December 30,2008: The lifestyle police are portraying fashionable clothes and haircuts as the first step on the road to revolution (against the religious dictatorship). The government is targeting the children of the middle class which, historically, is a source of serious danger to unpopular Iranian tyrants. In addition to the affluent families, students (high school and university) are picking up on this and becoming more outspoken in their opposition to the government. This is bad news for the religious leaders, as the economy does not function without the educated specialists coming out of the universities. And increasingly, there are not enough qualified people to do the complex jobs. The kids graduate from college, then flee the country.

Iranians, apparently military personnel, have been spotted in Eritrea. Here, for over a year, Iran has been supplying money, weapons and other equipment for Somali Islamic radicals who have taken refuge in Eritrea (which shelters them because the Somali radicals advocate annexing parts of Ethiopia, a long time enemy of Eritrea.)

Iran continues to restrain its support for Shia Islamic terrorists in Iraq. Partly it's because of better border security on the Iraqi side, but mainly it's a continued decision to halt vigorous support for pro-Iranian Iraqi Shia radicals. There is still some support, indicating that, long term, Iran still plans to use terror in Iraq to support its interests (the eventual annexation of southern Iraq, for the oil and Shia religious shrines.).

Anti-Iranian attitudes are growing in the Arab world. Iran contributes to this by ordering up violent demonstrations against Arab diplomats in Iran for the slightest of reasons. Arab nations have become more outspoken in their hostility towards Iranian policies (like trying to take over the leadership of the Moslem world). The Arab states are hostile to Iran getting nuclear weapons, but cannot agree with Western nations on how to use sanctions and diplomacy to keep Iran away from a nuclear weapons capability. The U.S., and a few Western nations, are continuing to move ahead on their own use of financial sanctions. This has been going on for years, and involves tracking down where Iran is using the banking system to finance terrorist and nuclear weapons development operations. When the Iranian banking activities are found, they are shut down by being cut off from the international banking system.

Venezuela is denying that its state run airline is being used to smuggle missile components from Iran to Syria. Many people in the region do not believe the denials.

The government is running out of money. The price of oil has collapsed, providing only about a quarter of the cash that was generated six months ago. The government is cutting expenses as rapidly as it can, and creating much additional anti-government activity in the process..

Iran has tried to generate a lot of Islamic unity against Israel, because of the recent Israeli efforts to stop Hamas rocket attacks on Israel, have not succeeded. Many Arabs now hate and fear Iran more than Israel. Iran also has to worry about its creature, Lebanese terror group Hezbollah, going after Israel as it did in 2006. Israel has been planning on how to handle a rematch for the last two years. Iran fears that Hezbollah will get hammered even worse the second time around, and has many high ranking intelligence, security and diplomatic personnel in Hezbollah headquarters, with orders to keep a lid on it.

December 29, 2008: A suicide bomber attack in southern Iran left three dead and ten wounded. The object of the attack was a police station, and Sunni radical group Jundallah took credit for it.

December 27, 2008: An explosion in a munitions plant in central Iran left eight people dead. The cause was not announced, or is not known.