M Cist: Empowering the Iranian regime

Iranian leaders love of playing the patriot card to the electorate in the face of US and Israeli aggression Every move the White House makes strengthens the Iranian government – even Washington analysts must accept this by now. But within Iran, aside from the war of words between Khamenei's minions and the Bush administration, it is a reconfiguring of the political classes that has got the middle classes talking. Whole areas in even the upmarket north of Tehran have been shut down for demonstrations, however ill-conceived. Thousands of brick-makers are on strike in the north-western city of Orumieh, provoking arrests and the intimidation of families of strikers. Towards Iraq, in the west, there has been a month-long strike at the Haft-Tapeh sugar cane factory in the ancient city of Shush because of unpaid wages. Thousands... [read full story]