“I PRAY to God that I will never know about economics,”~ President Ahmadinejad

Islamic of Republic of Iran is, purely and simply, the theft of billions and billions of oil revenues, aided and abetted by the criminal IRGC/basij forces of the velayate-faghih government at nearly every level of the state-dominated economy.

The redirection of a huge portion of Iranian treasury to the pockets of fat, smelly mullahs, conservatives, reformers, and their corporate army (IRGC, basiji) is conducted with the active support and full power of the supreme leader and almost completely unfettered by supervision, accountability or direction of any kind whatsoever.

The corporate/religious IRGC (IR's Halliburton), the basiji and the clergies have merged into a fascistic religious military industrial complex.

The most notable characteristic of a fascist country is the separation and persecution or denial of equality to a specific segment of the population based upon superficial qualities or belief systems. Simply stated, a fascist government always has one class of citizens that is considered superior (good) to another (bad) based upon race, creed or origin. It is possible to be both a republic and a fascist state.

The preferred class lives in a republic while the oppressed class lives in a fascist state. Fascism promotes legal segregation in housing, national resource, education, health care, other resource allocation and employment. It provides legal justification for persecuting a specific segment of the population and operates behind a two tiered legal system.

These two tiers can be overt as it was within Nazi Germany where Jews, Homosexuals, Catholics, Communists, Clergy and the handicap were held to one set of rules and courts, while the rest of Germany enjoyed different laws.

In Fascism, one segment of society is always considered less desirable, sub-human (women, homosexuals, Bahai, sunnis, kurds, baluchis) or second class.

The IRI is also Reactionary wherein it makes policy based upon current circumstances rather than creating policies to prevent problems; piles lies and misnomers on top of more lies until the truth becomes indistinguishable, revised or forgotten.

In short, Iran is a huge profit center for Khamanei et al and his corporate Army, IRGC. Inc.

The Economist has a special report on the state of economy in Iran (Full- text here)

“I PRAY to God that I will never know about economics,” President Ahmadinejad once said when questioned about apparent contradictions in his economic policy. The Lord appears to have answered his prayer. On his watch, the world oil price has soared from $62 a barrel when he was elected in June 2005 to $72 a barrel in recent weeks. Iran, which has a young, well-educated workforce, along with the world's second-largest reserves of both oil and gas, should be on a roll. Instead the economy is struggling. Is this a weakness the world can use to dissuade Iran from its nuclear ambitions?

Since almost all official economic statistics are suspect, measuring the performance of the economy is hard. But Afshin Molavi, an Iran-watcher at the New America Foundation in Washington, DC, calls slow economic decline “the untold story of the Iranian revolution”. The economy is showing respectable growth of about 5%. But it is recording high and rising unemployment and inflation. The government puts unemployment at around 10% but private economists think it is twice as high—and that many of those with jobs have to take second ones to make ends meet. Mr Ahmadinejad's government claims to have reduced the rate of inflation. In fact it has almost certainly gone up: guesstimates by foreign embassies in Tehran put it as high as 25%. Meanwhile, foreign investment is puny—and falling (see chart 2).

[...]

But there are two bigger reasons for Iran's underperformance. One is the lopsided structure of an oil-based economy in which a corruption-riddled public sector dwarfs private business. The other is incompetent economic management, especially by Mr Ahmadinejad.

Oil revenues bring in some 80% of export earnings, but even with a high world oil price the government finds it hard to pay its bills. Tough buy-back terms have deterred foreign investment in the oilfields and hampered production: a quarter of a century after the revolution, Iran is pumping only two-thirds as much oil as before. Meanwhile the government operates a vast, price-distorting system of subsidies for food, energy, housing, bank credit and much else. According to the IMF, energy subsidies alone reached 17.5% of GDP in 2005-06, and total subsidies amounted to 25% of GDP. A Consumer and Producer Protection Organisation keeps price controls on cereals, sugar, baby milk, fertilisers and pharmaceuticals, paper and agricultural machinery. This edifice of subsidies places huge demands on public spending and would collapse if it were not for the oil revenues (see chart 3).
Among the maddest of the subsidies is that on petrol. Even after a recent 25% price hike it is still the cheapest in the world, at 11 American cents a litre. That has encouraged an annual 10% increase in consumption, plus impossible traffic and choking pollution in all of Iran's cities.

Selling petrol so cheaply is hardly an incentive for domestic refiners to raise production, so Iran has to import more than 40% of its petrol and other refined products. Much of this is smuggled back out (allegedly by the Revolutionary Guards) to be sold at a higher price. In short, Iran spends a fortune subsidising cheap petrol not only at home but also for consumers in neighbouring countries, wasting money it could otherwise have spent on increasing its flagging oil production. The government's decision last month to introduce rationing provoked violent disturbances. Since many Iranians use private cars to top up meagre incomes by becoming unofficial taxi-drivers, the consequences of this measure will be widely felt.

The IMF calls Iran's economy “state-dominated”. And how. Revolution and eight years of war have made for vast government. In most sectors state-owned companies or the opaque quasi-state foundations known as bonyads crowd out private businesses. Agriculture, internal trade and distribution are mostly in private hands. Even so, estimates of how much of the economy the government controls range between 65% and 80%...more

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Ahmadinejad (on Supreme Leader's order) Wants Contorl of the Economy

photo: Ayatollah Khamenie in the middle in his army fatigue before he became the supreme leader. He is on his way to torture or issue order of killings dissidents in 1979

There is no "justice" in the World without Islam"--Suupreme Leader of Iran, Ayatollah Khamanie

The president wants control of the economy to improve Islamic Republic's "global responsibility. The goal includes the spread of what Ahmadinejad described as justice and "kindness" around the world, and changing "the structure of international relations in the interests of nations" ("Hamshahri" reported on August 13). You might think that the bearded boy's "agenda for the world" is something new; you'd be wrong. just read this article, which was published in 2005.


Here is more on the removal of Iran's oil and industry ministers from the Economist:

"The Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has engineered the removal of Iran's oil and industry ministers in a move widely interpreted as signalling his push to impose his will and control over core areas of the economy in the lead-up to the parliamentary election scheduled for March 2008.
The oil minister, Kazem Vaziri-Hamaneh, and his industry colleague, Alireza Tahmasebi, were both reported to have tendered their resignation, but it has been widely assumed that Mr Ahmadinejad ordered their removal. That Mr Vaziri-Hamaneh was the president's fourth choice as oil minister (after Mr Ahmadinejad's initial nominations were blocked by parliament soon after his election in 2005), and Mr Tahmasebi was increasingly identified as opposing the president's industry reform plans, certainly made their departures that much more likely. However, the impromptu dismissal of these two senior ministers is still surprising and focuses attention once more on the internal political power-play currently underway within the government and the ruling conservative elite.here is the rest of it.

Do it my way
The replacement of the oil minister of one of OPEC's leading member states—Iran is the second-largest producer in the group, after Saudi Arabia—would normally be expected to cause ripples in the world oil market. However, the reaction of the oil market has been muted, reflecting the dominant view that these moves have more to do with domestic politics than with oil policy. Mr Ahmadinejad seems to be hoping that with parliament distracted with the impending elections, he will be able to force through his new nomination without too much hindrance. Gaining control over the oil ministry is deemed critical for a president who was elected on a pledge to bring oil revenues to each and every Iranian household. Having failed to live up to such promises after almost two years in power, and with sentiment turning against an administration that recently imposed fuel rationing on an unsuspecting population, Mr Ahmadinejad has made his oil minister a convenient scapegoat. Some Iranian newspapers have suggested that Mr Vaziri-Hamaneh had been seeking clearance to sell gasoline at market prices to drivers that have used up their subsidised rations, but that the president had refused on the grounds that this would stoke up inflation. (Earlier this year he decreed that interest rates should be cut in order to bring down inflation, overruling the central bank, which was inclined to the more orthodox approach of raising rates.)

Mr Vaziri-Hamaneh has also faced harsh criticism for supposedly having agreed to sell gas to Pakistan and India too cheaply. Even though a final agreement in this so-called "peace pipeline" is still a long way off, the controversy that has been whipped up over the pricing undoubtedly helped to hasten the minister's departure.

The president has named Gholam-Hossein Nozari, the head of the National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC), as interim oil minister, and Ali Akbar Mehrabian, the president's representative on the parliamentary fuel consumption committee, as the stand-in industry minister. Mr Nozari was put in charge of NIOC in 2006 in a shake-up of positions within the oil industry. He is thought to favour offering more attractive terms for foreign companies to invest in Iran's upstream oil and gas sector, but it is unlikely that he will be allowed to show much initiative, given the clear signs that Mr Ahmadinejad is intent on maximising his control over economic policy.

The replacement of the two ministers follows moves by Mr Ahmadinejad to order root-and-branch changes in several state institutions. The most significant was the decision in July to reorganise the Management and Planning Organisation (MPO), which has been the backbone of economic planning and budget drafting for the past six decades, by integrating it into the Office of the President. The president argued that the move would streamline the bureaucracy and speed up decision-making, but it shocked many officials and economists already critical of government economic policy, who argued that it would weaken co-ordination between different government departments and organisations. Farhad Rahbar, the head of the MPO, resigned in protest at the move, and suggested that although he agreed with the concept of restructuring, the haste of the change would undermine planning expertise.

Vote FILF
The upcoming parliamentary and presidential elections—Mr Ahmadinejad'sterm ends in mid-2009—provide the political context to these battles within the Iranian administration. The general election is likely to be a closely-fought contest between the dominant conservative camp and a relatively resurgent reformist opposition. Internal dissent within the conservative camp has propelled senior figures to call for the formation of a unified list. These calls acquired a greater sense of urgency following a gathering of the general assembly of the Followers of the Imam and the Leadership Front (FILF), a major conservative faction, in June. The FILF had already established a six-member team aimed at forging unity among the various conservative groups. In December's local elections the conservative vote was split broadly between lists associated with Mr Ahmadinejad and those set up by his critics. The relative success of the reformist camp and of supporters of the former president, Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, in both the local and the Khobregan (Assembly of Experts) elections, which were held concurrently, have convinced conservatives of the need for greater co-ordination. Not satisfied by the appeal and performance of his fellow conservatives, Mr Ahmadinejad has reverted to the old maxim whereby "the leader knows best". In seeking to regain control over the government and in bolstering its true conservative credentials (a move aimed at maximising Mr Ahmadinejad's support amongst his core constituency), further cabinet reshuffles cannot be ruled out as the president moves to impose order on his often recalcitrant ministers. The foreign minister, Manouchehr Mottaki, and the central bank governor, Ebrahim Sheibani, are thought to be most vulnerable to the president's whims.

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Caliphate Purse! (Kisayeh Khalifeh)

It reads the: "The future or the coming World war . Some of the Guards: Ahmadinejad, the leader of Mahdi Army which is going to liberate Jerusalem. Don't give up on nuclear, it's connected to The Appearance of Imam Mahdi." ( I think it's a cover of book by Shadi Faghih)

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Southern Lebanon right before the Israeli-Lebanese war
Photos: Courtesy of Amir who took these pictures while vacationing in Lebanon. (Note: Check out his blog's archive under trip to Lebanon. He has a very interesting travelogue of his trip to Lebanon right before the war.


The Supreme Leader continues to approve and dictate his errand boy's, Ahmadinejad, policies. His orders include destabilizing the region politically, turning neighbors and foes against one another, meddling and undermining sovereignty and independence of many states in the Islamic world, and mounting a high-profile anti-U.S. publicity campaign in South and Latin America.

Meanwhile, Iran's economy on the verge of disastrous collapse and the government places inflation rates at 12-13 percent but according to Iran's Parliament Research Center the figure is actually closer to 20 percent.Unemployment is at its all time high and many workers are out of jobs. More than 11 million live in extreme poverty and close to 40% live below poverty line (est. 2002) and the GDP of less than $8000 and Income Per ca pita of less than $3000 justifies 'assissting muslim brethern' in the name ummah at the expense of Iran and Iranians.

Endangering the future of generations of Iranians for decades to come and against Iranian nation's interest, the Islamic Republic in its attempt to hold on to power at any cost, keeps pushing for global Jihad to fulfill Khomeini's manifest destiny of 'one world under Islam'; it continues to use old time tactics of buying loyalties of mercenaries and foreign legions with the oil revenues that belongs to the Iranian people.

The Islamic Republic spends [(squanders oil revenues on perceived (NOT REAL loyalty)] money lavishly, handing out cash and building hospitals, roads, bridges, and schools for southern Lebanese Hizballah. So far,IRI has rebuilt 200 schools, 150 places of worship (mosques), 30 clinics and 25 bridges. The official budget for this year is about $120 million) and the key priority is repairing the national road network. This is one year after war with Israel, provoked by Hezbollah’s kidnapping of Israeli's soldiers. Iranians are outraged:

Many Iranians are disgruntled over their government's decision to hand over 25 million dollars in aid to a Hezbollah-linked relief group in Lebanon, an Iranian newspaper has reported.The daily Aftab Yazd, known for its criticism of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's hardline government, in an editorial cited a reader's letter in which the amounts of money being sent to Lebanon were described as "inappropriate".

Aftab Yazd noted how "many areas destroyed during the eight year war with Iraq which ended in 1988 were still awaiting funds for reconstruction" with thousands of people still displaced because their homes have yet to be rebuilt. (Not to mention those who became homeless during the Bam Earthquake)

Last week an Iranian envoy in Beirut, Hossein Khoshnevis, handed over a 25 million dollar cheque to Nabil Al Jaser, who heads the Council for the Reconstruction of Lebanon, a body set up by Hezbollah in the aftermath of last year's six-week long war with Israel.Khoshnevis also announced that 43 of the 63 villages Iran has pledged to help rebuild have been completed.

The envoy also said that some 149 schools, 150 mosques, and 25 medical aid centers damaged in the fighting have been refurbished.Also over the last year Iranian funds helped remove explosive mines from some parts of southern Lebanon, Khoshnevis added as well as repair work to some roads and the reconstruction of 12 bridges bombed by Israeli war planes.Hezbollah was created by Iran in 1982. Iran has been training and funding Hezbollah ever since.

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