generalspeaking

Foiled Ambition

Countries with massive deposits of highly desired commodities in this energy-hungry world should govern themselves with a reasonable balance of awareness that their geography's natural endowments will not last forever. With the understanding that their newfound wealth is based on a source which is not infinite. That the great bounty they reap in their natural gas and oil fields has a limit.

Moreover, those energy-sourced riches belong to the nation, to the people whom their governments represent. The obligation is to use that wealth selectively and wisely, to advance the best interests of the country, ensuring that all its citizens gain from collective ownership. In Sudan there's the reality of oil wealth distributed for the ruling Arab-dominated hierarchy, while black Darfurians are bereft of any largess.

In Iraq, unless a tripartite agreement is reached between the Sunni, Shia and Kurds, the Sunni population will not benefit, with the area they inhabit not rich in oil deposits. In Venezuela, their president has swaggered on the world stage, insulting those whom he avers are ideological and class enemies to his country, while using the country's oil wealth to buy gratitude and loyalty in friendly, socialist nations.

In Russia, massive petroleum output has rescued the country from its slide into post-Soviet Union ignominy and economic collapse to the point where now the country has become wealthy beyond its imaginings, with a greater number of billionaires than any other country of the world. Enabling its government to revisit its autocratic bullying past and make good on its resentment of the West.

And in Iran, huge oil reserves have allowed that country to rise above its otherwise mediocre national performance, to reach for nuclear technology well before its peoples' need for economic security. Iran's ambition to spread the Shi'ite brand of Islam, and to assume for itself, after an enormous historical hiatus, the mantle of leader of the Islamic world has led it to finance terror.

They've all basked in the satisfaction achieved through wealth and the power that is derived from an assured income dependent not on the proven capabilities of a society to educate and inform, to encourage trade and business interests reaching into the world at large to engender good relations, but through sitting back and enjoying the windfalls of commodities ownership.

In the process, they've preened themselves and bullied themselves into positions of offering aid to those in their neighbourhoods who are less fortunately endowed by nature, and issuing belligerent warnings to yet others with whom they've shared traditional hostilities, bolstered by the impetus of emerging status as wealthy countries.

And wealthy countries governed by totalitarian or theocratic elites tend, like their poorer relatives in dictatorships, to use national wealth for the acquisition of the toys of war. The better to threaten others, under the guise of self-protection. And when opportunities arise to spread the tentacles of their hegemonic powers, weapons and a well-ordered professional army prove useful in the extreme.

Almost universally, the single most successful political, economic and social country in the world is widely despised and envied, admired and derided. Leaders in Moscow, Caracas and Tehran - among many others worldwide - have taken much satisfaction in the recent financial meltdown that began in the United States. That it has spread worldwide, only furnishes America's harshest critics with more ammunition.

But it's the oil cartels that are now also suffering a setback in their plans for their future incomes. While they gloat over the misfortunes of failed financial markets, they're also seeing the price of oil plummeting from a high of $147 a barrel throughout the summer months, to the current $70 a barrel. Many other oil-producing countries have had the good sense to amass a currency reserve.

The oil sheikdoms of the Middle East, with the exception of Iran, will earn less money from their oil production and exports, but they're well positioned nonetheless, since their production costs are still low enough that they continue to reap a hefty enough profit. Not so for Iran, whose costs are far higher; like Venezuela, it needs a $95-a-barrel market price to see a balanced budget.

Even with Iran's great oil earnings, the country was never awash in wealth. It has been incapable of creating wealth through other mean; unemployment is high, the average Iranian is struggling to get by, and previously subsidized goods for public consumption will now face cut-offs. Too much of the country's wealth has been consumed in nuclear technology, too little has trickled down to help the economy.

Iranians now face a tax increase, in an already-floundering economic landscape. People will pay more for sugar, cooking oil and wheat. Mahmoud Ahmedinejad's popular appeal will plummet even further, at a critical time for him, facing re-election next summer. So it's of more than passing interest to read what the country's ayatollahs have to say.

In a thundering sermon replete with schadenfreude, Ayatollah Ahmad Khatami blamed Washington's lust for power for the 'economic tsunami' now afflicting the American economy. It's his wisely considered opinion that the now-universal financial crisis damns the liberal democratic ideology embraced by the developed world. "...We are today witnessing defects in the utopia and its crushing failure."

No blush of self-awareness over Iran's overwhelming lust for power, for regional hegemony, for elevation of Shia Islam over the majority Sunni Islam, and Iran's obvious challenge to the Arab nations, other Muslim countries in the shared geography of the Middle East.

Iran's arrogant dismissal of the UN Security Council's admonishments, and its final desperate attempts to have Iran cease its nuclear enrichment program aimed at the creation of nuclear warheads are airily dismissed as misunderstandings. While Iran's neighbours understand clearly what its game is.

And the single Middle East country that is not Islamic, that is democratic, understands with a brilliant clarity that the country plans to number Israel's days with the finality of obliteration. The prospect of two nuclear-possessing countries facing off is not attractive anywhere in the world, be it Iran-Israel, or India-Pakistan.

So if Iran's fortunes have tumbled precipitously, it reflects the misfortune of the people of Persia who have allowed their fascistic Ayatollahs to attenuate their human rights in the name of religious righteousness. That, even with the support of Iran's friends, she was shut out of Asian (two-year) membership on the UN Security Council, should give the country a heads-up.

Iran is doing a great many things counter-productive to its own interests and that of the world at large. If oil prices settle at a price-per-barrel on the international market that dictates further and deep-cutting financial failure for the country, its theocratic rulers should finally understand that Allah is not quite prepared to grant it the potential to annihilate anyone.

That ancient country with its brilliant cultural traditions, its marvellous artistic past has devolved to the misfortune of utter stupidity in adhering to a religion and a way of life fashioned in a long bygone era, obviously unsuited as it is currently interpreted, to the world as it is today. Archaic civilizations routinely warred against one another, and to the winner went the spoils.

The UN body that Iran sought to join has as its ultimate function the obligation to attempt to oversee a world of peace. Iran has a long way to travel before it ever presents as a suitable candidate to join other countries in that search for human co-operation leading to peace among nations.

Labels: Middle East, Technology, Traditions, Troublespots

posted by Pieface @ Saturday, October 18, 2008