Iran Tottering On The Edge

HOW BAD are things in Iran? It’s hard to know. Our international media are good at showing us made-for-TV bombs in Baghdad, but not very good at peering under the blankets of thug-dictator regimes like Ahmaninejad’s.

According to Spengler, things are in very bad shape. Inflation is 20 percent, monetary expansion 40 percent, and it is beginning to look as if the regime is faking its economic statistics. Then there is employment, or lack of it.

Iranian dissidents put overall unemployment at 30% and youth unemployment at 50%. Government subsidies sustain a very large portion of the population; 42% of the non-agricultural population is employed by the Iranian state, compared with 17% in Pakistan.

And now Ahmaninejad has passed a decree to roll back interest rates. Yeah.

So what is going to happen? Is Iran going to stop its imperial program, or go for broke? Can we talk them out of it?

An old piece of diplomatic wisdom states that one always should give one’s enemy a way out. But I see no way out for the pocket empire of Persia.

That means war, and war sooner rather than later. Maybe even this very summer.

After all, it is at least 18 months till the Democrats take over in the US and that may be too long.

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Christopher Chantrill blogs at www.roadtothemiddleclass.com. His Road to the Middle Class is forthcoming.

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