Riots in Iran Over Gasoline | An Opportunity for Change?

Iran's Ahmadinejad I probably sound rather silly and melodramatic when I state my longing for credible and agenda-free news coverage that focuses on the real issues facing the U.S. and the world. Perhaps extremely silly! So yes, there is indeed a wonderfully diverse news universe out there … but you have to know where to look and you have to find time and energy to dig for each and every one of them – scrapping for credible news and opinion.

How I’d love an aggregated, formal, honest, coherent and balanced view of the world. A news provider - a singular, unbiased and proud news organization! Anyone know of any? Please do not say the not-so-quaint B.B.C. [I’m from Great Britain, remember?] Their America bashing is downright annoying.

How about a news agency that tells average Joe about the issue of Iran? Not necessarily a topic for the ratings chasers but I’d suggest a pretty damn important issue as based on the plethora of ‘I can’t bloody believe it’ news articles on that blessed nation.
As I’ve comment in many posts … even the lovely French believe Iran is pivotal to curing a major portion of the world’s angst and civil strife. Former French ambassador to the United States, diplomatic advisor to President Nicolas Sarkozy and head of France’s National Security Council – Mr. Jean-David Levitte was quoted (in Chicago) as saying:

“[Of the middle east issues – they have a] kind of glue between all of them, and this glue has a name, Iran.”

Reports by the mainstream media of the growing civil unrest inside Iran have been thin, at best. Coverage of the Iranian government’s attempts to crack down on dissent has received little to no attention whatsoever. The Iranian people are increasingly showing their displeasure for President Ahmadinejad and his centralized command-economy and it is quite conceivable that ‘Moderates’ within the Iranian legislative might seize opportunity to press for change with a little more hustle!

Alas this has been said before and you might be right when you suggest the Mullahs will never concede power nor shift their agenda away from their own firebrand objective of a global Islamic revolution. But who knows? Not talking about it does little and is more dangerous than at least trying to understand the pressures both Iran and the world face!

Iran’s economy is in tatters. Inflation is creeping out of control; Iranian people now face rationing of prized gasoline despite the fact that Iran has one of the world’s largest reserves of crude oil. Recent civil unrest flared into all-out rioting at a number of locations across the capital of Tehran as civilians revolt against the newly imposed coupon rationing of civilian automobiles.

Fifty-seven of Iran’s leading economists filed a joint statement in Iranian newspapers openly blaming Iranian President Ahmadinejad for the economic tailspin. Suggesting his handling of foreign policy has resulted in tougher United Nations sanctions that have all but strangled foreign investment and trade – the lifeline of any growing nation.

The U.N.’s Secretary-General, Ban Ki-moon, is urging the Western nations to show restraint as they debate placing even more sanctions on the already suffering Iranians. Efforts to force the Iranians to open their nuclear enrichment programs having all but failed.

In an interview published last week (June 19) by the World Tribune, former-Iranian diplomat, Senior Fellow at the International Strategic Studies Association (ISSA) and a vocal opponent of the Iranian Islamic Republic, Dr. Assad Homayoun gives a succinct picture of the possibilities for internal revolt:

“The Iranian internal situation is dire, at levels of hardship and suffering unseen in recent memory. Young people are unemployed; there is 25 percent unemployment nationally, inflation is at 22 percent, drugs and prostitution and hunger continue to eat away at the nation from the inside out and all of this is because of the mismanagement and corruption of the regime. It is as much a kleptocracy as it is a theocracy.

A report leaked to ABC News recently revealed a “covert” CIA program to “increase economic pressure” on Iran. As far as I’m concerned, the Iranian Government does not need the help of the CIA to wreck the Iranian economy: the mullahs appear to be accomplishing this well enough by themselves. As the historian E. H. Carr wrote in What Is History?: “Politics begin where the masses are not thousands, but millions.” Nowhere, then, could politics be more serious than now in Iran where the people opposed to this regime are, indeed, in the millions. There are close to 50-million young people, possibly more, under the age of 25.
The reality is that the regime is in worse shape than ever, and the people are ready to rise and need only be galvanized.”

What we need, therefore, is subtle diplomacy with Iran. Neither the extremist Neocon agenda nor the stick sans carrot approach of the Israeli administrations. Current sanctions, it can be clearly argued are working slowly but are working. Chipping away at the stability of radicalized President Ahmadinejad and his Mullah cronies whilst not pushing the will of the people too far and into the arms of a nationalist embrace of an ideologically unbalanced Ayatollah.

Military action or tougher sanctions will play straight into the hands of the Islamic Clerics. Further proof that the puppy dog United Nations continues to take orders from the long-time aggressor, the Satanic United States.

Silly decisions … such as the Queen of England deciding to Knight a more than controversial author - Salman Rushdie - a proven aethiest and Islamic heretic - don’t exactly help matters and further deliver ‘proof’ to the Islamic world of the West’s distaste for Muslims everywhere. [Comments by a leading Iranian influencer]

The West needs to be careful. The United States has few friends these days but a boat load of enemies sniffing weakness and baying for blood. Any excuse will suffice and the United Nations must display a unified position that conveys a purpose and an objective for Iran and the middle east!. Stability.

Some excellent reading:
‘Inside Iran‘ - Blog

‘The Great War for Civilisation’ by Robert Fisk