28%? Time to whip up some Iran frenzy, I guess

Once more, Iran makes some noises and the chattering classes are setting up a hell of a squawk. Anhmadinejad is coming! He is making nukes and he is an existential threat to Israel! Bomb! Bomb! Bomb!...Bomb! Bomb Iran!!! We must, or the American way of life is dooooooooomed!!!

Seriously – all I can do is roll my eyes when one of the “papers of record” commences with the hand-wringing over the little guy. I mean, c’mon, you lose all right to be taken seriously when you seriously print something so patently absurd as “Ahmidenijad’s policies.” Right there, you lose everyone who has so much as a hint of a scintilla of a clue.

"The current crackdown is a way to instill fear in the population in order to discourage them from future political agitation as the economic situation begins to deteriorate," said Karim Sadjadpour of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. "You're going to think twice about taking to the streets to protest the hike in gasoline prices if you know the regime's paramilitary forces have been on a head-cracking spree the last few weeks."

Despite promises to use Iran's oil revenue to aid the poor, Ahmadinejad's economic policies have backfired, triggering 20 percent inflation over the past year, increased poverty and a 25 percent rise in the price of gas last month. More than 50 of the country's leading economists wrote an open letter to Ahmadinejad this week warning that he is ignoring basic economics and endangering the country's future.

Who are they writing this for? Certainly no one who understands the dynamics of the Middle East. Perhaps they are writing for the audience that thinks Alladin was a documentary?

Ahmadinejad? Policies? Oh good Ford, pass me a hanky. I’m in need of dabbing tears I am laughing so hard.

Ahmadinejad has no policies. He was the obscure crackpot mayor of Tehran when Bush made his now-infamous "Axis of Evil" crack and the Mullahs decided they needed a thumb to stick in his eye in retaliation. Mahmood was it. Hell, I doubt he orders lunch without a Mullah vetting the menu.

He might be making noises and acting tough, that that is all it is…an act. And the Mullahs will let him for the moment. But the Mullahs are not stupid men. They came to power because of a revolution that was in retaliation against the Shah’s head-cracking secret police.

They will rein him in before too long. Look at it this way – their identity is tied up in the revolution of 1979 – nearly 28 years ago. When the average age of the population of a country is younger than the revolution, the revolution is over. The median age in Iran is currently 25.8 years.

Iran has a monolithic energy economy. It is not in good shape, and in about a decade, give or take a year or two, economics will bring about the end of rule by the Mullahs and the rule they enjoy. If a western power tries to stir things up and bring about regime change by force, they are in power for 50-100 years…however long the oil lasts.

And just for the record – the Iranian regime would not fall as long as a single Mullah remained alive. The real power in Iran rests with the Assembly of Experts, 86 Mullahs, and with the highest ranking official in the country, the Vali-e-Faghih, or Supreme Leader. Ahmadinejad is a mere figurehead, and the conservatives in both Iran and the United States find him a most useful little idiot.

Everyone needs to stop with the holding him up as some grave threat. In doing so, the agenda of the Mullahs is advanced. The leaders of the culture that invented Chess are making a monkey of the checkers-playin’ chimperor.