolution Iran used to acquire uranium in exchange for oil. Today, energy continues to play an important role in relations - and Iran has recently invested in refineries in Eritrea and Senegal - but the nature and ties between Iran and African countries has also diversified and taken on new forms of significance. An important factor in this - which Iran's foreign minister, Ali Akbar Salehi, has referenced on a number of occasions - is the continued diplomatic pressure and isolation of Iran from the West.
Senegal and summits
Senegal is one African county that received particular attention from Iran under Ahmadinejad. During his reign, relations between these two majority Muslim countries flourished, one reason being that Iran recognised Senegal's diplomatic importance and strong influence over Francophone Africa in the United Nations. Between 2005 and 2010, Ahmadinejad and then Senegalese president Abdoulaye Wade met on numerous occasions and Iran made several commercial deals with Senegal, including a significant investment in the Khodro car factory.
However, this close relationship faltered in 2011 when Iranian arms were found in the hands of Senegalese rebels, resulting in an abrupt breaking of diplomatic - though importantly not economic - relations.
At the most recent Organisation of the Islamic Cooperation (OIC) summit in Cairo in February, however, a senior Iranian diplomat was tasked with improving relations with Senegal. These efforts were said to be successful.
Indeed, summits have proven useful to Iran in helping improve relations and forge new ties. As well as the OIC Summit, Iran under Ahmadinejad has hosted summits of the Non-Aligned Movement - over which it is currently presiding - and the G-15, a group of developing nations seeking to establish beneficial cooperation between the member-states (which includes Kenya, Senegal, Zimbabwe, Algeria and Egypt).
Iranian forays
In some areas, Iran's rise to prominence has been almost unchallenged. In the Comoros islands, for example, former President Ahmed Abdallah Mohamed Sambi sported an Iranian style turban and pushed pro-Iranian polices so much so that his opponents nicknamed him "the Ayatollah".
However, in many other areas, Iran's forays have encountered much more resistance. For example, Western sanctions gradually forced South Africa, which imported an estimated $3.4 billion worth of Iranian oil from May 2011 to May 2012, to cut off all imports of Iranian oil. South Africa bowed to Western pressure last August, days before then US Secretary of State Hilary Clinton's visit, to avoid financial sanctions. Despite the significant cost of having to alter refineries to deal with different types of oil, the proposed sanctions - levelled by the US and the EU at countries who continued to import Iranian oil - were too significant to ignore.
And elsewhere, Iranian aspirations run in the face of those of other regional powers seeking to expand their influence. In Somalia, for example, Iran and Turkey have competed fiercely for the government's favour. In 2011, Turkey's prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, became the first non-African head of state to visit Mogadishu for nearly 20 years. In response, the Iranian Government has shipped dozens of freights of humanitarian aid - containing rice, flour, cereal, medicines and sugar - to Somalia, with the largest one weighing 5000 tonnes.
Sign up for free AllAfrica Newsletters
Get the latest in African news delivered straight to your inbox
An uncertain future
Iran has strengthened links with many African countries in a range of diplomatic and commercial ways. However, we must not give all the credit for this blossoming relationship to Ahmadinejad alone - many of Africa's leaders have been wary of the West and just as eager to forge new partnerships. Zimbabwe's Robert Mugabe, for example, announced a policy to "Look East" just as Ahmadinejad began to expand ties to what the Iranian media still sometimes refer to as "the dark continent".
These overtures from Africa are likely to continue, but what president-elect Hassan Rohani's vision for Iran-African relations looks like is not yet clear. As a moderate conservative who ran on a platform of mending ties with the outside world, Rohani may end Iran's alleged relationship with Somali militants al-Shabaab and focus instead on economic ties and trade.
Two things that are certain, however, are that Rohani will soon learn the intricacies and complexities of Iran's relationships with African countries - for instance, the fact that Iran's political goals for the region often conflict with economic interests (note, for instance, Iran's support of Senegalese rebels) - and that, thanks to his predecessor, he will have a significant platform upon which to build Iran's African relations.
