Crunch in Iran??
The Iranian clerics have much to fear, and not just from foreign threats. Their incompetence and corruption has ruined the economy. Unemployment among young Iranians is about 50 percent. Some 40 percent of the population is on the government payroll, and there is not enough oil money to pay off all the people who do support the government (about a third of the population). Thus the government keeps printing more money, and the result in an inflation rate of over 20 percent. The Iranian people are getting increasingly restless, and, more ominously, surly. strategy page
My sense is that Iran is an increasingly brittle society with an increasingly fragile economy. The mullahs can, probably, keep order in the streets by financing street fighting militas and giving them a free hand. What they cannot do is find more gasoline or food.
Internal opposition will tend to increase as economic conditions deteriorate. One of the reasons why sanctions against the regime should be tried is that they have a serious chance of working.
Or, of course, we could just reconcile ourselves to an Iranian bomb. A position a bit easier to adopt in Victoria BC than, say, Israel or even Italy.
Written by jay on June 3rd, 2007 with
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