Social Engineering in the Digital Cyber Age | 3 comments (3 topical, editorial, 0 hidden)

Iran: Protesters Shouting Leave Syria Alone (none / 0)

Will take a few days to learn what the Iranian protest is all about!

History of sanctions advises that Iran is far from collapse | The National |
On Sunday the Israeli finance minister, Yuval Steinitz, declared that the Iranian economy was "on the verge of collapse". Sanctions were finally working and causing the Iranians "great economic difficulties", as a result of an estimated annual loss of $45 billion to $50 billion (Dh165 billion to Dh184 billion) in oil revenues.
The previous day, the Israeli foreign minister, Avigdor Lieberman, said that he believed the mullahs would soon be overthrown by an "Iranian-style Tahrir revolution", such as the one that toppled Hosni Mubarak in Egypt.
These statements should not be taken at face value. They are part of the climb-down executed by the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, who has tacitly admitted that Israel does not have the power to knock out Iran's nuclear facilities on its own and has therefore extended his "deadline" for military action until the middle of next year, in the hope that the Americans will join him then.
The world should be grateful that another war in the Middle East is not about to start. But the narrative "sanctions are working" has taken on a life of its own.
The story was given a push by scuffles in Tehran caused by the plummeting value of the Iranian rial, and the clumsy attempts of the president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, to impose state regulation on the hectic foreign exchange markets.
With confidence in the rial collapsing, crowds scuffled with police as they closed down currency traders, and bazaar traders, unable to price their goods, gathered to shout angry slogans against the government, including: "Leave Syria alone and think of us."

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