May 10, 2007:
The biggest source of discontent in
the country is economic. Inflation is about 18 percent and the
unemployment rate is moving past 30 percent. Since Ahmadinejad took over,
the price of oil has skyrocketed, bringing in lots more money, yet the Iranian
GDP growth rate has dropped from four percent a year, to three percent. As a
result, the average Iranian is worse off than before. Ahmadinejad
promised to spread the oil wealth around, but that has not happened, and most
Iranians are not happy. Ahmadinejad and his politically correct attitudes
are the cause of the spreading poverty. Ahmadinejad has taken action, but
mainly to halt economic activity with the outside world, which he considers
largely hostile to Islam. Ahmadinejad wants Iran to be self-sufficient,
like North Korea. You get the idea. So do most Iranians, and they are not happy
about it. But they are still not willing to fight to change it.
Labor unions are illegal, yet workers have formed
them anyway, demonstrate, and end up brawling with police and Islamic
conservative irregulars. The workers want jobs, and are increasingly willing to
get organized, and get out in the street and fight. Meanwhile, the lifestyle
police have been ordered to crack down on women who do not cover up, and
thousands have been warned, or arrested. This has sometimes led to street
violence, and in some neighborhoods, the lifestyle police stay away, unless
they are prepared to come in force and ready to fight.
The government sees no reason to change course on
its nuclear program, nor its attitude towards the threat of economic sanctions
from Europe and the UN. Iran is on a Mission From God, and nothing else
matters.
May 3, 2007: In April, at least 69 Iranian
made EFP (armor piercing) roadside bombs were used in Iraq. The smuggler
gangs, that have been bringing the special bomb components in from Iran,
have been uncovered and rounded up. The smugglers are paid well by Iranian
terrorist support organization The Quds Force, to get the bomb components
across the border. But more and more Iraqis are fed up with the violence, and
call the police with information about the weapons smugglers.
May 5, 2007: The government arrested
one of its nuclear weapons negotiators, Hossein Moussavian, and accused him of
spying for Germany.