Iran remains defiant in face of sanctions, vowing retaliation
Tuesday, July 20, 2010
By: ICEJ News

Economic worries stirring domestic opponents of regime

Iranian state radio reported on Tuesday that the Iranian parliament has passed a bill allowing for tit-for-tat retaliation against countries that inspect Iranian ships and aircraft as part of the latest set of UN sanctions passed last month to discourage the Islamic Republic’s renegade nuclear program.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad declared last week that “the regime has only one party, which is the velayat” - a reference to Shiite Islam’s hidden imam, for now represented by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. The latest in a long line of fiery statements from the Iranian leader is widely viewed by Iran observers as further proof that the increasingly isolated regime was coming under mounting pressure from domestic opposition groups even before recently passed sanctions come into full effect.

“Any small incident could trigger another chain of events,” said Rasool Nafisi, of Strayer University in Virginia. “So the government tries to plug any sign of unrest at its onset, using maximum pressure, threats and efforts to co-opt the dissidents.”

Reports out of Iran also indicate that Ahmadinejad and the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps are increasingly coming into conflict with the old guard of conservative clerics inside the establishment who resent the growing political and economic clout of the IRGC and fear that Ahmadinejad is leading the country into disaster. Parliament Speaker Ali Larijani, a fierce critic of Ahmadinejad’s economic policies, has repeatedly asked Khamenei to discipline the president but so far there has been little response.

In recent weeks, there have been even stronger objections to Ahmadinejad’s polices on the streets of Tehran and other major cities, with bazaar merchants, seen as a bellwether of the Iranian street, striking to protest government policies. Many analysts believe that this - more than anything else - demonstrates the fragility and unpopularity of the Ahmadinejad regime and the probability of a heavy handed response.

“Iran’s anemic economy is fueling discontent across the country. Sanctions have added to the sense of economic malaise,” said Alireza Nader, an Iran specialist at the RAND Corporation. “Faced by discontent, Ahmadinejad and the Revolutionary Guards may even tighten their grip on society, including the bazaar, to pursue their domestic and foreign policy objectives.”