Iran by the Numbers

The most striking thing about Iran today is the honesty you can find in the newspapers. Some mornings, they take your breath away. Consider the mainstream paper Entekhab, which ran a long piece the other day, headlined "Skyrocketing Figures," that ticked off the following statistics: There are now 84,000 prostitutes operating on the streets of Tehran and 250 brothels, including some linked to high officials. There are 60 new runaway girls hitting Tehran's streets every day — a 12 percent increase over last year. Forty percent of all drug-addicted women in Iranian prisons have AIDS. Two sisters, ages 16 and 17, recently gave AIDS to 1,100 people in a two-month period. Four million youths under the age of 20 suffer from depression. Unemployment (which is already around 30 percent) is steadily rising.

All of these problems are symptoms of a floundering economy, or, as the newspaper Iran News baldly put it two weeks ago: "The nation's entire economic structure is fundamentally bankrupt and in desperate need of urgent and sweeping reforms. Some of the graver and more prominent problems include lack of sufficient foreign investment, mismanagement in all tiers of our economic system, political isolation leading to [a] deteriorating economic situation, atrocious unemployment [and] high inflation."

As a person that vividly remembers the people of Iran crapping on America by holding and abusing our American citizens for over a year, I wouldn't care if all of Iran burned to the ground with every one there going up in the blaze.

Jimmy Carter you piece of crap.

GOD bless Ronald Reagan.

It seems that it is good news that the newspapers do print this stuff and the editors appearently do not get stoned. Iran seems to be in the beginning throes of what many believe that all of the radical Muslem unpleasentness is about.

The ruling Muslem class is simlar to the ruling class in any dictatorship, from Nazi Germany, to the old USSR, to today's North Korea. The Muslem clerics cannot rule though the consent of the governed, so they must rule through force. As in any top-down government, this style will eventually break down, resulting either in major structrual reform, or explosion, or more draconian means for the ruling class to stay that way. Structrual reform is very difficult because old dictators cannot give the people "a little freedom". Once people get a taste of freedom they demand more and more.

I believe that the Mulsem religous dictators know this and try to focus the peoples' attention away from their failings and towards the Great Satan, USA, and its local imp, Israel.

If the Iranian clerics are letting Iranian newspapers publish this type of stuff, one of two things must be happening: Either the clerics are trying to ease into a more secular and marked driven society and ecconomy voluntarily, or else, they do not have the power to stop the Iranian editors. Either way is good news to the USA. Both senerios are bad news to the mullahs of the region.

Put down the matchbox. Many of the citizens of Iran were (and secretly are) staunch supporters of the United States, just as many people in Vietnam remember our fight against communism with gratitude. Life was pretty good in Iran before Khomeini, but since then it has sucked pretty badly. That point is not lost even on the people who were glad to get rid of the Shah (who was no keeper, to be sure). If the Ayatollahs are overthrown from within, we'll probably have no better friends in the region. They want to get back to the Western lifestyle that they lost.

As someone who knew many Iranian navel cadets personally during the same time frame (78-79) while they were attending college, I can tell you that I had no love loss for them. They were rich, arrogant, and overall pompus. The best thing we could say when they got kicked out was that there was more steak for the rest of us that night.

A couple of years or so after they were booted out, they started trickling back into the states. I had occasion to sit down with one of them at length and talk about what had happened when they got back.

Most of the guys were sent into the war with Iraq, and many of them were dead. This guy told me about seeing kids shot to death in the streets for having a bible. He told me about a two month trek through the desert and mountains, often walking at night with old women, kids, and everything they could carry--just to get out.

When I asked why the people did not rise up against the government, he looked at me as if I were crazy. He then said, "they had all the guns."

My impression of this experience was that the Iranian people did not like their government. Those with money and ambition got out. Those who stayed would love to be friends with America, but did not want us ruling their country. It is the same old story--we love Americans, we love their freedom, but we dont like them telling us how to run our lives.

It also made me thankful for private gun ownership.

Iran probably has the best chance to make the leap towards a balance between their Muslim culture and the ever-growing Western influences, like that which we see in Turkey.

I remember seeing a History Channel review of the Hostage Crisis, and how the aftermath was such a disheartening thing for the pro-Western students there. Two big IF's here, but imagine if the Crisis never happened, and we backed Iran against Saddam (or heck, just not equip him and let Iran finish him before he got as fanatical and brutal as he is today)... *sigh* but I guess it was not meant to be.

It is the same old story--we love Americans, we love their freedom, but we dont like them telling us how to run our lives.

Maybe someday our influence-peddling and power-hungry representatives will finally heed George Washington's advice, and stay the heck out of everybody else's business when our national interests are not at stake. Until then, we'll just have to join the rest of the world in their anger at our government's abuses and over-reaching.

Unfortunately, from time to time, it gets our citizens hurt or killed. =^/

I have heard those rumblings but I just don't think I could trust an Iranian. Yes the Mullahs are their own worst enemies suppressing their own populaitons will certainly turn the people against the tight religious rules. Again I just don't trust them.Maybe if any of the leaders of the Arab, Muslim world had the balls to have immediately and unconditionally condemed 9-11. If any of the leaders or even the people stood up and condemmed the murder of innocents.

The only thing I see is that Iranians like the rest of the world are jelous of American and west culture compared to their own.

Maybe if any of the leaders of the Arab, Muslim world had the balls to have immediately and unconditionally condemed 9-11. If any of the leaders or even the people stood up and condemmed the murder of innocents.

Many if not most did. I remember there were statements by Mubarak, the leader of Turkey, the King of Jordan and, for that matter, Arafat the day of the attack. I'm sure there were others. Have you checked?

The only thing I see is that Iranians like the rest of the world are jelous of American and west culture compared to their own.

Iran was a wealthy industrial nation with a Western culture and lifestyle, until Khomeini came along and trashed it. The adults haven't forgotten how good life was when the U.S. was its friend, and I'm sure many of them have surreptitiously let their children know.

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