08-07-2018, 10:53 PM
*** 8-Aug-18 World View -- Iran's protesters blame bad economy on Supreme Leader, not on US sanctions
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
****
**** US reimposes US sanctions against Iran that ended with 2015 nuclear deal
****
![[Image: g180807b.jpg]](http://Media.GenerationalDynamics.com/ww2010/g180807b.jpg)
A mural painting on the wall of the former US embassy in Tehran, where the 1980 Iranian hostage crisis originally occurred (AFP)
President Donald Trump on Tuesday issued an executive order reimposing
economic sanctions that had been eased by the 2015 nuclear deal. The
sanctions target Iran's automotive industry, the purchase of
commercial aircraft and metals including gold, and the selling of
Persian carpets.
Trump tweeted:
<QUOTE>"Anyone doing business with Iran will NOT be doing
business with the United States. I am asking for WORLD PEACE,
nothing less!"<END QUOTE>
The action appears to have thrown the European Union into a new level
of chaos.
The sanctions bar any company which does business in Iran from doing
business in the US - under far reaching secondary sanctions - and they
also forbid any company that does business in the US from doing
business with any company that does any business with Iran. This
means, for example, that under certain circumstances a bank may have
to deny a company doing business with Iran access to its own
dollar-based bank accounts. But in that case, the bank could be sued
by its own customers.
Trying to cope, the EU has passed so-called "blocking laws" that would
make it illegal for banks to withdraw services to companies doing
business with Iran or even with other companies that do business with
Iran. The laws are designed to limit the potential damage to European
companies conducting legitimate business with Iran directly or
indirectly.
However, these laws have not been particularly effective. Germany's
carmaker Daimler immediately announced a halt to its business
activities in Iran. France's oil and gas giant Total has already
indicated it intends to shelve a multi-billion dollar investment in
Iran. France's automaker Renault, which had an 8% share of Iran's
automotive market, announced last week it would comply with the
sanctions. Peugeot withdrew in June. More than 100 international
companies have also said they would comply.
However, China's auto companies are rushing to fill the gap left by
departing European companies. Chinese cars already have a nearly 10%
share of Iran's auto market, and a 50% share of auto parts imported
into Iran. Iran Khodro, Iran's largest car manufacturer and assembler
of foreign cars, recently told its salesmen to promote to customers
China’s H30 Cross, made by Dongfeng Fengshen, as a replacement for
Renault’s Tondar 90.
Other Chinese car manufacturers present in Iran include Chery and
Brilliance, whose H330, assembled in Iran by Saipa, is among the top
10 best-selling cars in the country. China has also lifted monthly
oil imports from Iran by 26%. China is the world’s top crude oil
buyer and Iran’s biggest customer. RFE/RL and BBC and VOA and Deutsche Welle
****
**** Iran's protesters blame bad economy on Supreme Leader, not on US sanctions
****
Iran's economy is in serious trouble. The rial currency has been
plummeting against the dollar since May, when the US announced that
sanctions would be imposed on August 7.
Since that time there have been growing street protests in cities
across the country. However, they're not anti-American protests,
which is something we as Americans have come to expect for decades.
Instead, the protests are blaming their own government.
Here's a list of street protesters chants collected by RFE/RL in the
last few days:
<QUOTE>“Death to high prices and inflation.”
“We don’t want incompetent officials.”
“Not to Gaza, not to Lebanon. May my life
be sacrificed for Iran.”
“Death to the dictator.”
“Our enemy is right here. They lie when they say it’s America.”
"Reza Shah, bless your soul.”
“Iranians, shout out your demands.”
"Police forces, support [us], support [us].”
“Death to Hizballah.”
“Iranians die, [but] they don’t accept abjection.”
“Death to Khamenei.”
“Mullahs must get lost.”
“Don’t be scared, we’re all together.”<END QUOTE>
If you want to understand what's going on, the easiest model to keep
in mind is the street protests in America in the 1960s and 1970s.
Although the several things were protested, they were mainly anti-war
protests against the war in Vietnam.
Logic might indicate that since the North Vietnamese in Hanoi were the
enemy, Americans should be on the side of the Americans, not the North
Vietnamese. It's true that few Americans were openly on the side of
the North Vietnamese (Jane Fonda and John Kerry come to mind), but few
Americans were on the side of America either.
It made no difference what the Nixon administration did. The young
protesters were opposed to everything. And it made no difference what
Hanoi did either. There was nothing that Hanoi could have done to
make the young protesters say, "Gee, maybe Nixon is right. I'm going
to support him now." Violent street protests in Los Angeles and
Detroit were blamed on presidents Johnson and Nixon. The 1968 riot at
the Democratic convention in Chicago was blamed on Johnson and Nixon.
The shootings of students at Kent State College in 1972 were blamed on
Nixon.
This is what always happens in a generational Awakening, starting
around 20 years after the end of a generational crisis war, in this
case World War II. The survivors of the war traumatized by its
horrors, and vow to keep it from happening again. The generation that
grows up after the war have no personal memory of it, and they turn
against the generations of survivors in what's called a "generation
gap"
Exactly the same thing is happening in Iran today. The first major
anti-government protest began in 1999, about 20 years after the 1979
Islamic Revolution. Some 10,000 students rioted in Tehran University,
chanting anti-government slogans. The police reacted violently,
leaving at least 20 people hospitalized and 125 students jailed.
There were sporadic protests every few months after that. The next
round of major protests, large enouch to threaten the government
occurred after the 2009 presidential election. The violence that
followed was bloody and massive. Largely peaceful street protests by
hundreds of thousands of mostly young people occurred in Iran’s main
cities and provincial capitals, including Tehran, Tabriz, Isfahan and
Shiraz. They were met with unrestrained violence by the police and
security forces. Dozens were killed, and 4,000 people were jailed.
The police particularly targeted journalists and other government
critics with widespread torture, beatings, and threats against family
members.
A new round of protests began in December 2017, and they've been
continuing intermittently since then.
Just as there's almost nothing that Hanoi could have done in 1960s
America to cause young people to support Richard Nixon, there is
nothing that the US can do today that would cause Iran's young people
to support the Supreme Leader Seyed Ali Khamenei. Every problem will
be interpreted through the filter of opposing the current government.
And there are plenty of things to protest against, as you can see from
the anti-government chants listed above.
There's a big antiwar factor. Young people want Iran out of Syria.
Young people want Iran out of Gaza. Young people want Iran to stop
funding Hezbollah. Young people want Israel to be left alone. Young
people blame the poor economy on massive military spending abroad. In
fact, Iran received tens of billions of dollars when sanctions were
lifted in 2015, but ordinary people saw little of it. It mostly
benefitted government cronies, and the rest was spent on foreign wars.
That leads to the second major factor: Corruption. According to
Transparency International, Iran's government is among the most
corrupt in the world. According to its transparency index, Iran has
an extremely low score of 30 out of 100. By comparison, the worst
performing region in the world is sub-Saharan Africa, with a score of
32, which is a better score than Iran's.
Corruption has become so endemic and so bad in Iran's government that
even government officials have been expressing alarm. The reason that
Iran is so steeped in corruption can be found in its constitution,
which was written by Ruhollah Khomeini, the leader of the 1979
revolution. Khomeini wrote the constitution to give himself and any
future Supreme Leader with almost unlimited powers.
Khomeini's constitution is almost completely lacking in the kinds of
checks and balances that the US Constitution is full of -- three
branches of government, with each branch given specific powers that
can be curtailed by other branches of government. Iran has an
Assembly of Experts that is supposed to provide oversight to the
Supreme Leader, but it never has seriously performed that function.
The way the constitution is set up, with no real checks and balances,
the only way to succeed in government is to be more corrupt than
anyone else. Radio Farda (24-Feb) and Bloomberg and Fox News
****
**** The international demand for regime change in Iran
****
There is a great desire in the West for something called "regime
change" in Iran, although it's rarely specified what that means.
Regime change did occur in America in 1974, with the forced
resignation of Richard Nixon. The current Supreme Leader is Sayyid
Ali Hosseini Khamenei, 79 years old, born 1939. Many people are
hoping that he'll be replaced soon, although he might live for another
10-15 years. But would that qualify as "regime change"?
Corruption is thoroughly embedded in Iran because corruption is almost
demanded by the constitution for survival in government. Real regime
change would require a new constitution. Perhaps the Assembly of
Experts might form a "Constitutional Convention," like the one in
America in 1787, and lock the participants in a room and not let them
up until they come up with a new constitution for Iran, filled with
checks and balances. However, there's little hope for that. In fact,
any real regime change may not come for many years.
For almost 15 years, I've been saying, based on a Generational
Dynamics analysis, that that Iran will be America's ally in the coming
Clash of Civilizations world war.
This can be seen by connecting the dots. China is very closely allied
with Pakistan, which is very closely allied with the Sunni states,
including Saudi Arabia. China and India are bitter enemies, as are
Pakistan and India. Russia and India are very closely allied, and
India is very closely allied with Iran, as Hindus have been allied
with Shia Muslims going back to the Battle of Karbala in 680. So the
US is going to be allied with India, Russia and Iran, versus China,
Pakistan, and the Sunni Muslim states. Just remember that Russia was
our bitter enemy before WW II, was our ally during WW II, and was our
bitter enemy after WW II. You can't make judgments from today's
fatuous political alignments to how nations will act when they're
forced to make hard choices in the context of a generational crisis
war. These major decisions are made by the populations, large
generations of people, not by a few politicians when a nation and its
way of life are threatened.
So that's a brief summary of the geopolitical linkages. But there's
another way we know that Iran will be an American ally. Iran's
college students have been holding pro-American and pro-Western
protests for almost 20 years, starting with the first major protest in
1999. The Iranian regime brutally and violently ended those protests,
but they didn't change minds. Today, those college students are 30-40
years old, moving into positions of power. When the time comes and
Iranians are forced to choose, they'll decide that they'll have no
choice but to side with America and the West. CNBC and Fox News and Slate
Related Articles
KEYS: Generational Dynamics,
Generational Dynamics, Iran, Tehran,
Seyed Ali Hosseini Khamenei, Ruhollah Khomeini,
European Union, Germany, Daimler,
France, Total, Renault, Peugeot,
China Dongfeng Fengshen, Iran Khodro, Chery, Brilliance
Permanent web link to this article
Receive daily World View columns by e-mail
Contribute to Generational Dynamics via PayPal
John J. Xenakis
100 Memorial Drive Apt 8-13A
Cambridge, MA 02142
Phone: 617-864-0010
E-mail: john@GenerationalDynamics.com
Web site: http://www.GenerationalDynamics.com
Forum: http://www.gdxforum.com/forum
Subscribe to World View: http://generationaldynamics.com/subscribe
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
- US reimposes US sanctions against Iran that ended with 2015 nuclear deal
- Iran's protesters blame bad economy on Supreme Leader, not on US sanctions
- The international demand for regime change in Iran
****
**** US reimposes US sanctions against Iran that ended with 2015 nuclear deal
****
A mural painting on the wall of the former US embassy in Tehran, where the 1980 Iranian hostage crisis originally occurred (AFP)
President Donald Trump on Tuesday issued an executive order reimposing
economic sanctions that had been eased by the 2015 nuclear deal. The
sanctions target Iran's automotive industry, the purchase of
commercial aircraft and metals including gold, and the selling of
Persian carpets.
Trump tweeted:
<QUOTE>"Anyone doing business with Iran will NOT be doing
business with the United States. I am asking for WORLD PEACE,
nothing less!"<END QUOTE>
The action appears to have thrown the European Union into a new level
of chaos.
The sanctions bar any company which does business in Iran from doing
business in the US - under far reaching secondary sanctions - and they
also forbid any company that does business in the US from doing
business with any company that does any business with Iran. This
means, for example, that under certain circumstances a bank may have
to deny a company doing business with Iran access to its own
dollar-based bank accounts. But in that case, the bank could be sued
by its own customers.
Trying to cope, the EU has passed so-called "blocking laws" that would
make it illegal for banks to withdraw services to companies doing
business with Iran or even with other companies that do business with
Iran. The laws are designed to limit the potential damage to European
companies conducting legitimate business with Iran directly or
indirectly.
However, these laws have not been particularly effective. Germany's
carmaker Daimler immediately announced a halt to its business
activities in Iran. France's oil and gas giant Total has already
indicated it intends to shelve a multi-billion dollar investment in
Iran. France's automaker Renault, which had an 8% share of Iran's
automotive market, announced last week it would comply with the
sanctions. Peugeot withdrew in June. More than 100 international
companies have also said they would comply.
However, China's auto companies are rushing to fill the gap left by
departing European companies. Chinese cars already have a nearly 10%
share of Iran's auto market, and a 50% share of auto parts imported
into Iran. Iran Khodro, Iran's largest car manufacturer and assembler
of foreign cars, recently told its salesmen to promote to customers
China’s H30 Cross, made by Dongfeng Fengshen, as a replacement for
Renault’s Tondar 90.
Other Chinese car manufacturers present in Iran include Chery and
Brilliance, whose H330, assembled in Iran by Saipa, is among the top
10 best-selling cars in the country. China has also lifted monthly
oil imports from Iran by 26%. China is the world’s top crude oil
buyer and Iran’s biggest customer. RFE/RL and BBC and VOA and Deutsche Welle
****
**** Iran's protesters blame bad economy on Supreme Leader, not on US sanctions
****
Iran's economy is in serious trouble. The rial currency has been
plummeting against the dollar since May, when the US announced that
sanctions would be imposed on August 7.
Since that time there have been growing street protests in cities
across the country. However, they're not anti-American protests,
which is something we as Americans have come to expect for decades.
Instead, the protests are blaming their own government.
Here's a list of street protesters chants collected by RFE/RL in the
last few days:
<QUOTE>“Death to high prices and inflation.”
“We don’t want incompetent officials.”
“Not to Gaza, not to Lebanon. May my life
be sacrificed for Iran.”
“Death to the dictator.”
“Our enemy is right here. They lie when they say it’s America.”
"Reza Shah, bless your soul.”
“Iranians, shout out your demands.”
"Police forces, support [us], support [us].”
“Death to Hizballah.”
“Iranians die, [but] they don’t accept abjection.”
“Death to Khamenei.”
“Mullahs must get lost.”
“Don’t be scared, we’re all together.”<END QUOTE>
If you want to understand what's going on, the easiest model to keep
in mind is the street protests in America in the 1960s and 1970s.
Although the several things were protested, they were mainly anti-war
protests against the war in Vietnam.
Logic might indicate that since the North Vietnamese in Hanoi were the
enemy, Americans should be on the side of the Americans, not the North
Vietnamese. It's true that few Americans were openly on the side of
the North Vietnamese (Jane Fonda and John Kerry come to mind), but few
Americans were on the side of America either.
It made no difference what the Nixon administration did. The young
protesters were opposed to everything. And it made no difference what
Hanoi did either. There was nothing that Hanoi could have done to
make the young protesters say, "Gee, maybe Nixon is right. I'm going
to support him now." Violent street protests in Los Angeles and
Detroit were blamed on presidents Johnson and Nixon. The 1968 riot at
the Democratic convention in Chicago was blamed on Johnson and Nixon.
The shootings of students at Kent State College in 1972 were blamed on
Nixon.
This is what always happens in a generational Awakening, starting
around 20 years after the end of a generational crisis war, in this
case World War II. The survivors of the war traumatized by its
horrors, and vow to keep it from happening again. The generation that
grows up after the war have no personal memory of it, and they turn
against the generations of survivors in what's called a "generation
gap"
Exactly the same thing is happening in Iran today. The first major
anti-government protest began in 1999, about 20 years after the 1979
Islamic Revolution. Some 10,000 students rioted in Tehran University,
chanting anti-government slogans. The police reacted violently,
leaving at least 20 people hospitalized and 125 students jailed.
There were sporadic protests every few months after that. The next
round of major protests, large enouch to threaten the government
occurred after the 2009 presidential election. The violence that
followed was bloody and massive. Largely peaceful street protests by
hundreds of thousands of mostly young people occurred in Iran’s main
cities and provincial capitals, including Tehran, Tabriz, Isfahan and
Shiraz. They were met with unrestrained violence by the police and
security forces. Dozens were killed, and 4,000 people were jailed.
The police particularly targeted journalists and other government
critics with widespread torture, beatings, and threats against family
members.
A new round of protests began in December 2017, and they've been
continuing intermittently since then.
Just as there's almost nothing that Hanoi could have done in 1960s
America to cause young people to support Richard Nixon, there is
nothing that the US can do today that would cause Iran's young people
to support the Supreme Leader Seyed Ali Khamenei. Every problem will
be interpreted through the filter of opposing the current government.
And there are plenty of things to protest against, as you can see from
the anti-government chants listed above.
There's a big antiwar factor. Young people want Iran out of Syria.
Young people want Iran out of Gaza. Young people want Iran to stop
funding Hezbollah. Young people want Israel to be left alone. Young
people blame the poor economy on massive military spending abroad. In
fact, Iran received tens of billions of dollars when sanctions were
lifted in 2015, but ordinary people saw little of it. It mostly
benefitted government cronies, and the rest was spent on foreign wars.
That leads to the second major factor: Corruption. According to
Transparency International, Iran's government is among the most
corrupt in the world. According to its transparency index, Iran has
an extremely low score of 30 out of 100. By comparison, the worst
performing region in the world is sub-Saharan Africa, with a score of
32, which is a better score than Iran's.
Corruption has become so endemic and so bad in Iran's government that
even government officials have been expressing alarm. The reason that
Iran is so steeped in corruption can be found in its constitution,
which was written by Ruhollah Khomeini, the leader of the 1979
revolution. Khomeini wrote the constitution to give himself and any
future Supreme Leader with almost unlimited powers.
Khomeini's constitution is almost completely lacking in the kinds of
checks and balances that the US Constitution is full of -- three
branches of government, with each branch given specific powers that
can be curtailed by other branches of government. Iran has an
Assembly of Experts that is supposed to provide oversight to the
Supreme Leader, but it never has seriously performed that function.
The way the constitution is set up, with no real checks and balances,
the only way to succeed in government is to be more corrupt than
anyone else. Radio Farda (24-Feb) and Bloomberg and Fox News
****
**** The international demand for regime change in Iran
****
There is a great desire in the West for something called "regime
change" in Iran, although it's rarely specified what that means.
Regime change did occur in America in 1974, with the forced
resignation of Richard Nixon. The current Supreme Leader is Sayyid
Ali Hosseini Khamenei, 79 years old, born 1939. Many people are
hoping that he'll be replaced soon, although he might live for another
10-15 years. But would that qualify as "regime change"?
Corruption is thoroughly embedded in Iran because corruption is almost
demanded by the constitution for survival in government. Real regime
change would require a new constitution. Perhaps the Assembly of
Experts might form a "Constitutional Convention," like the one in
America in 1787, and lock the participants in a room and not let them
up until they come up with a new constitution for Iran, filled with
checks and balances. However, there's little hope for that. In fact,
any real regime change may not come for many years.
For almost 15 years, I've been saying, based on a Generational
Dynamics analysis, that that Iran will be America's ally in the coming
Clash of Civilizations world war.
This can be seen by connecting the dots. China is very closely allied
with Pakistan, which is very closely allied with the Sunni states,
including Saudi Arabia. China and India are bitter enemies, as are
Pakistan and India. Russia and India are very closely allied, and
India is very closely allied with Iran, as Hindus have been allied
with Shia Muslims going back to the Battle of Karbala in 680. So the
US is going to be allied with India, Russia and Iran, versus China,
Pakistan, and the Sunni Muslim states. Just remember that Russia was
our bitter enemy before WW II, was our ally during WW II, and was our
bitter enemy after WW II. You can't make judgments from today's
fatuous political alignments to how nations will act when they're
forced to make hard choices in the context of a generational crisis
war. These major decisions are made by the populations, large
generations of people, not by a few politicians when a nation and its
way of life are threatened.
So that's a brief summary of the geopolitical linkages. But there's
another way we know that Iran will be an American ally. Iran's
college students have been holding pro-American and pro-Western
protests for almost 20 years, starting with the first major protest in
1999. The Iranian regime brutally and violently ended those protests,
but they didn't change minds. Today, those college students are 30-40
years old, moving into positions of power. When the time comes and
Iranians are forced to choose, they'll decide that they'll have no
choice but to side with America and the West. CNBC and Fox News and Slate
Related Articles
- Iran's anti-government protests expand as rial currency plummets (01-Aug-2018)
- Massive Tehran riots strike deep into Iran government's legitimacy (26-Jun-2018)
- Two protesters killed in southern Iran in latest violent clashes with police (19-May-2018)
- Anti-government, anti-war and economic protests spread across Iran (30-Dec-2017)
- Tens of thousands protest in Tehran after Rafsanjani says Iran is 'in crisis' (18-Jul-2009)
- Iranian police swoop down on women with loose headscarves (25-Apr-2007)
KEYS: Generational Dynamics,
Generational Dynamics, Iran, Tehran,
Seyed Ali Hosseini Khamenei, Ruhollah Khomeini,
European Union, Germany, Daimler,
France, Total, Renault, Peugeot,
China Dongfeng Fengshen, Iran Khodro, Chery, Brilliance
Permanent web link to this article
Receive daily World View columns by e-mail
Contribute to Generational Dynamics via PayPal
John J. Xenakis
100 Memorial Drive Apt 8-13A
Cambridge, MA 02142
Phone: 617-864-0010
E-mail: john@GenerationalDynamics.com
Web site: http://www.GenerationalDynamics.com
Forum: http://www.gdxforum.com/forum
Subscribe to World View: http://generationaldynamics.com/subscribe
