Iran is a pressure cooker


Domestic and economic demands could derail the government
I'm not exactly worried about Iran. Yes, they could get nuclear weapons, but the internal pressures are phenomenal. This from the International Herald-Tribune on September 4th.

Rents are soaring, inflation has been hovering around 17 percent and 10 million Iranians live below the poverty line. The police shut down 20 barbershops for men in Tehran last week because they offered inappropriate hairstyles and women have been banned from riding bicycles in many places, as a crackdown on social freedoms presses on.

For months now, average Iranians have endured economic hardship, political repression and international isolation as the nation's top officials remain defiant over Iran's nuclear program.

But in a country whose leaders see national security, government stability and Islamic values as inextricably entwined, problems that usually would constitute threats to the leadership are instead viewed as an opportunity to secure its rule.

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's economic missteps and the animosity generated in the West by his aggressive posture on the nuclear issue have helped his government stymie what it sees as corrupting foreign influences by increasing the country's economic and political isolation, economists, diplomats, political analysts, businessmen and clerics said in interviews over the past two weeks.

Those economic pressures aren't so easily dismissed. Short of a major confrontation, those pressures could well ignite another revolution.

Remember, just across the border, the freedom and average income are rising fast.

— NeoWayland

Posted: Mon - September 24, 2007 at 02:50 PM  Tag


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