Crisis in Iran deepens

Unrest grows amid gas rationing in Iran - Print Version - International Herald Tribune:

"'Iran is in a bind,' said Vera de Ladoucette, an energy analyst with Cambridge Energy Research Associates in Paris. 'They have acted too late and too harshly.'

"According to de Ladoucette, Iran is also seeking to increase its gasoline production and has outlined plans to spend $18 billion by 2012 to increase its refining capacity by 1.5 million barrels a day from about 1.6 million. The government's plan is to build four refineries and expand older ones. But, she added, it is unlikely to achieve that goal by 2012. 'The problem will be financing all this,' she said."

No wonder Iran has trouble financing refinery expansion. For years they have been selling gasoline at prices not seen here since the 1970s while buying it from refineries in 16 other countries for a wholesale price that is now about $2 per gallon.

The parlous condition of Iran's government is illustrated by a passing mention in the article that the gasoline rationing scheme is hitting hard at lower paid government employees who moonlight using their personal vehicles as taxicabs.

All this pain appears to be a calculated effort to get the citizenry prepared for real suffering if and when the UN security council gets around to actually imposing economic sanctions to retaliate for Iran's nuclear weapons program.

In World War Two in this country, rationing helped to bind the folks on the homefront to the vigorous prosecution of the government's war policy. In Iran, it seems to be having the opposite effect - riots, arson, and angry editorials even though news media have been ordered not to report on the extent of the popular reaction against the rationing effort.