|
Trending Topics
|
Source: http://www.nytimes.com/
The Oil-Addicted Ayatollahs
[New York Times, 2Feb07] Thomas L. Friedman - In 2005, Bloomberg.com reported, Iran's government earned $44.6 billion from oil and spent $25 billion on subsidies - for housing, jobs, food and 34-cents-a-gallon gasoline - to buy off interest groups. Iran's current populist president has further increased the goods and services being subsidized. So if oil prices fall sharply again, Iran's regime will have to take away many benefits from many Iranians, as the Soviets had to do. For a regime already unpopular with many of its people, that could cause all kinds of problems and give rise to an Ayatollah Gorbachev. We know how that ends.