As Economic Unrest Intensifies, Ahmadinejad Backs Down
Fox News, October 16, 2008
Transcript
In a major setback for the
ayatollahs’ regime, widespread strikes by traders and
merchants erupted in Iran’s larger cities, reportedly in
reaction to a new Value Added Tax (VAT) imposed by Mahmoud
Ahmadinejad’s administration. Witnesses described the unrest
as “an expression of protest reminiscent of the days of the
Iranian revolution.”
Ahmadinejad beat a fast retreat, promising a two-month delay
for the tax. “There were worries that the strike would turn
political” an official told a state news agency.
The delaying tactic failed, however, and the strikes
escalated, as more cities and more traders joined in. When
nearly the entire Tehran bazaar went on strike on Sunday,
the government backed down again, and announced the new tax
had been postponed “indefinitely.”
Confident that this would put an end to the turmoil, the
government announced on state radio and television that all
shops in the Tehran Bazaar would reopen the following day.
Wishful thinking. State-controlled ILNA news agency reported
on Monday, October 13, that contrary to media reports,
Tehran’s world famous Grand Bazaar remained closed for the
sixth day in a row. Despite intense pressure by senior
bazaar figures intimately affiliated with the regime, most
merchants are still talking about continuing their strike.
Just days after declaring the recent economic turmoil in the
West “divine punishment,” the ayatollahs’ regime finds
itself in the midst of an economic crisis perhaps more
severe.
There are reports from Tehran that the regime has dispatched
a large contingency of security forces to surround the Grand
Bazaar. According to BBC world service, “large numbers of
police are now patrolling the bazaar. Journalists have been
turned away. Camera crews caught filming have been ordered
to hand over their tapes.”
According to the New York Times, security forces were
stationed in the bazaar but traders still refused to open
their shops. The Los Angeles Times, quoting a
state-controlled news agency, wrote, “Protesters angry over
the tax smashed a branch of the state-owned Bank Saderat.”
Last year the sudden announcement of a fuel price hike
plunged Tehran and other major cities into anti-government
riots. Many protesters were arrested, several of them
eventually resurfacing among the 29 people hanged in one day
last summer.
Under the ayatollahs’ rule, Iran’s oil-based economy is
fundamentally dysfunctional. The official inflation rate is
30% and there is double-digit unemployment. Hundreds of
protests, sit-ins and strikes by trade unions, teachers, and
others prove beyond any doubt that the economic problems are
endemic. The strikes in the bazaars of Tehran and other
major cities are unprecedented since 1979.
It would be a mistake to view the bazaar, which played a key
role in the 1979 anti-monarchic revolution, as a homogenous
class loyal to the ruling regime. A significant segment of
bazaar merchants are nationalist traders who, financially
and politically, have been the backbone of the Iranian
resistance since 1979. Some have in fact been executed for
their active support of Iran’s main opposition, the People’s
Mojahedin (PMOI/MEK). For many in the bazaar, their
opposition to the regime goes beyond mere economic issues.
In the same way, the current dissatisfaction goes far beyond
a new tax. According to the Financial Times, “Frustration
among Iran’s lower and middle classes over rising prices has
been growing,” raising fears in the government that a
prolonged protest in the bazaars could embolden other
disaffected groups such as school teachers and university
students to join the protest, “albeit for different
reasons.”
The Iranian people are well aware that the regime’s coffers
are flush with oil revenues from recent extraordinary price
hikes, far exceeding any budgetary forecast. And they are
well aware where all this excess cash went: While more than
half of Iran’s population lives in poverty, the mullahs have
been busy funding terrorism, tyranny, and the nuclear
weapons program. Without the reign of terror, the ayatollahs
will not be able to quell dissent.
Time after time, outbursts over specifics soon become
opposition targeting the entirety of the regime. Last week,
hundreds of students at Shiraz University apparently
rejected the misguided debate in some western circles about
exploiting the schism between “radical extremists” and
“radical pragmatists.” Protestors interrupted a speech by
Revolutionary Guards commander-turned-politician Ali
Larijani, the speaker of the Parliament, chanting “death to
dictators,” “free all imprisoned students,” and “we are
fighters, men and women; fight us and we will fight.”
Outside the auditorium students shouted: “Larijani, shame on
you, leave the university.”
“It does not matter what the event is; it could be the loss
of the national soccer team, sudden loss of electricity, the
cutting off of drinking water, or the sudden and unexpected
rationing of fuel… They all can spark a riot… Although most
of these riots are put down after the security and military
agencies intervene, every outbreak adds to the collective
memory of the people, who will use it as capital or a
learned experience for the next uprising,” wrote Etemad, a
major state-run daily. Western governments are yet to detect
this Achilles Heel of the Ayatollahs.
Alireza Jafarzadeh is a FOX News Channel Foreign Affairs
Analyst and the author of "The
Iran Threat: President Ahmadinejad and the Coming Nuclear
Crisis" (Palgrave Macmillan, 2007).
Jafarzadeh has revealed Iran's terrorist network in Iraq and
its terror training camps since 2003. He first disclosed the
existence of the Natanz uranium enrichment facility and the
Arak heavy water facility in August 2002.
