Following on from Not PC's post a week ago reporting how Iran insanely is introducing petrol rationing (having subsidised the price, scared off foreign investors due to previous compulsory nationalisations), the Sunday Telegraph reports that average Iranians are tiring of Ahmadinejad.
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Petrol is priced at around NZ$0.31 a litre, and average Iranians see it as an entitlement - something that in itself ought to change. So the rationing has annoyed many. However, more economic disaster has appeared, as his Stalinist style economic planning and spending programmes fail to deliver. He visits villages, promises to build roads and houses and disappears. His latest mad idea is to build vast steel, cement and petrochemical works, with the steel works apparently 200 miles from the nearest iron mines.
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Middle class educated Tehran has never supported him, but as unemployment and inflation remain high, the poor are also turning. His centralised control and personalisation of policy are coming back to haunt him.
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Inflation is at 40%, think about it, as nobody in New Zealand or Britain under 25 can remember inflation above 5%. 50 senior Iranian economists have written an open letter to Ahmadinejad saying his policies are hurting the poor he claims to represent. His response to the crisis has been to replace officials with his own lackeys.
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Sadly the average Iranian is not concerned about the country's nuclear programme or Ahmadinejad's desire to destroy Israel. However, it can only be good if he is hoisted on the petard of his own economic illiteracy. Hopefully it can also deal to the outright evil of the Islamic Republic's oppression of the individual as also reported in the Sunday Telegraph.
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