Iran Accuses US of Causing Riots as Iran Begins oil Rationg

IRAN: RATIONING 'TO CONTINUE' DESPITE PROTESTS

Some Iranian Millitary Police denied that the rioting on Tuesday and Wednesday had anything to do with the government's rationing measures.

"The attacks on the petrol pumps were organised well in advance by 'agents provocateurs' working for the US government, who incited some deranged individuals to set petrol stations alight," Morteza Tamaddon told journalists.

He also claimed that thousands of counterfeit dollars had been paid to these 'deranged individuals'.

Restrictions severe

Under the government rationing, private cars which cannot use compressed natural gas (CNG) get 100 liters of petrol a month, and those with CNG 30 litres. Taxis and other vehicles with special permission are allowed 800 litres per month.

The maximum quota for each government car is 10 litres per day, the Iranian news agency IRNA said, quoting a statement issued on Tuesday by the oil ministry.

The rationing measures came into force late on Tuesday. There is anger that the government did not give people more than a two hours notice.This sparked rioting at petrol pumps in Tehran and elsewhere.The restrictions are set to continue for four months - with a possible extension to six months - the government said.

Some MPs have called for an end to the rationing and parliament may postpone its summer recess to deal with the crisis. Protests reportedly spread on Wednesday to Ahwaz and Khorramshahr in the south of the country, where members of the public clashed with riot police deployed to guard petrol stations.



First sign of the peoples unhappiness with Ahmadinejad

The protests are the first large-scale outpouring of anger against the Iranian government since Mr Ahmadinejad took office in 2005.

Long queues were reported at petrol stations late on Tuesday and on Wednesday in Tehran and other cities.

Iran's Economic stability in trouble

Iran is the world's fourth largest oil producer. But despite its huge energy reserves, it lacks refining capacity and imports some 44 percent of the more than 70 million litres of petrol the country consumes daily.

State fuel subsides in place for years have encouraged fuel consumption, allowing token prices at the pump of just 8 eurocents per litre which has now increased by 25 percent to 10 eurocents per litre.

Iran has a large budget deficit largely caused by fuel subsidies. Iran's inflation rate is estimated at 20-30 percent.

UN Sanction Fears Led to Rationing

The BBC's Tehran correspondent, Frances Harrison, says Iran is trying to rein in fuel consumption over fears of possible UN sanctions over its nuclear programme.

New UN sanctions against Iran contained in a draft resolution prepared by Britain would severely limit imports of petrol and fuel for Iranian airforce and navy ships and planes as well as for cars, and would sharply curb crude oil exports, according to unnamed UN diplomats interviewed by Adnkronos International (AKI).


Iran fears the West could impose these sanctions on its petrol imports and cripple its economy. So in a twisted logic - the Us is causing the protest now happening in Iran.

Sources:
1. http://www.adnki.com/index_2Level_English.php?cat=Security&loid=8.0.429801180&par=0

2. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/6243644.stm

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Target Iran

As a U.S. Marine officer in the Gulf War, Ritter served as a ballistic missile advisor to General H. Norman Schwarzkopf and then became a high-up UN weapons inspector in Iraq until 1998. Now he is a vociferous, controversial critic of the Bush II administration and the Iraq War. In his latest expose, Ritter trains his inspector's eyes on Iran, meticulously analyzing the rhetoric about Tehran beginning with the first Bush presidency when Dick Cheney was secretary of defense, then skeptically parsing the protracted, politically tangled wrangling over Iran's nuclear program, and vehemently objecting to what he sees as excessive American alignment with Israel. The most interesting figure to emerge from Ritter's flinty yet invaluable inquiry is John Bolton, current U.S. ambassador to the UN and a neo-con instrumental in pushing for regime changes in the Middle East "at any cost." In closing, Ritter offers shrewd observations about why things have cooled off regarding Iran as the midterm elections loom and cautions that war with Iran would be catastrophic and must be averted. Donna Seaman
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved



Countdown to Crisis: The Coming Nuclear Showdown with Iran

Reviews
“I have spent my life tracking down the murderers of yesterday. Mr. Timmerman is tracking down the murderers of tomorrow.” —Simon Wiesenthal, 1992

“Ken Timmerman delivers another blockbuster, this time on Iran and its clandestine nuclear program. Few things are more relevant to today’s world than what happens in the Middle East—especially in Iran, a major player in the ‘axis of evil.’ Read this book, be warned, and then equip yourself for battle.” —Cal Thomas, nationally syndicated columnist

“With so many amateur intelligence experts clouding the public dialogue, it is a pleasure to read the work of an author of real professionalism. Timmerman adds texture and clarity to the gross failures of our intelligence establishment and new visibility to the role of Iran in the Islamist war against America.” —John f. Lehman, 9/11 Commission member and former Secretary of the Navy

"Writer drops bombshells about Iran's shell game. Investigative reporter Kenneth Timmerman has been mulling over Iranian mullahs for more than two decades while covering the Byzantine world of Middle Eastern politics, terrorism and weapons proliferation. In Countdown to Crisis: The Coming Nuclear Showdown with Iran,he produces the first-ever inside account of Iran's clandestine nuclear program.

Utilizing contacts with dozens of Iranian defectors and officials, previously classified documents, and high-level sources throughout the government and intelligence community, the New York Times best-selling author pulls the Persian rug out from the Iranian clerics who have been mobilizing to kill during four U.S. presidential administrations. Readers alarmed by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's recent call for the annihilation of Israel will take no comfort in Timmerman's electrifying book." —Indianapolis Star

"Ken Timmerman’s book, Countdown to Crisis, should be required reading for all the neo Neville Chamberlains at the State Department, National Security Council, or elsewhere in the Bush Administration for those wishing to give appeasement one more chance. Timmerman makes clear that the U.S. is facing the specter of Iran, the oldest and most active state sponsor of terror, armed now with nuclear weapons. With remarkable prescience, the author scoops every news agency that is investigating the recent London bombings.

The book contains many new revelations, investigative bombshells for those who are still in denial of the dangers we face. Its essential message is two-part. With vivid corroborating detail, the author convincingly makes the case that, for more than 18 years, the International Atomic Energy Agency (the UN’s nuclear weapons “watchdog agency) and the CIA actually aided Iran in acquiring nuclear weapons, doing so through differing degrees of duplicity and ineptitude. But secondly and perhaps more ominously, Timmerman demonstrates that the Iranian Mullahs have forged very strong ties with al Qaeda and have been co conspirators with bin Laden from the beginning of his attacks on America." —Human Events

"Kenneth Timmerman has a nose for trouble. A veteran reporter, he has made a name for himself investigating political controversies for over two decades, penning high-profile exposés of the Rev. Jesse Jackson's influence-peddling and intimidation politics and the mercenary motivations behind France's opposition to war with Saddam Hussein's Iraq.

With Countdown to Crisis, however, Timmerman may have hit the mother lode. Iran's concerted quest for a nuclear capability is taking center stage on the strategic agenda of the United States, and policymakers in Washington are in desperate need of a primer on Iran's strategic capabilities, and its political intentions. Timmerman is well-positioned to provide both.

Having reported on the Iranian regime's troubling international behavior for such publications as The New Republic and the Washington Times since the late 1980s, he is no stranger to its inner workings. Indeed, the biographical sketches of key regime figures and opposition activists interspersed throughout the book convey a feeling of deep familiarity with the convoluted power politics of the Islamic Republic.

None of this makes Countdown to Crisis any less frightening."—New York Post

"A new book alleges that the CIA was warned of a plot to attack New York and Washington by a walk-in Iranian defector a month and a half before September 11, 2001, but the potentially valuable informant was turned away. Information culled from a former security specialist for Iran's supreme leader named Hamid Reza Zakeri provide the grist for the most explosive allegation in Kenneth Timmerman's newly published Countdown to Crisis. —The New York Sun

"If current news reporting out of Iran isn't disturbing enough, author Ken Timmerman's latest book is a stark warning that worse is to come, and soon. Boiled down to its essence, Mr. Timmerman's conclusion is that the Islamist regime may be no more than six months away from perfecting the technology for nuclear weapons and could already have enough nuclear material for 20 to 25 bombs. It also is probable that the rocket delivery systems for striking at Israel and American military installations in the region are also in plentiful supply. In Countdown to Crisis,this complicated, multi-front story is so compellingly documented that the author's cautionary words serve to heighten the sense that while we can't tell when the mullahs of Tehran will go adventuring with their bombs, we can no longer pretend that they don't intend to do something violent in the region and do it any time now." —Washington Times