Iran: Sex, Drugs and Nuclear Weapons

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June 18, 2007: The government is blaming unrest on the United States. Most people know better, but reading about American spy rings, and U.S. financed rebel groups makes for entertaining reading. There's not much other entertainment allowed in Iran.

June 16, 2007: U.S. spy satellites discovered a training camp inside Iran, where there was a mock up of an Iraqi compound that was the scene of a well planned commando raid that led to the death of five American soldiers. Subsequent arrests of Iranians and pro-Iranian Iraiqs inside Iraq, led to information about this being an Iranian commando raid. The new satellite pictures seem to confirm this. Iran denies everything.

June 15, 2007: The continuing shipments of Iranian weapons to the in Afghanistan, Taliban are believed to be part of a deal to stop some of the opium and heroin coming into Iran. With millions of addicts, and the crime and disorder that comes with it, the government is willing to do whatever it takes to reduce the drug problem. Expelling hundreds of thousands of Afghan refugees is part of that program, as is increasing the number of troops and paramilitaries along the Afghan and Pakistan borders. But since the Taliban work with the Afghan drug gangs, the Iranians believe the Taliban could get the drug shipments moved through Central Asia, instead of Iran (where a lot of those shipments are sold to local distributors before most of it moves on to the Arab Gulf states and Europe.)

June 14, 2007: Iranian officials are now playing down the prospects of an American attack. It's obvious to all that the clerical dictatorship in Iran would benefit from such an attack, as it would mobilize the people behind the government. Meanwhile, the economic sanctions are continuing to hurt the economy, and many factions in the government would like to make a deal on the nuclear weapons, to get sanctions lifted. But the radical faction in the government won't consider any slow down in the nuclear weapons program. The radicals believe their paramilitary forces can handle any uprising, and once Iran has nukes, all manner of opportunities will present themselves.

June 11, 2007: A rescue helicopter crashed in the southeast. Most Iranian aircraft and helicopters are old and poorly maintained because of the sanctions. This makes it impossible to use these aircraft at a normal rate, and leads to a higher accident rate. This is another cause of unrest among most Iranians.

June 10, 2007: Pakistan arrested three foreign al Qaeda suspects near the Iranian border. Pakistan has frequently caught Islamic terrorists sneaking into, or out of, Iran, where it's an open secret that Iran provides sanctuary for the Sunni terrorists.

June 9, 2007: The government has backed away from a plan to legalize prostitution. A cleric has advocated using an old Shia custom of "temporary marriage" which, in effect, made prostitution, or shacking up, legal. Of course, you needed a cooperative cleric to sign off on the deal. This usually required a fee. The proposal was meant to placate the many impoverished young Iranian men who cannot afford to get married, and are rather restless as a result. There is already a lot of prostitution, and the new proposal was seen as another ploy by the corrupt clerics to extract more money from the people, in this case, horny men. As a result, the government has backed away from the proposal. Many ultra-conservative clerics want to maintain the ban on prostitution, and the clerics running terrorism operations don't want illicit sex interfering with the recruiting of suicide bombers (who are assured of 72 willing girls in the after life).

June 8, 2007: In the north, the army fired artillery shells at PKK camps across the border in Iraq. There were several clashes with PKK fighters along the border, with several dozen casualties. At least five Iranian soldiers died. This was happening at the same time that the Turkish army was firing artillery at PKK camps, and sending commandos into Iraq to grab PKK leaders. Both countries are trying to stop PKK recruiting among their Kurdish minorities, and terrorist attacks against the government.

 

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