My colleague David Kampf in his posting today, draws our attention to the current Economic Cooperation Organization summit in Tehran in which Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad predicts the collapse of capitalism. Scary, right? It is another firebrand speech from an energetic leader of a rising regional power with a productive nuclear program and a lot of anti-West rhetoric.
But perhaps Ahmadinejad made his speech because capitalism in Iran (even more than in the West) is on the verge of collapse. Since oil prices tumbled in 2008, Iran has been floundering in its own sea of self-made financial disaster. While, Iran’s star may appear to be rising (at least geopolitically), Ahmadinejad’s stock appears to be plummeting. He has squandered his nation’s wealth. Iran expert Ali Nourizadeh explains the economic pickle Ahmadinejad has put his country in:
“Mismanagement of the economy is Mr. Ahmadinejad’s number one crime, as is mentioned not only by his critics but also by his followers and supporters in all political quarters. Mr. Ahmadinejad is the luckiest president or the luckiest politician since the creation of the Islamic Republic, and has had $300 billion in his hand in the past three-and-a-half years with the price of oil jumping to $140 per barrel. Therefore, Mr. Ahmadinejad has to come and answer to the Iranian parliament and to the people what he had done with the money. The parliament has found out that there is $1 billion missing from the previous budget and there is also $800 million which they received from selling Iranian gas and this money had not been recorded by the Central Bank.” Read more here.
And $1.8 billion missing is not all. Just this week, Iran’s Parliament rejected most of Ahmadinejad proposed budget. In addition, former Prime Minister Mir-Hossein Mousavi announced that he would run against Ahmadinejad for the presidency on a platform geared towards restoring public faith in the government. Read more about Ahmadinejad’s setbacks here.
In the end, the most frustrating thing about Ahmadinejad’s speech today is that he doesn’t offer an alternative to “collapsing” capitalism. Would that he could! So, he continues to develop Iran’s nuclear program, claiming that it will be a great financial stress reliever and provider of much needed energy (this in one of the most oil/gas-rich nations in the world). Here’s an idea for Ahmadinejad: Go green! Today the Washington Post’s Global Power Barometer features an interesting argument for Iranian green energy here.
Photo credit: Behrouz Mehri / AFP/Getty Images
