Iranian Puzzle

Hallo... still confused as to why with 60% of Iranians voting, a hardliner still won! Just when I thought Iran was opening her doors and becoming flexible, Iran took a step backward through the current election. Not sure why better candidates did not make the appearance. Yes, the Iranians voted for themselves and so we have to respect that, but one has to be cautious with the Pakistani, Afghani, and neighboring populations getting more religiously inclined.

-zensufi-

Sifzal....being the idiot again I see.....there are NGOs in US asking donations for the poor and underprivileged Americans . Are we now supposed to believe US is a poor country ? As I said , facts are that India is not an aid seeking country anymore.

I am perplexed by how EVERYTHING eventually culminates into a pak-india match of who`s better.

Thank you 31, 26 and 48 for your replies. I shall ignore 48, for the lack of civil language and can only tell him to either live in Australia or USA to see the TV realities, the add does not take a name of any Indian organization, they say poor children in India and other African countries...the advertising agency is ``Save the Child``!

Netizen, I appreciate your reply as it showed good selection of words and some sense, yes you are right, for if the next 45 years India continue to grow at the pace of 8%, it would be the second largest economy in the world. But you need to keep few realities in mind, no country in the world has thus far able to sustain for that long, and more you develop the less becomes your growth rate. Further, all economics rules start with cetris peribis...and believe me the real world does change. Nevertheless, as I said earlier, if India continued to get leaders such as the present ones, it does have a chance to succeed and be able to look after its population.

Regarding the exchange rate pressure from US on China, it means a little. Remember Economics tells you many things regarding the same issue, and ``learned`` economists make the best by fooling the most through showing only that side of the picture that the audience wants to see. If China today increases its currency value, the USA and other countries will have to pay China a lot more and those countries in debt to China will have to adopt policies that China would like them to adopt, believe me no developed country would like to fall in the trap it made for most of the developing countries.

Charlie

> While India has chosen the easy way of submission to west, as they have been doing since centuries

Do you think that this attitude is partly to blame for historically keeping subcontinental Muslims generally less educated (and to use a more loaded term, more backward) than their Hindu neighbors?

Iranian elections are hue

Charlie #12

`` Ahmedinijad, certainly not my favourite, was not favourite of Elite Mullahs in Iran. He didn`t win because he is a conservative, he won because he is a middleclass person who promised to help poor people. While he was the mayor of Tehran, he showed by his acts that he lives a simple life and he has roots in his people. As a result, it was the people who voted for him. It is what democracy is. ``

Would you have a prince who governs for the welfare for the majority ? Would you have a commoner who looks out for his enrichment ?

`` Despite US propoganda and an 8 year long war imposed by imperialist powers and two decades of strict bans, Iran has survived well. Theiir per capita income is more than any other country in the region. Their economy is stronger than anyone else. Their life style is better han other countries in the region and population living under poverty line is less than any other country in the region. Iranians live happily, they know how to live happily with what they have. It is a proven fact that Iranians hate west and they have reasons for it. ``

Iranians have a lower standard of living than Gulf Arab states and Turkey. The Iranian economy is heavily dependent on oil revenues. Despite their human resource potential they trail badly in other areas. Reapproachment with the Western Europe (if not USA) is crucial to the development of Iranian middle class.

Sifzal...You are obviously an ignorant fool unaware or unwilling to learn about current global realities. A resurgent confident economically powerful India is a no longer just a pipe dream.

India does not survive on foreign aid. The days of India begging for foreign aid are over. It is possible certain private organisations ask for aid , but thats nothing to do with the Indian government. India wants business , trade and investment. Not aid.
#India`s ppp gdp amounts to $3.65 trillion..which is the 3rd highest in the world.
#India`s forex reserves are worth $150 billion.
#Total US aid to India (to certain private projects) : $72 million.
Now you do the math.

Infact India is today an aid giver rather than an aid taker , having sent aid amounting to $100 million to Afghanistan , which is more than the total US aid ($72 million) to India.

Article from Haaretz.


Iranians didn`t `betray` the U.S.

By Zvi Bar`el

A sense of dread befell the world: The new Iranian president is an extremist, a lover of nukes, a Beckham-hater, a believer in the separation of the sexes; to cut a long story short - prepare for war. One could sense the disappointment that crossed the ocean with the news that Hashemi Rafsanjani - the ``liberal`` and ``the champion of human rights`` - failed to get elected.

So how does Iran - which ever since the revolution in 1979 has been seen as an entrenched foundation of the axis of evil, has had sanctions imposed on it by the United States, and in the past two years has come under threat of war from both the United States and Israel - spring a surprise by simply fulfilling expectations?

The answer to this question can be found in the erroneous perception according to which Iran is aligned around two polar opposites - reformists and conservatives. The reformists want Western democracy; the conservatives want the West`s soul. The reformists are opponents of nuclear arms; the conservatives want an atom bomb in every backyard. The reformists support a free economy; the conservatives want the state to control the economy.




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And lo and behold, after eight years of rule by a ``reformist`` like Mohammed Khatami, it is difficult to distinguish between the two streams. Khatami, for example, is opposed to a change in the unique Iranian system of government in which the supreme spiritual leader is also the supreme political leader. The man who served as speaker of the parliament, Mehdi Karroubi, is actually a liberal, but neither does he want to change the system; and the same goes for the brother of the spiritual leader, Hadi Khamenei.

Hundreds of thousands of students, who make up the liberals` public infrastructure, voted for the new president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and not for their ``natural`` candidate, Mustafa Moin, a relative of Khatami. It also turns out that spiritual leader Ali Khamenei is encouraging foreign investments in Iran, while the ``moderate`` candidate, Rafsanjani, is perceived as an economic reactionary due to his vast wealth and involvement in governmental corruption.

The confusion is even greater when one realizes that support for Iran`s nuclear armament crosses party lines, as does the attitude toward the United States. When President George Bush defined Iran as part of the axis of evil, thousands of reformists joined conservatives in demonstrations against the United States. These are the same reformists who lit candles in solidarity with the Americans in the wake of the Al-Qaida terror attacks in September 2001. These are the same Iranian residents who, in a poll conducted in Iran some two and half years ago, declared their support for the renewal of dialogue with Washington.

The Iranian public did not ``betray`` Washington in last week`s elections. It simply remained an Iranian public that first considers its government`s internal policy, its economic situation and its national pride. It did not elect the man who let it down over the past eight years or promised new relations with America, but the man who promised jobs for 30 percent of the unemployed and welfare programs for the poor - just as any public anywhere else in the world does.

Furthermore, the reformists did not have an election promise from Bush that they could wave around and vow that the United States would change its policy toward Iran if the president was elected from among them. In fact, Washington, which is now so frightened by the results of the election, did not do much at all to bolster the reformists over the past eight years, thus allowing Russia, China, India and Pakistan to become stronger allies and wield a greater influence over Iran.

Is Iran more frightening than ever now? Not necessarily. Iran is not an insane state, and its citizens, despite the oppression, know how to rally the street into action when things are bad for them. They were the ones who elected more liberal representatives as a result of their disappointment with the representatives of the revolution; and they are the ones who changed the government now.

Urstuly,

Good points in 38, but who ever worries about sustainability? Even in the west there is a understanding (is it misplaced?) that new markets will emerge, and the workforce will shift as the trends of a new economy dictate.

So in 50 years, manufacturing will definitely move to virgin areas and untapped markets will be opened up. The trick for India and China is not to be one trick wonders.

---

pmishra2,

Perhaps I shouldn`t waste my time commentating on obscure columnists remarks...but...

The article you pointed has hardly a coherent thought in it. The people voted for the person who will cater to their interests (or at least perceived to). The idea that the poor of Iran will benefit from headlong retreat from current policies and a complete opening up to the West is nonsense. It will be the already well-off (by comparison) middle class who will be the prime benefactors of that.

No one voted to ``remain in poverty`` or to keep an economic status quo in the rural areas. In fact, it`s precisely the promise of providing opportunity (through education, and investment) to rural Iranians that played a part in the electoral win of Ahmadinejad.

The appropriate questions are: will a policy of self sufficiency (like India had up till the 90`s) work for Iran, which unlike India has oil wealth to fund it`s experiment? What avenues are available for a transfer of technology and know-how? How will relations with the Europeans, Chinese and Russians change? Is cooperation with America a prerequisite for any kind of growth? Will catering to the lower class disenfranchise the middle class, in effect swapping one source of political instability for another, or run the risk of economic stagnation?

Another view on the puzzle:

Islamist Regime in Total Control

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by Amir Taheri

The Australian

June 27, 2005

ZAMINLARZEH! The word, that means earthquake in Persian, is on every mouth in Iran as the nation tries to absorb the shock of Friday`s election that catapulted a little-known figure into the position of President of the Islamic Republic.

That figure is Mahmoud Ahmadinejad who became mayor of Tehran less than two years ago. He won the presidency in a landslide, crushing the mullah-cum business tycoon Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, one of the pillars of the regime since its inception in 1979.

Ahmadinejad holds a PhD in engineering from Iran `s most elite university, and is far better educated than all of his five predecessors as president.

A reservist colonel of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, he is the first president of the Islamic Republic with a military background. The son of a blacksmith, he is the first president of the Islamic Republic to come from a poor family and one of few senior figures in the regime not to have amassed a personal fortune in recent years.

But Ahmadinejad`s chief asset, and the main if not sole reason for his victory is his relationship with and fierce loyalty to the Supreme Guide, Ali Khamenehi, the true and almost absolute ruler of the country. The two met in 1979 when Khamenehi served as deputy defence minister and have been close ever since.

Some analysts have dismissed Ahmadinejad`s emergence as a front-line player in Iranian politics as irrelevant because the electoral process that produced his win was manifestly flawed.

Nevertheless, his election is an important development. After all, this is the first time in the 26-year history of the Islamic Republic that a mullah has been beaten by a non-mullah in a high-profile electoral contest. His win is all the more significant because his rival was not only Iran `s richest man but also the best-known figure of the Khomeinist regime.

Ahmadinejad`s victory means that Khamenehi, who has established himself as head of the most radical faction within the Khomeinist establishment, now controls all levers of power for the first time. He will now be able to put his own men in charge of all key government departments. Any idea of Western-style reforms to please the restive middle classes will be abandoned.

The concentration of power in the hands of the radical faction will end more than two decades of divided government that has put many aspects of policy on autopilot as it were. Two years ago when King Abdullah II of Jordan telephoned Khatami to complain about Iran setting up terrorist cells in Amman, the Iranian president was able to claim that he knew nothing of it because he did not control all organs of government.

The Europeans who have been negotiating with Tehran over the nuclear issue have also heard similar claims from Iranian counterparts. With Ahmadinejad in charge, however, such claims will no longer be credible because the camarilla headed by Khamenehi is now in complete control. Rafsanjani had promised the Chinese model - meaning the combination of a despotic political regime with capitalist economic policies. Ahmadinejad promises a North Korean model - that is to say a totalitarian system and a command economy.

Ahmadinejad`s election shows that the Khomeinist regime cannot be reformed from within. It also shows that there is still a strong constituency in Iran for the populist message of the ayatollah. True, far fewer people voted than the regime claims. But those who did vote preferred Ahmadinejad`s ``pure Islam`` to Rafsanjani`s attempt at perpetuating the myth that Iran today is, in the words of the former US president Bill Clinton, ``a progressist democracy``.

Ahmadinejad describes himself as a fundamentalist, has no qualms about asserting that there can be no democracy in Islam, rejects free-market economics, and insists on ``religious duties`` rather than human rights. This clarity will, in the medium term, help the people of Iran understand the choices involved. They will learn that they cannot have an Islamist system together with the goodies that the modern world offers in both material and spiritual terms.

Unlike Khatami, who was trying to hoodwink the Europeans over the Iranian nuclear project, Ahmadinejad openly says Iran does have such a program, is proud of it, and that no one has the right to question Iran`s right to develop whatever weapons it wants.

Should the outside world be frightened? Not necessarily. Paradoxically, the clarity created by this election may prove useful. Khatami went around the world speaking about Hegel and Nietzsche to ruling elites and creating the illusion that the Islamic Republic was part of the global system symbolised by the World Trade Organisation, the Davos forum, and the Western non-governmental organisations of do-gooders.

Ahmadinejad`s victory reveals the true face of the Islamic Republic as a regional power with its own world vision that challenges the so-called ``global consensus``. It reminds the world that the mini-Cold War that started between the Islamic Republic and the West, notably the US, is far from over.

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Iranian author Amir Taheri was editor-in-chief of Kayhan, the most important Iranian daily under the Shah. He is a member of Benador Associates.

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URL: http://www.benadorassociates.com/article/16225

From www.ait.com:

Iran: The living fossils` vengeance

Traditional society persists long past its best-used-by-date in the Middle East due to subsidies from the oilfields or, in the case of Palestine, from the United Nations. Rural folk who long since would have left the land and its rigid habits of mind remain suspended in time like living fossils, watching as the world leaves them behind. Rural Persia voted with one voice to hold the world at bay, and elected Mahmud Ahmadinejad as the country`s next president. It is pointless to complain about vote fraud and intimidation; there is no doubt that Adhmadinejad won the votes of Iran`s rural poor.

``Almost no one in Washington expected the landslide victory of the conservative mayor of Tehran, Mahmud Ahmadinejad, as Iran`s next president,`` wrote David Sanger in the New York Times on June 26. Yet the surge of support for the ultra-Islamist mayor of Tehran should be no surprise.

From an economic standpoint, Iran is a changeling monster, an oil well attached to an iron lung, as it were, maintaining with subsidies a rural population that is no longer viable. Oil and natural gas earn US$1,300 a year for each Iranian, roughly a fifth of per-capita GDP. The Islamic republic dispenses this wealth to keep alive a moribund economy. Government spending has risen by four-and-a-half times during the past four years, financed via
the central bank`s printing press, pushing inflation up to 15% per annum, while unemployment remains at 11%.

Iran`s government spending, money creation and inflation (annual rates of change)
Government
spending
Liquidity (M2)
Inflation

2001
22%
29%
11%

2002
43%
30%
16%

2003
99%
26%
16%

2004
29%
30%
15%

Note: Years are Persian equivalents, beginning in March
Source: Bank of Iran

Iran`s poor want more of the same policies, albeit with less skim for the elites, and that is what Adhmadinejad promised them. Rural Iran will support the Islamists, because the Islamists will support them for ideological reasons. The young people of Tehran may look to the West with hope, but their cousins in the countryside see only the ruin of their way of life. If the traditional economy disappears, will Iranians produce better manufactures than China, or program computers like the Indians? Their fate would be economic emigration, like their neighbors the Turks.

Poverty is not the issue. The 17 million Iranians who cast their ballots for Ahmadinejad voted to remain in poverty, with a bare minimum of security provided by the Islamic state. On the contrary, they cannot imagine their lives outside of traditional society, in which Islam regulates every facet of existence. Fewer than three-quarters of Iranian women can read, that is, fewer than half of rural women are literate. The country has only one phone line for every five people, a fifth as many as France. Most of the country remains sunk in misery, but the humblest Iranian farmer still has the pride of a conqueror in his heart.

That is the great gift of Islam, which offers much more to the faithful than the ordering of traditional life. It promises to impose the system of traditional life upon the world. Islam is the vengeance of tribal society upon the cosmopolitan empires, first against the Sassanids and Byzantines, then against the Holy Roman Empire, and now against the West. The Muslim does not cower in his village waiting for the inevitable encroachment of a hostile world, but seeks to impose his will on the world. As I wrote elsewhere (Does Islam have a prayer? May 18, 2004),

[quote]
Islam acknowledges no ethnicity (whether or not one believes that it favors Arabs). The Muslim submits - to what particular people? Not the old Israel of the Jews, nor the ``New Israel`` of the Christians, but to precisely what? Pagans fight for their own group`s survival and care not at all whom their neighbor worships. A universalized paganism is a contradiction in terms; it could only exist by externalizing the defensive posture of the pagan, that is, as a conquering movement that marches across the world crushing out the pagan practices of the nations and subjugating them to a single discipline. If the individual Muslim does not submit to traditional society as it surrounds him in its present circumstances, he submits to the expansionist movement.
[end-quote]

That is why Adhmadinejad`s belligerent attitude towards Iranian nuclear weapons cannot be separated from his charitable stance towards the country`s rural poor. Islam promises not only protection against the threatening world, but the opportunity to force it to submit to Islam`s own standards.

Ahmadinejad`s victory leaves American policy in an untenable position. To the extent that the United States enhances the military prowess of Iraq`s Shi`ites to the level required to suppress Sunni insurgents, Iran may harvest the political benefits. Iraq is now led by Ibrahim al-Jaafari`s Da`wa party, which operated in exile out of Tehran during the Iran-Iraq War. At a Baghdad news conference with Iran`s foreign minister on May 18, al-Jafaari said in English, referring to the 138,000 American troops in Iraq, ``Let me add that the party that will leave Iraq is the United States, because it will eventually withdraw. But the party that will live with the Iraqis is Iran, because it is a neighbor to Iraq.``

In their provincial smugness, President George W Bush and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice understand none of this. The more the Middle East opens its political process to the will of the people, the worse things will be for Washington.

It is not that the people of Iran are wrong about Admadinejad, like the people of Lebanon about Hezbollah, or the people of Gaza about Hamas. Rather, they are the wrong people to begin with, in that their lives as presently organized are not viable in the modern economic world. Iraq`s Sunnis, I observed recently, commit suicide bombings at a rate not observed since Japan`s kamikaze, because the present state of affairs offers them nothing but misery and humiliation (Why Sunnis blow themselves up, June 13, 2005). For the peoples of the Middle East, extremism, terrorism, and even suicide attacks represent an asymmetrical bet. What the United States offers by way of democracy and modernization is an abyss with no bottom; fighting one`s way out offers at least a slim chance of success, particularly if one builds nuclear weapons.

urstruly #38 I dont know about other countries, but Turkey is already getting a bonanza - grew by 8% last year, and factories from Spain etc. are being re-located in Turkey. Despite having trouble becoming part of the EU, the positive attitude shown by the Turks (e.g. introduction of democratic reforms as pre-condition for joining EU) has made it attractive to investors.

Here is the story in today`s WP about it

article

Turkey`s Evolving Economy
Country Ties Its Fortunes Closer to Global Trade, Putting Pressure on Western Europe

By Peter S. Goodman
Washington Post Foreign Service
Tuesday, June 28, 2005; Page D01

ISTANBUL -- Only six months ago, the European Union agreed to hold talks aimed at bringing this poor and overwhelmingly Muslim country into its ranks, offering what seemed a sign of Western Europe`s grudging acceptance of globalization. Turkey then pressed ahead with reforms aimed at making itself more like the Europe it hoped to join.

Today, however, Turkey`s hopes of joining the E.U. are all but dead. In the European conversation, Turkey has devolved from a symbol of the continent`s aspirations for a wider community to the primary culprit threatening its livelihood -- a nation stealing manufacturing work while delivering an influx of indigent job-seekers.

Yet Turkey`s pursuit of a place in the E.U. has set in motion a process of change that has made this country of 70 million a more market-oriented economy. This process is putting new pressures on Western Europe while revealing Turkey`s own precarious position, as it ties its fortunes closer to global trade.

Re: # 38

``With rapidly expanding industrial base and only automation as an answer to growing demand what would the countries like India and China do with their immensely large populations. In western world, a negative population growth has kept the sanity of society intact when workforce faced the challenges of automation. I think in next 50 years the production will move to smaller, sparsely populated countries like Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, Burma, nepal etc. What do you think.``

I think automation was used as a productive tool, not as an answer to reduction in population. Innovation has mostly lead to increase in productivity and hence growth of economy. Automation in america was seen since the days of 1900 when the population was increasing with an ever increasing input of immigrants.
For developing world, in order to be competitive would require them to be productive i.e. leaner and meaner just like when China/British reducing its army personnel but becoming more lethal. The growth in economy or the wealth generated in one industry can be used to develop/invest in newer technologies and industries. hence you see the state undertaking doing poorly because their motto is not productivity/generating wealth but providing jobs to the people.
Investments/industries would go to any low cost-efficient country, but i don`t think Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, Burma, nepal will be ready in another 50 years.

charlie writes ``About Dark ages, I meant Europe is on its way to it. I find no progressive thought left here. ``

Charlie, while I agree with your posts to a large extent, I am not sure about your above comment. At a personal level, my exposure to europe and europeans have shown that they seem to be a lot more knowledgeable about the affairs of the world. Not just that, unlike americans, they also tend to have a far deeper understandings of the ``context`` of various conflicts around the world. They seem to be a lot more well travelled than Americans. Only 10% of americans hold passports, compared to more than 50% of europeans. And the ``culture of knowledge`` is far more seeped into europeans than amongst any other people. Yes, chinese are picking up steam, but still they have a long way to go. Its the europeans anthropologists, and scientists you see working in africa and far flungs of South America.

On the other hand, America under Bush has taken a giant step towards dark age. Theory of evolution is being banned in schools. The climate of free thought and free expressions in being stiffled. Because of ``global war on terrorism`` american academia has lost the best and the brightest students to other countries. A somewhat objective Public Broadcasting Services (PBS) was recently given a slap by an increasingly evangelised congress to ``balance`` its coverage or else lose funding. There is not a SINGLE mainstream newspaper in the entire US which dares to have a coverage of the Iranian elections that differs from the official US policy.

As for there being no progressive thoughts left in europe, European Union is a pretty progressive thought. Yes, it has encountered some hurdles lately, but no one believes that it will be stopped. Europe needs to bring its economics to the demands of 21st century - and solve the stagnations resulting from welfare entitlements and labor unions etc.

But still, economic prosperity follows a free society. And america is becoming increasingly less free.

Re: # 32

``Re: # 31
Mr. Netzen.... You have clearly shown India will not mount to any thing. Its population is going to high``

Population is fine as long as the country can manage it i.e. not have to spend its hard currency on food imports.

But what matters is what the people are doing. whether the majority of people are just peasants/farmers toiling hard everyday to make their ends meet or are technological/scientific hand helping the country to become an industrial base with wide economy and talened human resource.
This can happen only if the country can provide basic education to everyone.