Disagreements Between Friends
There's nothing quite like money disputes to bring friends close to head-bashing between themselves. And here is Iran's new showpiece monetary note, a new 50,000-rial note now in circulation with special bragging notes on its nascent nuclear ascendancy. The note, with its map of Iran superimposed with the stirring imagery of an atom circled by electrons is meant to boost national pride.Something wrong in paradise? "This bill is the worst promotion for Ahmadinejad's government. If his government wants to compromise on the nuclear issue, this is a disgrace", said a Tehran businessman, Mustafa Hasanzadeh. This man is not impressed. Because the world is not happy with the vision, however celestial it appears to president Ahmadinejad, of Iran achieving nuclear power in its current politically incendiary image.
So Iranians are divided, between those who feel the note expresses their pride in their country's prestigious scientific nuclear achievement and those who feel the imagery is unnecessarily provocative in a world justly suspicious of Iran's intentions toward its neighbours and the rest of the world based on its villainous boasts, threats and actions.
"It looks beautiful," said an accountant, "But regrettably, it shows the devaluation (of our money) and is ominous." Attempting a makeover from a sow's ear into a silk purse, simply won't work in this instance and not just because pigs are disallowed in Islam. Before the ayatollahs created their Iranian theocracy the rial traded at 70 to the dollar, unlike today's rate of about 9,300.
Pursuing the nuclear option has not enriched the country. It has, however, given it the kind of worldwide notoriety that Ahmadinejad and his ilk appear to hunger for. He and his supporters appear to revel in pushing their divinely-inspired apocolyptic agenda in the face of a worriedly-scandalized world body.
"How can we be proud of our economy when we officially devaluate our own currency? The people first of all need decent jobs and food, and then they can envisage something like national pride" according to Abul-Ghassem Goulbag, publisher of an economic and political monthly in Tehran.
And here is Russia indicating a split with Tehran on the start-up of a Russian-built nuclear reactor. Do one's eyes deceive, reading that Moscow has indicated it will not join Tehran "in anti-American games"? AtomStroyExport, the Russian state-run company building Iran's first nuclear power plant has announced a trifling problem; unresolved disputes over project funding.
After all its hedging about supporting the UN and US-sponsored sanctions against Iran, Russia now claims "Iran with a nuclear bomb or a potential for its creation is impermissible for us. We will not play with them in anti-American games... The Iranians are abusing our constructive attitude and have done nothing to help us convince our colleagues of Tehran's consistency."
Iran's consistency? Why Iran has been quite consistent. It has time and again asserted its right to do as it wishes, despite the unease its position deleterious to world stability causes its neighbours, the United Nations, the world at large. It has allowed its lunatic prime minister to taunt and insult, to promise it would achieve its goal of eradicating one of its neighbours, a member of the United Nations.
Moscow and Tehran have some differences in opinion. Moscow wanting to be able to persuade the UN and the US that Tehran's needs and plans are strictly for peaceful fuel production. Its actions persuade its detractors otherwise; that the function will be for the production of nuclear weaponry.
So is it the moral issue and the safety of the world that has Moscow and Tehran in disputation or the terms of payment for work at the Russian-built facility? Russia claims that Iran has not been living up to its obligations in paying the agreed-upon $25 million per month.
Nothing speaks like money.
Labels: Troublespots
posted by Pieface @ Saturday, March 17, 2007
<< Home