President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s speech in a southern port town has been marred by shouts from disenchanted Iranians demanding jobs.  Ahmadinejad on Monday addressed hundreds gathered in Khorramshahr — about 625 miles (1,000 kilometers) southwest of Tehran — when scores from the crowd interrupted his speech with shouts: “We are unemployed!” The rare protest is unusual in Iran, where Ahmadinejad’s public events are carefully controlled. But public discontent has been rising over Iran’s deteriorating economy. Iran is wrestling with 25 percent unemployment and rising inflation. It also faces possible new U.N. sanctions over its controversial nuclear program that the West fears is geared toward making atomic weapons. Tehran denies the charge.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad sent a letter to U.S. President Barack Obama, the content of which will be made public soon, state-run Press TV reported.

Ahmadinejad, who spoke in an interview with Iran’s national television late yesterday, also said that Iran is Obama’s “only chance” of achieving a foreign policy success in the Middle East, the English-language satellite news channel said in a report. Go to original article.

Mojtaba Vahedi is a senior advisor to opposition cleric Mehdi Karroubi. Vahedi recently came to study in the United States and spoke to insideIRAN.org from Washington.

Go to Inside Iran.

Free Iran:  This is a must read…

Reza Kahlili is a pseudonym for an ex-CIA spy who requires anonymity for safety reasons. “A Time to Betray,” his book about his double life as a CIA agent in Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, will be published by Simon & Schuster on April 6.

…Khamenei ignores the fact that, in the mid-1980s, Mohsen Rezaei, then chief commander of the Revolutionary Guards, got Grand Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini’s permission to develop nuclear bombs. As a CIA agent in the Revolutionary Guards then, I learned of this nascent effort and reported it to my handlers. The Iranians approached several sources, including Abdul Qadeer Khan, father of Pakistan’s nuclear bomb. His account of Iran’s bid to buy atomic bombs from Pakistan was reported very recently.

…That Khamenei has chosen to conceal Iran’s nuclear program shouldn’t be surprising. He also claims that the Iranian government doesn’t condone torture, that the recent Iranian election was just and proof that his nation is a real democracy, and that Iran is not involved in terrorism.

Islamic teaching considers the spilling of blood during the Islamic month of Muharram to be haram. Yet that didn’t stop the regime’s troops from slaughtering unarmed protesters last year on Ashura, one of Shiite Islam’s holiest days.

…Within Iran, radical Islamists have grown in power since Grand Ayatollah Khomeini’s death in 1989. Even Khomeini – an extremist by any reasonable definition – saw them as too fanatic and tried to keep them in check.

These radicals belong to a secret society called the Hojjatieh. It’s essentially a cult devoted to the reappearance of the 12th imam, Mahdi, and Islam’s conquest of the world. To achieve that end, the radicals believe they must foment chaos, famine, and lawlessness, that they must destroy Israel, and that world order must come to an abrupt halt. Free Iran:  Sounds familiar?  It seems awfully like the evangelical Christians that support the most right wing Israeli factions because they believe a major conflict in the Middle East would pave the way for the coming of Jessus Christ. They couldn’t care less about the Jews.  They just want the conflict.  These evangelicals and the Hojjatiehs are two sides of the same coin.  It’s incomprehensible that at the dawn of the 21st century – after the Age of Enlightenment – we still have to deal with this kind of nonsense…

Long ago, my best friend and commander in the Revolutionary Guards reminded me of a hadith, a saying from the prophet Muhammad, about Imam Mahdi: “During the last times, my people will be afflicted with terrible and unprecedented calamities and misfortunes from their rulers, so much so that this vast earth will appear small to them. Persecution and injustice will engulf the earth. The believers will find no shelter to seek refuge from these tortures and injustices. At such a time, Allah will raise from my progeny a man who will establish peace and justice on this earth in the same way as it had been filled with injustice and distress.”

The Hojjatieh see any movement toward peace and democracy as delaying Mahdi’s reappearance.

Although he strenuously denies it, Ayatollah Mesbah Yazdi reportedly sits at the top of this secret society. He is an influential member of the Assembly of Experts (the body that chooses the supreme leader), an adviser to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and the founder of the Haghani School that teaches the most radical Shiite beliefs.

The teachers and students of this school run some of the most important political and security institutions in the Iranian government, including the Ministry of Intelligence, which is involved in organizing death squads against the opposition and coordinating terrorist activities against the West.

Ayatollah Janati, the powerful chairman of the Guardian Council, is also associated with the school. Yazdi, Janati, and Mojtaba Khamenei (Ayatollah Khamenei’s son) were central to President Ahmadinejad’s fraudulent reelection last June and the suppression of the opposition, and they are directing the supreme leader regarding the nuclear program.

…The choices are clear: We can either rise up to our principles and defend the aspirations of the Iranian people for a free and democratic government, or we can continue with our vacillation and indecision, allowing Iran to become a nuclear-armed state.

Instead of counting on watered-down United Nations sanctions, the West should cut off all diplomatic ties with Iran, close down all airspace and seaports going to or from Iran, sanction all companies doing business with Iran, and cut off its gasoline supply. We should then demand an immediate halt to all Iranian nuclear and missile delivery activities and the right to peaceful demonstration and freedom of speech for all Iranians. And if that fails, a military action should be in the cards.  Free Iran:  Not sure about the conclusion of military action?

Go to CS Monitor.

Free Iran:  The Green leaders need to be much tougher on the economic issues.  This is not enough.  They need to say something like this: “Unemployment, inflation, poverty, and class differences are the direct result of this government’s corruption, incompetence and foreign policy adventurism.”  Keep it simple and brief.  It worked for Reagan, Clinton, Putin, Chinese leaders, etc. and it’ll work for the Green movement too.  Unless immediate national securities are at stake, almost always it’s the economy, stupid. Green leaders need to focus all their energies on creating economic boycotts, culminating into strikes by the oil workers.  That’s the only way this regime will be brought down – by cutting off their main source of funding.  To begin this road, the Green leaders need to constantly ask the Iranian people and especially the oil workers:

Are you better off today than you were before Ahmadinejad first took office?

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WSJ:  Iran Opposition Leader Lashes Out at Regime

Iran’s top opposition leader said his protest movement would persevere despite a blistering crackdown, and he leveled fresh criticism at the regime’s handling of the economy and foreign policy.

The message, broadcast in a video release on the Internet to supporters marking the Iranian new year, appeared aimed at continuing Mir Hossein Mousavi’s strategy of broadening the appeal of his movement. He and other opposition leaders have recently moved beyond domestic political complaints to focus on, among other things, economic hardship it blames on the policies of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Mr. Mousavi repeated that grievance and other political complaints he’s made against the regime: “We do not have a free media or the freedoms outlined in the constitution,” he said. “We lack free elections, where candidates are not cherry-picked, and fair competition.”

But he also broadened his criticism to what he suggested was economic-policy and foreign-policy incompetence by the government.

“Economic prospects for the future are not good,” he said. “I am not pleased with this situation. I wish that despite all our issues, we would have seen an outlook to solve these nonpolitical issues.”

Iran’s economy has been buoyed by recently high oil prices. But the country has long been plagued by high unemployment and high inflation, though price increases have moderated recently. Before the June election, Mr. Ahmadinejad suffered criticism, even from some of his allies, for his handling of the economy.

Carnegie:  Iran’s Economy in Turmoil

The Iranian economy is facing its bleakest prospects in nearly two decades, with an almost unanimous forecast of low growth, high inflation, and continued double-digit unemployment. These worsening economic conditions, in turn, are likely to place considerable stress on internal politics, leading to strikes, protests, and business bankruptcies, and encouraging further emigration and capital flight. Persistent structural weaknesses and the Ahmadinejad administration’s gross mismanagement of the economy are largely at fault for the economy’s dysfunction, but recent external developments—including Western banks and industrial companies’ reduced exposure to Iran, possible new sanctions, and increasing transaction costs—are also damaging the economic climate.

…The worsening economic conditions are likely to place considerable stress on internal politics: energizing the “greens” movement, provoking strikes by disgruntled and unpaid workers; giving rise to massive protests by university campus activists; and leading to further exodus of talent and capital, as well as a spate of business bankruptcies.

While the somber trend line and the economy’s poor prospects may still fail to fulfill the wishes of democracy advocates at home (and their supporters abroad), hoping for a “regime change,” such factors as reduced foreign exchange reserves, uncertain oil prices, an overvalued exchange rate, looming external pressures, and internal political exigencies are bound to drastically affect President Ahmadinejad’s major economic policies, if not his bombastic rhetoric, in the coming year.

FT:  Ahmadi-Nejad meets clergy to mend relations

Iran’s president tried to repair his relations with the religious establishment on Thursday by paying a rare visit to the holy city of Qom and meeting senior members of the clergy.

Mahmoud Ahmadi-Nejad held talks with about six senior clerics, who had previously been deeply reluctant even to meet him. “A massive lobby by the most influential authorities happened to convince the clergy to see the president,” said one analyst in Qom.

Mr Ahmadi-Nejad has probably had worse relations with Iran’s religious institutions than any other president since the Islamic revolution in 1979. Partly this is because he has publicly disagreed with the clerics on some social issues: he defied their wishes by trying to allow women to enter stadiums to watch football matches.

Another important cause of the breach is the clergy’s concern over Mr Ahmadi-Nejad’s beliefs about the “hidden Imam” of the Shias, who is believed to have disappeared in 941. Shias believe that he will one day return to bring justice to the world. But Mr Ahmadi-Nejad has publicly predicted that the “hidden Imam’s” reappearance is imminent, causing suspicions that he feels personally connected.

Many in the senior clergy believe that Mr Ahmadi-Nejad and his loyalists have unorthodox beliefs about the “hidden Imam”, comparable to those of a “sect”.

The Qom seminary, with about 50,000 scholars and a dozen grand ayatollahs, is not as powerful as it was in the early years of the revolution. But it still holds a significant position in Iran’s Islamic establishment, able to give religious legitimacy to political factions. Consequently, Mr Ahmadi-Nejad wants to win its backing.

CS Monitor:  Iran protests: Is Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei winning?

“[Khamenei] thinks, ‘If I can have even 20-30 percent of the people with me, and have systematic pressure on the other 70 percent, I can lead for a long time and there wouldn’t be a serious threat against me,’” says Mr. Khalaji, whose father, an ayatollah in the Iranian religious center of Qom, was arrested without charge and held in solitary confinement in Evin Prison for three weeks in January.

“[Khamenei] tries to keep as many people [as he can] inside the circle of the elite, [while] empowering the suppression machinery of the regime more than before,” adds Khalaji.

“What hurts him is that some people can reveal this division,” says Khalaji at WINEP. “The division itself is not important. He thinks, ‘I can manage it, I can deal with opposition, I can intimidate them, I can prevent them from coming to the streets.’

“What is damaging to him is media, is pictures – the image of opposition is damaging for him,” adds Khalaji. “That’s why he’s so tough on media, on intellectuals, artists, writers, professors at university – nobody should talk about it. Talking about this means questioning the legitimacy of the Islamic Republic.”

WP:  Iran jails former vice president, reform activist

Times:  Opposition couple demand ‘year of resistance’ against Iran’s rulers

Khordaad88:  Mir-Hossein Mousavi’s Norouz Message

Khordaad88:  Zahra Rahnavard’s Norouz Message

NYT:  First Couple of Iran’s Opposition Post Video Messages for Persian New Year

RFE:  Call To Release Iran’s ‘Blogfather’ For Norouz

Zamaaneh:  Families of Iranian detainees demand release of their kin

MediaLine: Iran Launches Anti-Sanctions Car Engine

Zamaaneh: Faezeh Hashemi, daughter of Iran’s Chairman of the Expediency Council, Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani told Bahar newspaper that the judiciary has failed to process their lawsuit against Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Rooz: While a number of journalists and political prisoners were released yesterday, speaking to a group of families of political prisoners Tehran’s prosecutor general warned that he would not release individuals whose families had spoken about the matter to media networks.

WP:  Iraq’s Arab neighbors wary of Shi’ite sway after vote Iraq’s Arab neighbors fear a split Iraqi election could further marginalize minority Sunnis and hope any coalition government formed by the Shi’ite frontrunner will resist Iran’s sway.  Many Sunni Arabs had wanted a stronger showing by secularists, who they now hope will bring cross-sectarian balance to any coalition government that could be formed by Shi’ite Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki.  “These election results show that there is a Shi’ite wave in the region which threatens Arab security in the region. Iran has a hidden role in the Arab region and it supports Shi’ite elements in the area, particularly in Iraq,” said Magid Mazloum from the Center for Gulf Studies in Cairo.

Telegraph:  Islamic Iran offers ‘courting’ diplomas to cut divorce Iranian youths can attend courtship classes and earn a diploma before tying the knot as part of a newly introduced government scheme to cut the divorce rate.

WP:  Obama’s foreign-policy success in Pakistan Fareed Zakaria writes:  President Obama gets much credit for changing America’s image in the world — he was probably awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for doing so. But even devoted fans would probably say it is too soon to cite a specific foreign policy achievement. In fact, there is a place — crucial to U.S. national security — where Obama’s foreign policy is working: Pakistan.

Al Arabiya:  Yemen detains Iranian ship over suspicious cargo 15 Pakistani sailors, Iranian captain questioned in Yemen

RFE: Iranian blogs and websites are reporting that this picture — reportedly taken during President Mahmud Ahmadinejad’s trip last week to Hormozgan Province — was removed by the ISNA news agency shortly after being posted.  The reason could be that the appearance of the young woman in the picture is not “Islamic” enough.

HuffingtonPost:  President Ahmadinejad: “7/11 Isn’t Real” In international news, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has publicly denounced 7/11, claiming that the American mini-mart chain is merely a figment of people’s imaginations, and if it did exist, it would most certainly serve mediocre coffee and stale donuts.

TB:  Sharpen the Peaceful Weapon Discontentment has not been quelled, but merely stifled. The public mood is akin to red-hot embers — what Iranians call “fire beneath the ashes” — that can flare up again when the time is right; that is, when incentive for street-turnout is rekindled. This latency suggests disregarding speculations on if future protests will erupt and instead focusing on ways the movement may optimize the time at hand and bolster its agenda. One way the movement could do this is by strategizing its use of slogans.

TB:  Karroubi Aide: Ahmadinejad-Khamenei Rift Widening

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A senior aide to opposition cleric Mehdi Karroubi said today that Iran’s supreme leader has cooled his support for president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Mr. Karroubi’s aide, who worked with the former parliamentary speaker for more than 25 years, was speaking to journalists at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace on Friday.

“The supreme leader’s speeches from June to December of last year strongly endorsed Ahmadinejad. But since Ashura, Ayatollah Khamenei has never once mentioned Ahmadinejad’s name in any public address,” he said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

He added that Ahmadinejad recently appealed to the supreme leader to pressure Majlis, the Iranian parliament, to push through legislation for targeted subsidies, but was coldly rebuffed.

“Over the past nine months, we’ve seen Mr. Khamenei go from praise and support to silence to refusal to back the president,” said the former Islamic Republic official, who recently moved to Washington.

The withdrawal of the supreme leader’s backing of the president is likely to intensify in response to acts of defiance by Ahmadinejad, who considers himself to be the supreme leader’s equal — not his subordinate, Mr. Karroubi’s aide explained.

“When Mr. Khamenei demanded the removal of Esfandiar Rahim-Mashaei from the post of first vice president, Ahmadinejad allowed a full week to pass before Mashaei resigned. Ahmadinejad then wrote to the supreme leader and signed off the letter [with the following innuendo]: ‘May the days of your preeminence last’ [ayaam ezzat mostadam]. This was clearly intended as a taunt and threat,” he added.

Asked why he believed the Green Movement leaders Mir Hossein Mousavi and Karroubi had not yet been arrested, the opposition cleric’s representative replied that such a move would serve to empower the president. “Mr. Khamenei knows that the blame for Mousavi and Karroubi’s arrests would rest directly with him. The supreme leader does not want to crush the Green movement completely, because the only winner standing will be Ahmadinejad,” he opined.

Regarding U.S. policy on Iran, Mr. Karroubi’s representative said that the Obama administration’s focus on the nuclear issue, at the expense of ignoring Iran’s human rights violations, is “exactly what Ahmadinejad wants.”

“If the U.S. reverses this approach and focuses on pressuring Iran for its human rights abuses … this is what the Iranian government fears most,” he said.

Iran’s hardline rulers will not back down from the nuclear confrontation with the West, he added. “The nuclear issue will be resolved when Iranian people hold free and fair elections,” he said.

Two days before his official trip to Afghanistan, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad called the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, a “big lie” intended to pave the way for the invasion of a war-torn nation, according to Iranian state media.

Ahmadinejad, known for his harsh rhetoric toward the West and Israel, said the attack on U.S. soil was a “scenario and a sophisticated intelligence measure,” Iran’s state-run Press TV reported Saturday.

The assault was a “big lie intended to serve as a pretext for fighting terrorism and setting the grounds for sending troops to Afghanistan,” Press TV reported Ahmadinejad as saying.

It’s not the first time Ahmadinejad has denied a historical tragedy. In the past, he has denied the existence of the Holocaust, which claimed the lives of some 6 million Jews during World War II, and suggested Israel should be “wiped off the map.”

“Today,” he said Saturday, “with blessings from the Almighty, the capitalist system, founded by the Zionists, has also reached an end,” Press TV quoted Ahmadinejad.

Ahmadinejad’s comments Saturday came just two days before his visit to Afghanistan to meet with Afghan President Hamid Karzai, according to the semi-official Iranian Labour News Agency (ILNA).

Ahmadinejad has blamed the “problems in its eastern neighbor” on foreign troops there, ILNA reported Sunday.

The one-day trip is the first for both leaders since their re-election, ILNA reported. Ahmadinejad’s re-election last summer prompted thousands to take to the streets of Tehran in protest. Go to CNN.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Saturday called the September 11 attacks on the United States a “big fabrication” that was used to justify the U.S. war on terrorism, the official IRNA news agency reported.

Ahmadinejad, who often rails against the West and Israel, made the comment in a meeting with Intelligence Ministry personnel.

He added: “The September 11 incident was a big fabrication as a pretext for the campaign against terrorism and a prelude for staging an invasion against Afghanistan.” He did not elaborate.

In January, Ahmadinejad termed the September 11 attacks “suspicious” and accused the West of seeking to dominate the Middle East. Go to Reuters.

GVF — Once more Ahmadinejad’s insecurities about the colour green manifest in the Iranian flag, A national symbol for all Iranians is once more exploited for political reasons. This very recent picture was taken from a meeting between the Ahmadinejad’s cabinet and Iran’s ambassadors.

Again the green stripe in the Iranian flag has been replaced by another colour, in order not to remind people of the monumental fraud that took place in Iran on 12 June. But can anyone forget any of the events of the past eight months?

A New York court has pressed charges against a man accompanying Mahmoud Ahmadinejad during his September 2009 trip to United Nation’s General Assembly in New York for assault in the second degree for attacking and injuring a young woman outside Ahmadinejad’s hotel. The suspect must now answer the court in this regard. According to an attorney such a charge could result in more than a year’s imprisonment for this individual.

Hossein Gholamzadeh Mahabadi, a member of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s entourage during his Septembe 2009 trip to New York, hit a young woman who was trying to take amateur pictures with his hand, causing injury and bleeding to the young woman. Gholamzadeh works at the Iran U.N. mission’s office in New York. After this incident, New York City police patrolling the area interfered and asked those present at the scene whether they had witnessed the violence. Witnesses told the police that the attack had taken place and the victim had not attacked the suspect.

In an interview with the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran, the young woman who asked for anonymity said that considering the potential consequences of filing charges against a member of the Iranian delegation, she had decided not to press charges. But because the attack had taken place on the street, New York City police followed up on the events.

A document issued by The Criminal Court of the City of New York states that “on September 24, 2009, at about 21:20 p.m. in front of 111 East 48th Street in the County and City of New York, the Defendant committed the offense of Assault in the Second Degree,” and “the defendant, with intent to cause physical injury to another person, caused such injury to another person by means of a dangerous instrument.” Eye witnesses who talked to the police said they witnessed the suspect push the victim’s camera into her face, causing “bruising, swelling, and a laceration under her left eye.”

During Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s New York appearance at the September UN General Assembly, hundreds of Iranians held protests against his presence in front of UN Headquarters. Later, tens of these protesters left the said gathering and congregated on the sidewalks outside his hotel residence.

The individual who was attacked during the gathering outside Ahmadinejad’s hotel told the International Campaign for Human Rights:

“On that day, after our protest walk we went to Ahmadinejad’s hotel. We were there until 10:00 p.m. At 10:00 p.m., the police said that we could no longer stay and chant our slogans. Therefore the crowd decided to go around the hotel block a few times and walk in silence. The crowd dispersed after walking around the block a few times. I was looking for my friend so we could go home. When I crossed the street, I saw this man who was standing there, waiting to cross the street. I didn’t know who he was, but from his appearance and the fact that he was standing in front of the hotel, I could guess that he is a member of the Ahmadinejad entourage. That’s why I wanted to take a picture of him when I saw him. I held the camera in front of my face to take the picture, but all of a sudden I felt something hard hit my face and I fell down. The thing I remember is that I was on the ground, crying, and several police officers were standing all around us. The police weren’t doing anything, just asking whether anyone saw anything and what had happened? An Iranian man said that he had seen him hitting me in the face. The police asked me about what had happened and they took that man away and asked him, too. I was worried for a while, thinking that he might have diplomatic immunity…an American attorney who was there told me that he could serve as my attorney. At this time several people came out of the hotel and they were trying to see my face and one of them had a camera. I asked the police to take me somewhere where nobody could see me. Several New York Police officers and secret service officers talked to me. There was also someone there who was talking with the Iran office [office of the Iranian delegation to UN]. After a while we found out that the man [my attacker] did not have diplomatic immunity. They asked me whether I wished to press charges. I told them that I didn’t want to press charges because my family are in Iran.” Even so, the police has pursued the case and the aforementioned lawyers have also followed up on it. Hossein Gholamzadeh Mah, a member of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s entourage is now facing charges, as shown in the document below, and will have to be accountable for assault of the second degree for attacking a citizen on a city street. Iranian authorities have not issued any statements about this case so far.

The International Campaign for Human Rights presents below the Court document which was issued immediately after the incident. Go to ICHR Iran.

“Tell me who your friends are, and I will tell you who you are,” the saying goes and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s second cabinet surely says a good deal about who he is. Ahmadinejad presented his 21-minister cabinet to parliament in two rounds: 20 August 2009, where 18 of his cabinet candidates gained a parliamentary vote of confidence thanks to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s intervention, and on 15 November 2009 where the cabinet was completed. In addition, since the 12 June election, Ahmadinejad has appointed 14 vice-presidents and advisers by presidential decree, bringing his immediate network up to 35, as reported by the Iranian presidency’s website.

Click here to view the full text of this article as an Adobe Acrobat PDF.

Ali Alfoneh is a visiting research fellow at AEI.

Go to AEI.

A question relating to Iran’s suspected nuclear weapons program: Is Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad crazy like Adolf Hitler, or is he crazy like, of all people, Richard Nixon?

Nixon had a term for his own sort of craziness: “I call it the Madman Theory, Bob,” he said to his aide H.R. “Bob” Haldeman during the 1968 presidential campaign. Nixon was talking about how he would deal with the Vietnam War. “I want the North Vietnamese to believe I’ve reached the point where I might do anything to stop the war. We’ll just slip the word to them that, ‘For God’s sake, you know Nixon is obsessed about communism. We can’t restrain him when he’s angry — and he has his hand on the nuclear button.’ ” The strategy, while cunning, didn’t work on the North Vietnamese. Maybe they were crazier than Nixon. Go to Washington Post.

Ahmadinejad’s import mania drives farmers to bankruptcy; industrial workers arbitrarily denied wages.  IND: The green movement needs to get more farmers and workers to join its cause, not based on social and human rights issues alone, but also based on this regime’s inability to provide appropriate and fair employement and economic opportunity for its people.

Over the last few months, as the economic downturn has picked up momentum, a new demand is increasingly being voiced by protesting workers across Iran: payment of back wages.

The root cause of the present industrial malaise is neither the international financial crisis nor the world economic slump–after all, Iran’s economy is largely immune from global economic vicissitudes. The most important factor is the import craze that has characterized the past five years.

Ahmadinejad’s import boom is buoyed by two key, interrelated factors: an artificially high exchange rate and a drastic reduction of tariffs on imported goods. The result is a spate of bankruptcies across large swaths of the Iranian economy, a precipitous fall in exports, and economic hardship for millions of laborers.

In general, the import boom is aimed at keeping inflation at bay–presumably you target the cheapest goods in the world for your imports. Secondly, as precedents over the past 31 years have demonstrated, a high flow of imports helps bolster the dominant faction du jour both financially and politically. Under Ahmadinejad, the import craze has taken on truly insane proportions.

Today, even women’s traditional attire like chador comes from abroad, all government agencies have been instructed to use imported food staples for employees’ meals, and many Chinese goods are cheaper in Iran than anywhere in the world outside China itself. No wonder domestic producers can no longer effectively compete with the flood of foreign goods.

Ahmadinejad has taken special pride in his myopic policy as some sort of cure-all for the problem of inflation. “Too bad we can’t import houses for the Iranian consumer or the housing shortage would have been solved,” he once told a conference of construction firms gleefully.  Go to Tehran Bureau.