In an acknowledgment of the growing toll that international economic restrictions connected to Iran’s nuclear program are having on the population, both Mr. Rouhani and Ayatollah Khamenei made the economy a major theme of their remarks.
“People called for change and improvement in their living standards, they want to live better,” Mr. Rouhani said.
But he and the ayatollah offered somewhat different solutions. Whereas Mr. Rouhani said that interactions with the world, meaning talks with Europe and potentially the United States, were a way out of the crisis, Ayatollah Khamenei, who as supreme leader has final word on all important issues, expressed pessimism that such overtures would yield fruit. “Some of our enemies do not speak with our language of wisdom,” he said, urging self-sufficiency.
As Mr. Rouhani takes his public oath of office on Sunday, Iran’s growing economic crisis sits atop his agenda. Sanctions have slashed oil exports and limited Iran’s ability to transfer money from abroad. The shortage has been aggravated by the profligate spending that is a legacy of the departing government of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
During most of Mr. Ahmadinejad’s two terms, Iran enjoyed an oil windfall, with a flow of dollars and euros that fueled huge imports on goods ranging from ice cream to Porsches.
But now Mr. Rouhani’s aides describe Iran’s economic situation as the worst in decades. Many blame what they call Mr. Ahmadinejad’s erratic economic policies, punctuated by slashed subsidies and unbridled inflation.
The signs of woe abound.
Lacking money, Iran’s national soccer team scrapped a training trip to Portugal. Teachers in Tehran nervously awaited their wages, which were inexplicably delayed by more than a week. Officials warned recently that food and medicine imports have stalled for three weeks because of a lack of foreign currency.
While Mr. Rouhani has asked for a hundred days to review the state of the economy and devise solutions, there are some voices who now say that the only way to solve the economic ills is to come up with a political settlement of Iran’s nuclear dispute. Those voices were barely heard during Mr. Ahmadinejad’s tenure.
“Rouhani’s economic success depends on the determination of Iran’s other leaders to find a solution for the nuclear support,” an economics professor, Mohsen Renani of the University of Isfahan, told the Web site Neco News.
In another sign of dissatisfaction over the consequences of Iran’s nuclear stance, an influential political professor publicly expressed doubt recently over the benefits of the nuclear program. “Why are we producing radioisotopes when we can import them much cheaper?” the professor, Sadegh Zibakalam of Tehran University, told the reformist weekly Aseman. “Why should we maintain a nuclear program when we have no economic justification?”
While those voices may have grown louder, they by no means represent the official position of Iran’s ruling establishment, which maintains that self-sufficiency in nuclear energy is nonnegotiable.
“Whatever happens, our nuclear stances will not change nor waver,” Mohammad Taghi Rahbar, a former member of Parliament and an influential Friday Prayer leader in Isfahan, said in an interview. “Our supreme leader, the nation and all officials from all factions believe this is our inalienable right so we will not retreat at all.”
But ignoring the increasing economic pressures, while promising a better future — a strategy favored by Iran’s leaders over the past years — is proving increasingly complicated. Almost everybody in Iran is feeling the pain.
Article source: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/04/world/middleeast/irans-president-puts-new-focus-on-the-economy.html?partner=rss&emc=rss