Iranian dissident - Sanctions + Low crude prices = Mullah Instability

A leading Iranian dissident in a recent speech argued that Western sanctions combined with low crude oil prices would destabilize the regime in Teheran.

Parviz Dastmalchi, an opposition figure who lives in Germany, said international sanctions have harmed Iran's economy. He said many factories have been forced to close, throwing young people out of work.

"Currently there is still money in Iran from the oil industry which allows them to outfit the regime of terror," Dastmalchi said. "As soon as the money runs out, instability will prevail."

Like most rogue state regimes, Iran's might more readily be toppled from within were it not in essence propped up by foreign powers providing incentives for bringing its leaders to the negotiating table. After such "talks" rogue state regimes can use their enhanced leverage and international prestige to repel all threats from within and without.

The perfect prototype for how to play the United States has been provided by one of the world's most impoverished and dysfunctional rogue states -- North Korea.

As analyst and UN correspondent John Metzler wrote recently,

The U.S. side may likely then opt for a quick diplomatic deal with Iran, much like the Geneva Agreements the Clinton Administration achieved with North Korea back in 1994. That flawed accord offered North Korea energy supplies and a civilian nuclear power reactor in exchange for limited inspections and transparency. Needless to say North Korea still covertly pursued its nuclear weapons program and tested an atomic bomb a few years ago.

But the worldwide economic crisis is impacting much more harshly in countries like Iran and China than in the United States and could disrupt the mullahs' diplomatic and nuclear strategy.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, left, and Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki in Tehran on Dec. 1. Ahmadinejad has for the first time admitted that the fall in world oil prices is hurting his government, local media reported. AFP/Atta Kenare

After mocking the West at the onset of the economic meltdown in late September, Ahmadinejad has in the interim been buffeted by an increasingly critical economic crisis of his own. Already, throughout the past year, he had been coming under sharp internal criticism for his economic policies. Last month, 60 economists wrote Ahmadinejad a letter blaming him for out of control inflation caused the huge stimulus oil money injection his government gave the economy.

Ahmadinejad had promised the stimulus would create jobs but instead, unemployment has increased by at least 10 percent.

The International Monetary Fund reported last summer that the Iran regime would face "unsustainable deficits" if the price of oil dropped below $75 a barrel. And Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has for the first time admitted that the fall in world oil prices will affect the economic projects of his government, his own media reported this week.

"If we fix the oil price at 30 dollars a barrel in the budget, we will have to abandon much of our economic projects ... We have to set it at 30 to 35 dollars as we don't determine the oil price on international markets," he said.

In his address at Israel's Haifa University, Iranian dissident Dastmalchi said the mullah regime in Teheran was certain to collapse.

Dastmalchi, in his first visit to Israel, said Iranians, in a demonstration of their distrust for the regime, have been seeking information from Western news outlets.

"All indications are that the Iranian regime is not stable," Dastmalchi said on Nov. 25. "The majority of the Iranian population is not interested in the regime of ayatollahs, and I believe the regime will eventually collapse."

Teheran has regarded Dastmalchi as an enemy. In 1992, he survived an Iranian assassination in Germany in which four of his colleagues were killed.

"Ninety-nine percent of the Iranian population do not have the right to vote and cannot work in key positions," Dastmalchi said. "Iranian law actually allows citizens of a certain social standing to murder another citizen of lower standing without having a trial in a court of law as long as the victim is considered an enemy."