Economic policies and Iran’s poor

YOU SUGGEST that Ahmadinejad sought to get rid of the subsidies ("Iran boils over"). This is only partially true. What he did was attempt to direct them to those making under a certain income.

A Reuters article from 2008 explains it like this:

Iran's president plans to adjust an unwieldy subsidy system so that it helps the poor more directly despite initial inflation risks, in a reform opponents said was an overdue response to criticism of his policies.

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has in the past opposed reforms requiring liberalizing prices of goods like gasoline and some foodstuffs for fear of driving rampant price rises still higher, the analysts say. Change may also risk social unrest.

But reforms announced in a TV interview and carried by newspapers on Wednesday indicate the president, facing growing grumbles from opponents and the public, may want to rebuff at least some of his critics before the 2009 presidential election.

As I noted in a piece on Counterpunch, while it is arguably true that Ahmadinejad's policies have caused as many economic problems as they have solved, the fact remains that his supporters believe in his 2005 campaign call to bring the oil profits to the dinner table.

In a Washington Post article published the day before the election, it was noted (along with the fact that Ahmadinejadwon the 2005 election with a "surprising" 62 percent of the vote) that his economic policies included the distribution of "loans, money and other help for local needs."

One of these programs involved providing insurance to women who make rugs in their homes and had been without insurance until Ahmadinejad came to power. Critics, including Mir Hussein Mousavi, argue that his "free-spending policies have fueled inflation and squandered windfall petro-dollars without reducing unemployment."

There are other elements at play here, including the fabled corruption of certain unelected leaders in Iran and the role the international economic crisis plays in each and every nation's economy--a factor from which Iran is not immune. In addition, the particular nature of an Islamic economy that blends government and private business creates a constant conflict between those who would nationalize everything and those who would privatize it all.
Ron Jacobs, Asheville, N.C.