“Iran’s boast has been that there is nothing the West can do to hurt it.
Western commentary has by and large concurred, but the calculus is
shifting. Iran has proved itself such an energetic troublemaker, not only
in Iraq but in Lebanon, that the arguments for kid-glove diplomacy look
weak. In addition, it is evident that the regime is even more dependent on
oil revenues than the world is on Iranian oil - and Iran’s oil industry,
starved of foreign technology, is in trouble. Exports are declining by
around 10 per cent a year.
“Oil money buys off dissent, but President Ahmedinejad’s popularity is
shrinking even faster than oil revenues. In recent municipal elections,
his supporters were trounced by moderate conservatives and reformers.
Voters were promised a war on corruption and a campaign for economic
revival. They got, instead, an escalation of confrontation with the West,
and they do not like it. Technically, financially and politically, the
regime is thus more vulnerable than it pretends. Bombastic nationalism may
have seen Mr Ahmedinejad through 2006 but, at home if not abroad, it has
run its course. The world’s strongest weapon in 2007 may be the hunger for
change within Iran itself.”
