“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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How Supreme is Iran's Supreme Turban?

Supremely Paranoid;
Photo from Economist

There is something quite important afoot, that bears paying attention to. Patrick Clawson and Mehdi Khalaji have co-authored an interesting piece in the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, which provides a rare insight into the internal power struggle between the two main factions of Islamic Republic's axis of power, the supremely paranoid Khamanei's faction (see "Men of Principle") and the capitalist/technocrat mullah Rafsanjani. It also looks like the democracy-hating *Heideggerian Crocodile (Ayatollah Mesbah Yazdi), spiritual leader of Ahmadinejad, counting the days to replace opium-smoking Supreme leader. Interesting note on the co-author of this article, Mehid Khalaji: Mehdi Khalaji has been a frequent contributor to the Assembly of Experts journal Hukumat-e Islami. In addition, assembly speaker Meshkini is a longtime friend of the Khalaji family. Long article but worthwhile. Here are some highlights:
Rafsanjani excels at turning obscure posts into power centers. As Majlis speaker in the 1980s, he became a central powerbroker between the feuding president (Khamenei) and prime minister (a post since abolished). Ayatollah Khomeini subsequently created the Expediency Council to resolve differences between the many power centers in Iran's complicated government structure, later enshrined in the constitution. Although the council was initially weak, it acquired a large, active staff and a new headquarters next to the Supreme Leader's offices once Rafsanjani stepped down as president in 1997 and was appointed council chair. Intriguingly, the council has the main say in what happens while the Supreme Leader's post is vacant, at least until the Assembly of Experts elects a new leader.

Rafsanjani took full advantage of his success in the December 2006 assembly election to assert himself on the national stage. In early 2007 -- a period when Ahmadinezhad was being criticized in the conservative press for endangering Iran's national unity and security by acting too combatively, and when reports were circulating of Khamenei's ill health (e.g., Fars News Agency stated that he was hospitalized briefly) -- Rafsanjani began acting as if he were the real powerbroker. In February, he made a widely publicized round of visits to top ayatollahs in Qom. Rumors flew that, in addition to seeking their general support, he was sounding them out about reducing Khamenei's power. Then, at the first meeting of the new assembly, he stated, "The Fourth Assembly of Experts could exercise its supervisory powers more than before."

Khamenei came roaring back, however, with several fire-breathing major addresses around the Nowruz spring equinox holidays. The Supreme Leader reaffirmed the hardline stance on the nuclear program and asserted that any talks with the West had to be conducted under his strict control.

What to Expect Next, and Implications for the West

If permitted to remain at the head of the Assembly of Experts, Rafsanjani would pose a persistent and open challenge to Khamenei. Accordingly, the assembly will likely meet soon to place a politically inactive senior cleric atop the assembly, such as Mohammad Imam-e Kashani, the Tehran Friday prayer leader. Even in that case, however, Rafsanjani's twin posts at the assembly and the Expediency Council give him a power base from which he can maneuver to limit or replace Khamenei.

In the event that Khamenei dies, the new Supreme Leader would most likely be a compromise candidate rather than either of the two polarizing figures said to want the post: Rafsanjani, a technocrat, and Ayatollah Muhammad Taqi Mesbah Yazdi, an extreme hardliner openly dismissive of democracy. The senior clerics, the Majlis, the technocracy, and the revolutionary power structure (i.e., the IRGC, Basij, and the foundations that control the economy) all share a common interest in a weak leader with limited ability to check them.

For the West, there are many advantages if Iran's leadership is weakened by internal disputes. Such an Iran would be busier domestically and therefore less able to concentrate on foreign adventures. It would also be more aware of its weaknesses and therefore more likely to compromise. To be sure, a weak Supreme Leader would presumably have less authority to impose difficult compromises on objecting factions. That, however, seems like a price worth paying in order to see a less powerful revolutionary leadership.

*Heidegger and Ayatollah Mesbah Yazdi

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The arrest of Mr. Moussavian is a direct attack on Mr. Hashemi Rafsanjani

Friendship between Rafsanjani
and Khameneh'i might turn to cut throat fight.

Safa Haeri of Iran Press Service, based in Paris (IPS), asserts that the recent arrest of Mohammad Hoseyn Moussavian, a senior Iranian diplomat and former nuclear negotiator on alleged charges of espionage and passing sensitive nuclear information to foreigner is likely a direct threat against him and his family by the hard liners, led by Mr. Khameneh’i and this time, he is bound to retaliate this time around after bowing down to many other humiliations he has suffered. Here are some tidbits:

“To destroy the political-financial of the Hashemi Rafsanjani empire, Khameneh’i, known to be utterly revengeful, narcissistic, egocentric and stubborn, needed a robo-cop, a fanatic-ambitious adventurer. All the people he had tried for this operation had evaded the responsibility, knowing the power of Mr. Hashemi Rafsanjani. Finally, his head hunters found Mahmoud Ahmadi Nezhad, an obscure former revolutionary guard officer teaching civilian engineering at the Tehran University”, he added.
Ushered into the presidential race of 2005, he did not minced his words promising to fight big “corrupt fishes” until “uprooting them”, letting it be known that he is aiming the former president and his family, believed by many Iranians to be among the 100 richest families of the world.
Once elected as president with the help of ayatollah Khameneh’i, Mr. Ahmadi Nezhad renewed his attacks against Mr. Hashemi Rafsanjani to the point that the Chairman of the Expediency Council openly complained to the leader, warning him to shut the new President or he would “open the Pandora's Box”.

[...]For some insiders, the fact that the seasoned diplomat and nuclear negotiator was detained on charges of espionage and passing nuclear information to foreign agents is not a coincidence, taking into account that there are more and more talks about a possible compromise in the nuclear standoff between Iran and the 5+1, namely the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council plus Germany in the one hand and rumours about possible direct meetings between Tehran and Washington concerning normalization of relations.

I say, Let's Open the Pandora's Box, Please.

Whatever the reasons, political observers have no doubt that the detention of Mr. Moussavian, a personality much respected outside the country, would backfire on both the leader and the president as well as on the Iranian regime.
Mr. Hashemi Rafsanjani has suffered many humiliations at the hands of Mr. Khameneh’i and every time, he has bowed, probably aware of the fact that in case he rebels, it could cost the whole of the theocratic system. But it seems that this time, the threats against him and his family by the hard liners, led by Mr. Khameneh’i, is getting too close for not reacting.

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Appeasment=Surrender

This was swiped in full from Ardeshir's blog:


Whatever, regime must go

It is argued, on behalf of the regime, that the presence of the Iranian made bombs and explosives does not per se indicate the involvement of the Islamic government in the killing of American soldiers. The presence of Iranian bombs and explosives may or may not indicate that the regime at its highest level is involved in supplying the insurgents with these bombs and explosives. However, at least one thing it does illustrate is the regime’s inability to have controls over such weapons of mass destructions that it either produces or is supplied with from outside. This is exactly the point. Is it not? That should a rogue regime with its track records acquire nuclear technology and eventually nuclear bombs, would it not be possible thatt the nuclear technology and bombs could fall into the hands of some terrorist groups?


Many compare the present situation with the Russians and Chinese supplying of arms to the enemies of the West. This is what they say: When the Russians and Chinese were supplying our enemies we did not go to war with these countries because such attacks on these countries would have been detrimental to us and the rest of the world. We talked to them, negotiated, and eventually found peaceful solutions. Richard Nixon was talking to both the Chinese and Soviets at the same time when we had troops on the ground in Vietnam being killed with their weapons. And eventually the negotiations paid off.



I am not here to argue that America should attack Iran. But rather counter argue with those who argue we should negotiate with the regime. There are a number of factors that are very different this time around that do not seem to be taken much notice of by those who want America to negotiate with the Islamic regime. Firstly, both the Russians and Chinese had full control over their weapon productions and the supplying of these weapons was always endorsed at the highest levels. The communist system should be hailed for their total control over their system if not anything else. Besides, The Russians and Chinese had nuke bombs and surly a war with the Russians and the 1.2 billion Chinese would be catastrophic. This is why negotiations were the most pragmatic approach. The Islamic regime, however, is not in control of its weapons or itself for that matter and most importantly, the Islamic regime does not value life in the same way the Russians and Chinese did and do. It is true that both regimes executed and still do (perhaps more so in China) dissidents but none of them considered sacrificing their country and/or the entire population for their cause unlike the Islamic regime that believes in order to advance Islam, it may be necessary to sacrifice a whole country. This is what Ayatollah Khomeini said and what Ayatollah Khamenei is saying right now! Secondly, at the time of the war in Vietnam, there was not a ticking clock as such. The present situation is a race against the time. The Islamic regime is not far from acquiring enough technology to make its first nuclear bomb and that is why decisions and actions must be taken swiftly and correctly.


As an Iranian, I would naturally oppose any form of military attacks on my homeland, but I do condemn any form of negotiations with the regime that would either prolong or further strengthen their tyrannical rule. I wish those who want the West and America to negotiate with the Islamic regime would also make some reference to the suffering of the Iranian people at the hands of the regime.

Related Posts: Iran Is 'Suicide' Nation.

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