Iran at the Crossroads

Something ominous is going on in Iran right now - and it has nothing to do with nuclear weapons. The ruling clerics - and their pet poodle, Ahmadinejad - are striking back. One fact that America and the West have perhaps not grasped fully is that the Iranian hard liners are so conservative, they make George Bush and the Republicans look like bleeding heart liberals. When they feel threatened, they are going to hit back with a vengeance - and they are not going to bother about niceties like fundamental rights and due process of law. I know this first hand, because I have lived through Ayatollah Khomeini's Islamic Revolution in 1979.

And why are Ahmadinejad and his black-robed masters worried? Because Iran's economy is in a mess. This is particularly inexcusable, since Iran is not one of those basket-case Islamic countries, like Sudan or Aden. Iran is literally sitting on a sea of oil. The country's oil reserves are second only to Saudi Arabia and far greater than those of Iraq. Like the cash rich Saudis, Iranians should be awash in petrodollars. Ordinary Saudi citizens have most basic services provided free of cost by their government; and most of them do not even pay income tax. Ordinary Iranians, on the other hand, are seeing a steady downward curve in their standard of living. Before the Islamic Revolution, one US dollar would fetch you 70 Iranian Rials; now it will get you more than 9000. Not surprisingly, inflation is going through the roof. Ahmadinejad's government had promised economic prosperity for the people; not an unrealistic goal considering that Iran is the world's second largest oil producer and oil prices are going up all the time. However, it has failed to deliver on almost all fronts. The supreme irony is that Iran is now seriously considering rationing gasoline.

Turmoil in Iran

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