Cyber War Envelops Middle East

Iran has already been hit by Flame, Duqu, and Stuxnet. Now we are learning of a more mysterious attack against Iran's oil infrastructure by malware called "Wiper:"

Wiper was an aggressive piece of malware that targeted machines belonging to the Iranian Oil Ministry and the National Iranian Oil Company in April.

...No one has ever found a sample of Wiper in order to study its code and determine exactly what it did to machines in Iran, but Kaspersky did obtain mirror images of “dozens” of hard drives that had been hit by the malware.

Although the disks were thoroughly wiped in most cases, leaving no malware behind – or much of anything else – the researchers did find evidence of its previous existence on some of the systems that weren’t completely wiped. The evidence came in the form of a registry key that pointed to files that had been on the machines before being erased.

According to Kaspersky, the wiping activity occurred between April 21 and April 30. Wiper’s erase operation focused initially on destroying data on the first half of a disk, then systematically erasing system files, causing the systems to crash and preventing them from rebooting... _Wired

Spread of Duqu

But Iran has not been entirely passive in this cyber-war. A recent cyber attack against Saudi Aramco -- Saudi Arabia's state energy company -- is thought to have originated with groups allied with Iran.

Saudi Aramco, Saudi Arabia's national energy company, said on Sunday it had repaired 30,000 workstations infected with a malicious virus earlier this month....

...A group calling itself the "Cutting Sword of Justice" claimed responsibility for the attacks. The group accused the Saudi Arabian government of supporting "crimes and atrocities" in countries such as Syria and Egypt, according to a post on Pastebin.

Saudi Aramco said it expected further intrusions. "Saudi Aramco is not the only company that became a target for such attempts, and this was not the first nor will it be the last illegal attempt to intrude into our systems, and we will ensure that we will further reinforce our systems with all available means to protect against a recurrence of this type of cyber-attack." _CW

Saudi Oil

Saudi Aramco is right to expect further attacks, just as the Iranian Oil Ministry should expect further attacks. In fact, all middle eastern oil production in and around the Persian Gulf is vulnerable to one type of malware or another. Whoever controls the flow of oil will be able to hold global oil markets hostage to potentially devastating price swings.

Earlier this year, a group of international experts at the Herzliya Conference imagined a very different scenario — a far more drastic one — in which a sophisticated attack on Abqaiq was directed by Iran and carried out from within. In the simulation, a series of explosions, along with a cyber-weapon, crippled the facility...

...The results of this simulated attack, detailed here in full for the first time, were profoundly disturbing. The price of oil skyrocketed to over $200 per barrel. The House of Saud, and the territorial integrity of the kingdom, were existentially threatened. Saudi Arabia’s neighbors — Jordan, Iraq, the UAE, Bahrain, Qatar, Kuwait and Oman — were destabilized. Developing countries that use oil for electricity were propelled into war, both civil and external.

And Iran, the world’s third-largest producer of oil, authoritatively recognized as the perpetrator of the attack, reaped the rewards, its influence growing throughout the Middle East as the demand for oil outpaced the supply, and the Shiite populations in the Gulf — increasingly unrestful throughout the Arab Spring revolutions — rose up in arms.

“The simulation showed that global over-reliance on Saudi oil and our over-reliance on Saudi stability, would give Iran, in the case of such an attack, carte blanche in the Middle East — and that’s without a nuclear weapon,” said Tommy Steiner, the author of the report... _How Iran Might Triumph Even Without Nukes

The evolution of increasingly sophisticated cyber attacks has just begun, and every industrial facility and information network is clearly at risk.

There is a limit to how well protected large networks can be and still function. In this situation, resilient backups will be increasingly important.

Stuxnet Heralds a Brave New World of Sophisticated Weaponry

Natanz Nuclear Enrichment Defense Iran Stuxnet appears to have been developed in the US and refined in Israel, before being introduced into Iranian computers by shadowy import-export companies. More from Wired:

Suddenly, over a six-month period beginning late 2009, U.N. officials monitoring the surveillance images “watched in amazement” as Iranian workers “dismantled more than 10 percent of the plant’s 9,000 centrifuge machines used to enrich uranium,” according to the Washington Post. “Then, just as remarkably, hundreds of new machines arrived at the plant to replace the ones that were lost.”

Investigators described the effort as a feverish attempt to contain damage and replace broken parts, suggesting the centrifuges had indeed been operational when they broke....One other piece of information suggests Iran’s nuclear program was the target of Natanz. Last week security firm Symantec released a report revealing that the Stuxnet attack targeted five organizations in Iran that were infected first in an effort to spread the malware to Natanz.

Because Natanz’s PLCs are not connected to the internet, the best hope of attacking them – short of planting a mole inside Natanz – was infecting other computers that could serve as a gateway to the Natanz PLC. For example, infecting computers belonging to a contractor in charge of installing software at Natanz could help get the malware onto the Natanz system.

Symantec said the companies were hit in attacks in June and July 2009 and in March, April and May 2010. Symantec didn’t name the five organizations but said that they all “have a presence in Iran” and are involved in industrial processes._Wired

No one will shed tears for the Iranian nuclear weapons program, nor for the international companies which are illegally aiding the Iranians. But this attack is just the tip of the iceberg, and a mere suggestion of the wave of more sophisticated forms of sabotage, espionage, and covert warfare which is on the way.

Targeted acts of sabotage disrupt, but the real pay-off comes from identifying the human and technical links in the chain of command. Observing who responds – and when – to worm-driven destruction helps illuminate who really runs Iran’s nuclear infrastructures. Real-world Iranian responses offer critical clues as to which scientists, administrators and engineers are trusted and who is suspect. The chance to monitor Iran’s response would be of great interest to Mossad, the International Atomic Energy Agency, America’s CIA and/or Britain’s GCHQ.

Crafting a worm that generates potential insight into all those issues represents an intelligence coup. It is as potentially revelatory as a WikiLeaks data dump. That is why interpreting Stuxnet as desperate stop-gap or one-off intervention almost certainly misunderstands its purpose. Sabotage here is a means to an end; it is a gambit to make Iran’s nuclear processes more transparent.

Iran’s nuclear elite and Ministry of Intelligence know this. It is no secret now to the mullahs that their responses to the Stuxnet breach were closely monitored by external intelligence agencies. Their internal security is furiously trying to assess what information might have inadvertently been revealed. _FT

Stuxnet's sophistication is considered to be unprecedented. But from now on, Stuxnet will be the benchmark against which future spyware and malware will be gauged.

Mr Salem [of Symantec] said new technology and new approaches are needed.

"I run the largest security company in the world. I get up and people say I have a vested interest (in pushing this line). But my job is to protect and provide security and when we say critical infrastructure is under attack, it is real."

Mr Salem mapped out a number of strategic steps that need to be taken to guard against the next major cyber attack. They include an early warning system, better intelligence on what attacks could happen, better protection, the ability to anticipate what any threat could look like and the ability to clean up after an attack.

He also pointed to a role for government that might involve a counter attack or strike.

The idea of a kill switch to allow the government to switch off the internet if it is under attack is one he did not seem overly enthusiastic about.

"The ability for us to turn something off like that and not cause other massive disruption would be very hard. We are becoming more and more dependent on the internet. There are better approaches than trying to shut off the internet. _BBC

This growing dependency on the internet can be seen at all levels of every society in the advanced world. It represents a growing vulnerability -- given the revelation of what malware like Stuxnet can do -- and needs to be addressed now, before societies move to depend upon an even more vulnerable "smart grid" power system. We should not make it easy for malicious outsiders to turn out our lights.

The threat is real, and the threat is now. The US government is one salient target, with large corporations and city/state governments also being notable targets.

More than 100 foreign intelligence agencies have tried to breach United States defence networks, largely to steal military plans and weapons systems designs, a top Pentagon official said. _NZHerald

Consequently, the US Pentagon is seeking half a billion US dollars to develop new cyber technologies -- including powerful new defenses to guard agains the powerful new cyber-attack threats.

The $500 million is part of the Pentagon’s 2012 budget request of $2.3 billion to improve the Defense Department’s cyber capabilities. At a Pentagon news conference yesterday, Defense Secretary Robert Gates called the research money, to be spent through the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or Darpa, “big investment dollars, looking to the future.”

The military is reaching out to commercial companies for the latest technologies and technical experts to safeguard the Pentagon’s computer networks from attacks and espionage, Lynn said. The effort is part of a “comprehensive cyber strategy called Cyber 3.0,” he said. _Bloomberg

The djinn is long out of the bottle, wreaking havoc on uranium enrichment centrifuge cyber systems. Similar djinns will soon fly out, based upon similar advanced cyber technology, with wider mission profiles and less selective targeting.

But regular readers of Al Fin blogs will understand that this cyber threat -- for all its potential for disruption and destruction -- is only the visible and more imaginable problem. More creative and malicious destructors are on the way, as advanced sciences and technology merge with unimaginably sophisticated hardware and software.

This is the start of the long war, which may either result in humans sinking to a pre-technological level for hundreds or thousands of years, or in humans transcending their monkey natures on the way to the wide-open next level. Watch and see.

Excerpted from an article at abu al-fin

Stay up to date on the hidden war of cyber attack at Infowar.com

For the military side of things, stay current with StrategyPage.com

One of the deepest threats will come from "nano guns, nano germs, and nano steel".

It is not unreasonable to assume that a computer virus sent from across the world could program the assembly of a deadly human virus inside an unsecured university research lab located inside a friendly country. Tight connections to the internet by conventional research DNA and RNA (and protein) assembling equipment, will allow such stealth long-range hybrid cyber/bio warfare.

The same approach could lead to the programming of deadly stealth nanoweapons, and even macro-weapons, utilising 3-D printing devices connected to the net.

If you can imagine it, so can someone else with more malignant intent. Hope for the best. Prepare for the worst.

"Stuxnet Can't Hurt Us," Says Iranian Government

According to a report by the International Atomic Energy Agency, Iran has been forced to suspend activity on enriching uranium because of “technical problems” that are bedeviling thousands of centrifuges at its Natanz nuclear reactor. _TNA

Fueling of the reactor was delayed in recent months by what Iran called a small leak in a storage pool and not by the Stuxnet computer worm, allegedly designed to sabatoge Iran's nuclear power program, as is widely believed. _jta

Iran has adamantly stated that its nuclear program has not been hit by the bug. But in doing so it has backhandedly confirmed that its nuclear facilities were compromised. _FoxNews

Map: EbequityThe sophisticated Stuxnet computer worm has the uncanny ability to "worm" its way into sensitive computer systems, then interferes with commands to motor controllers for centrifuges involved in uranium enrichment. Iran denies that its nuclear enrichment operations were negatively impacted by Stuxnet, but:

Experts dissecting the computer worm suspected of being aimed at Iran’s nuclear program have determined that it was precisely calibrated in a way that could send nuclear centrifuges wildly out of control.

Their conclusion, while not definitive, begins to clear some of the fog around the Stuxnet worm, a malicious program detected earlier this year on computers, primarily in Iran but also India, Indonesia and other countries. _NYT

Experts have examined the worm's code and come to some interesting conclusions about how the intruder works:

Here's how it worked, according to experts who have examined the worm:

--The nuclear facility in Iran runs an “air gap” security system, meaning it has no connections to the Web, making it secure from outside penetration. Stuxnet was designed and sent into the area around Iran's Natanz nuclear power plant -- just how may never be known -- to infect a number of computers on the assumption that someone working in the plant would take work home on a flash drive, acquire the worm and then bring it back to the plant.

--Once the worm was inside the plant, the next step was to get the computer system there to trust it and allow it into the system. That was accomplished because the worm contained a “digital certificate” stolen from JMicron, a large company in an industrial park in Taiwan. (When the worm was later discovered it quickly replaced the original digital certificate with another certificate, also stolen from another company, Realtek, a few doors down in the same industrial park in Taiwan.)

--Once allowed entry, the worm contained four “Zero Day” elements in its first target, the Windows 7 operating system that controlled the overall operation of the plant. Zero Day elements are rare and extremely valuable vulnerabilities in a computer system that can be exploited only once. Two of the vulnerabilities were known, but the other two had never been discovered. Experts say no hacker would waste Zero Days in that manner.

--After penetrating the Windows 7 operating system, the code then targeted the “frequency converters” that ran the centrifuges. To do that it used specifications from the manufacturers of the converters. One was Vacon, a Finnish Company, and the other Fararo Paya, an Iranian company. What surprises experts at this step is that the Iranian company was so secret that not even the IAEA knew about it.

--The worm also knew that the complex control system that ran the centrifuges was built by Siemens, the German manufacturer, and -- remarkably -- how that system worked as well and how to mask its activities from it.

--Masking itself from the plant's security and other systems, the worm then ordered the centrifuges to rotate extremely fast, and then to slow down precipitously. This damaged the converter, the centrifuges and the bearings, and it corrupted the uranium in the tubes. It also left Iranian nuclear engineers wondering what was wrong, as computer checks showed no malfunctions in the operating system.

Estimates are that this went on for more than a year, leaving the Iranian program in chaos. And as it did, the worm grew and adapted throughout the system. As new worms entered the system, they would meet and adapt and become increasingly sophisticated.

During this time the worms reported back to two servers that had to be run by intelligence agencies, one in Denmark and one in Malaysia. The servers monitored the worms and were shut down once the worm had infiltrated Natanz. Efforts to find those servers since then have yielded no results.

This went on until June of last year, when a Belarusan company working on the Iranian power plant in Beshehr discovered it in one of its machines. It quickly put out a notice on a Web network monitored by computer security experts around the world. _FoxNews

It is apparent to Al Fin security analysts, that Stuxnet is the work of agencies within the Israeli government. It is extremely likely that the Iranians are lying through their teeth in regard to the damage that the worm did to their nuclear enrichment programs.

Imagine that instead of computer worms, the Stuxnet ensemble had been a set of nanotechnological infiltrators, capable of imitating desert dust, bunker concrete, or pipeline insulation. Propelled by blowing winds, flowing water, on the soles of shoes, or inside the lungs of workers -- essentially unstoppable by most modern security systems. Such a suite of nanotech infiltrators could not only install computer worms into virtually any system, they could insert targeted explosive devices to disrupt communications, convey poisonous substances into ventilation or water systems, or travel in a target's circulatory system to cerebral arterioles, where they do whatever damage they are programmed to do.

We see that deep underground bunkers are essentially naked to the newer and more clever tools of saboutage. How much more exposed are government and industrial centers on the surface.

The world is entering a new age of advanced espionage and covert destruction. Stuxnet can be seen as an early warning of the type of destructive tools which are coming soon, out of the djinn's bottle. Once released from their container, they cannot be returned safely.

Update 29 Nov 2010: Someone was unwilling to wait for advances in nanotechnological espionage and saboutage. Bombers-on-motorcycles used magnetic-attachable bombs on automobiles to attack two Iranian nuclear scientists (killing one and injuring the other) in Tehran. One of the scientists, at least may have been involved in trying to counter the effects of the Stuxnet worm on Iran's nuclear facilities (see comments).

Putin, Chavez, Ahmedinejad: Worried Tyrants Willing to Go to War to Drive Oil Prices Up

The oil tyrants of Russia, Iran, Venezuela, etc. grew popular on high energy prices -- while they lasted. Now that oil prices have grown a bit resistant to rising at every war and rumour of war, Putin, Chavez, Ahmedinejad and cronies are growing desperate! The bloody dictators had been counting on high oil prices to finance their global mischief-making.

How worried are they?

Russia fears a new ruble crisis.

Since August 2008, the Russian ruble overall has fallen 19 percent against the dollar — and not just because of the global credit crisis. The crisis coincided with two other major events: the Russo-Georgian war and plunging oil prices. Russia has seen massive amounts of investment flee because of the Russo-Georgian war. Russia also is looking at the possibility that in 2009 it could run its first budget deficit in a decade because of lower-than-expected oil prices — down 78 percent, to as low as $32 per barrel, from the July 2008 high of $147 per barrel.

Venezuela faces a troubled 2009.

Falling oil prices forced Venezuela to cut its 2009 budget and could put countries like Cuba and Nicaragua, both of which depend heavily on discounted oil from Venezuela to meet their daily energy needs, in serious peril in the months to come. Fellow beneficiary of Venezuelan benevolence Bolivia also could soon feel the ill effects of receiving less oil from Venezuelan state-run oil company PDVSA.

Iran is left high and dry by low oil prices. Ahmedinejad and the mullahs are gambling the future of Iran on bloody mischief-making and empire-building across the middle east, including financing and arming Hamas, Hezbollah, and Shia militias inside Iraq. Other Iranian funded terrorist groups inside Saudi Arabia and the other Persian Gulf oil states are also part of Iran's thrust to become the strongest power inside Islam.

Europe is growing disgusted at Russia for its high-handed use of natural gas supplies as a weapon. But they had to have known last summer that Russia's pre-meditated invasion of Georgia had deeper motivations than just "defending Ossetians." Russia is serious about being the energy bully/dictator of Europe's winter heat supplies. Europe has no spine, no huevos. It will bend over for Putin.

If Putin is able to bully half the developed world while energy prices are low, imagine how many he will be able to bully when energy prices rise again. That is why Putin and his bloody-handed friends are so eager to drive energy prices upward -- regardless of the price in human lives and international instability.

The question on everyone's mind: Will Obama play right into Putin's hands with his plans for cutting all US domestic production of energy? In the name of carbon hysteria and global warming orthodoxy, will Obama make the US even more vulnerable to the Putins, the Chavez's, the Ahmedinejads of the world? Wait and see.

It is certain that the bloody oil tyrants are willing to do whatever it takes to restore and maintain their whip hands. The Hamas / Hezbollah war against Israel is just the beginning, if they do not get their way. The next violence may be a bit closer to your neighborhood.

Iran Growing Desperate, and Dangerous

Even oil at $140 a barrel cannot save the unfortunate country of Iran, sinking under the stone aged mindset of its leadership.

Events in Iran since the Revolution are an eery echo of what has happened in Venezuela since the advent of Chavez. Skilled workers and foreign capital and technology have fled. Corruption has become rampant along with incompetence. Production of over 6 mb/d fell to below 3 mb/d after the Revolution and is currently about 3.8 mb/d. The pre-revolutionary head count of 32,000 employees has grown to 112,000.

Since the Revolution Iran has exported $801.2 billion of oil but nobody knows where that money has gone. “Certainly none of it was invested in Iranian oil infrastructure which badly needs renovation and repair, upstream and downstream.” The author claims the Iranian petro-industry is “on the brink of bankruptcy” although such a claim is not documented.

It is clear that Iran, Venezuela, Mexico, Nigeria, and Iraq together represent an enormous percentage of the world’s oil deposits and production that is being mismanaged. The political and management dysfunctions in all of these countries simultaneously is a major reason for the world’s current energy crisis. If these countries all operated in a standard capitalist mode, I suspect oil would be below $50 a barrel __Source

Inflation in Iran is approaching 30%, and no one has confidence in the national leadership. Ahmedinejad is careful to pay off his supporters in the legislature and the revolutionary guard, but his personal mismanagement of national oil revenues will soon come back to haunt him.

What happened to the US$35 billion of oil revenues that Iran's Shabab News, in a now notorious account, claims disappeared from official accounting during the year through March 2008? Half the country's oil revenues disappeared from the books. A great deal of it left the country for banks in Dubai in the United Arab Emirates and elsewhere; capital flight already was running at a $15 billion annual rate last year, by my estimate.

...Ahmadinejad's patronage system generates payoffs to the political class that have set in motion uncontrolled inflation - officially 25% per year but certainly much higher - and a rush into real assets. A side effect is that the average Iranian urban household, which spends $316 a month, is gradually being priced out of the rental market.

Not only rents but foodstuffs, fuel and other essentials have registered double- or triple-digit price increases during recent months, according to fragmentary reports trickling out of the country. _Source

Iran was once the most advanced muslim nation in terms of literacy and modernity. Similar to what happened to Cuba under the disastrous rule of Castro, Iran under the mullahs has been an unmitigated disaster to the country and to the middle eastern region as a whole. Cosmetic change of leadership--substituting Larijani for Ahmedinejad for example--will not solve the problem. The mullahs have to go.

Iran has become a typical, corrupt third world "payoff nation." The leadership must divert funds from the sale of nationalised resources to pay off its lackey supporters, to maintain power. Iran's average population IQ is just 84, three points lower than neighboring Iraq's population average. The birthrate of Iran is quite low for a muslim country, particularly among the educated classes--a severely depleted national resource, since the mullahs came to power. Iran's human capital at the upper end offers little hope for the future.

Unemployment over 30%, inflation soon over 30% (if not already), violent unrest among its own population... Under Ahmedinejad war--possibly nuclear war--would become an inevitability within just a few years. Under Larijani the future would not be as clear, although Larijani claims to hold the same worldview as Ahmedinejad--he just maintains a more sober outward style. Meanwhile, Russia and China do what they can to suck Iran dry like vampires, pushing it farther into an extremist posture.

A happy ending for this story is not in the cards. More likely is that millions in the region will die in the next regime transition.

Throw Barbie from the Plane: BarbieBomb Iran

Something about Iran that cries out to be bombed. The question is: is it better to bomb Iran with bombs, or with Barbies? Greg Beato thinks Barbies are the appropriate choice.

Iran is terrified of Barbie, the tiny polyvinyl sex bomb who loves shopping, pizza, and brushing her hair, but has few satellite-guided missiles at her disposal. According to Iran's Prosecutor General, Ghorban Ali Dori Najfabadi, a loosely organized coalition, led by the world's most impeccably accessorized mercenary but also including additional combatants like Harry Potter and Spider-man, is doing "irreparable damage" to Iranian children. "The irregular importation of such toys, which unfortunately arrive through unofficial sources and smuggling, is destructive culturally and a social danger," Najafabadi cautioned...the Barbies who show up in Tehran shop windows are smuggled into the country, the victims of international doll trafficking. Once there, however, they make the best of it, embodying the traditional American values of self-determination and haircare...If Barbie's marginal and haphazard presence in Iran is so disruptive, what kind of impact might she have there if a more orchestrated effort to put additional sexy white boots on the ground was implemented? Luckily, the relative economy of a Barbie surge—an army of 200,000 cheerleaders for Western decadence can be mustered for the price of a dozen Tomahawk missiles... __Reason

Beato may not be the brightest bulb in the box, but perhaps he has a point to make about cultural subversion. Not that a few hundred thousand Barbie dolls would actually do the trick of overturning a millenia-old culture of primitive tribalism and religious barbarism. But think it through to the core idea, and play with it.

Culture is passed along from generation to generation--unless something happens in between generations. Say, a music revolution called rock and roll that puts rebellion on the front burner, combined with a drug and anti-war revolution among the young. You might think that nothing would ever be the same again.

Children like to fantasize. And they like to have secrets from others. Some parents like to indulge their children in these fantasies. Childhood and adolescence are such confusing times, unless something happens to stir things up it is often easier just to go along with tradition.

What about a talking doll that said things the ayatollahs wouldn't want young girls listening to? What if a talking doll was also a radio and a tutorial device? Solar powered so its batteries won't run down? What if it could teach children catchy songs with infectious lyrics? These things require a bit of thought.

Oppressive cultures have to keep the lid on tight. But then the pressure tends to build at the slightest incident. Bomb Iran? With Barbies? Or something even more devilishly clever.

Arab Emirates Push for Nuclear Power

The United Arab Emirates is pushing hard to develop its "post-oil economy" in time to sail through the rougher days ahead. By establishing itself as an economic "gateway to the Arab world", as well as a world financial center in its own right, the Emirates are attempting to build a prosperous future that is less dependent upon local production of oil. Nuclear power will provide baseload energy for the huge new developments being built in Dubai and Abu Dhabi. Air conditioning demands for the growing population centers within the Emirates will require a much greater expenditure of energy.

The UAE’s plan to acquire nuclear technology for power generation and other peaceful uses will allow it to save its oil and gas wealth and maximise its income from hydrocarbon exports in the long term, according to information from analysts.

Although it is importing gas from Qatar and is planning to get more supplies from Iran, the UAE could curb any increase in such imports by introducing nuclear technology for power generation, they said.

The nuclear programme, which is expected to be implemented in phases in the long term, could also help offset a steady and rapid increase in oil consumption in the UAE because of growth in most non-oil sectors.

“This will of course enable the UAE to save its oil and gas wealth for future generations,” said an economist at an Abu Dhabi-based bank....In a comment yesterday, the Abu Dhabi-based Emirates Centre for Strategic Studies and Research said the UAE nuclear plans would support its efforts to preserve the hydrocarbon wealth, meet growing domestic energy demand, protect the environment and boost the economy.

“Generating power through nuclear energy is a very viable option commercially… it will effectively contribute to economic development,” it said. _Business24/7

A growing population within a very hot, arid desert, will require a large amount of electrical energy for air conditioning and desalination. Nuclear energy makes sense, given the high costs of natural gas and oil currently.

Does the same energy calculus apply to Iran as well? Certainly. Unfortunately, Iran has been caught enriching uranium for other, less innocent purposes. Combined with Iran's hostility toward its Middle Eastern neighbors and outspoken belligerence and threatening posture, Iran will have to be looked at as a special case.

Iran's Ahmadinejad Finds Himself A Bit Overextended

Iran's provocative president is finding it difficult to pay for his long wish list. Ahmadinejad wants to be the Middle East's biggest of big men, but he has not done well with his domestic economy.

According to the Central Bank of Iran (CBI), monthly inflation rates since January 2006 have varied between 2.8 and 3.2 percentage points, making for an annual rate that could reach the 30 per cent mark next year. Theoretically, in an oil-based economy the government has a built-in interest in inflation. The problem, however, is that Ahmadinejad has presided over a massive increase in public expenditure. Part of this is due to an estimated 21 per cent rise in the budgets of military and security services in preparation for a war with the United States.

....Ahmadinejad has also increased expenditure on his so-called “exporting the revolution” programme. Syria has received almost $3 billion in cash and cut-price oil. The Lebanese branch of Hezbollah has been rewarded with $1.8 billion while the Palestinian Hamas movement has collected almost $1 billion. A further $3 billion has been spent on financing anti-US political and armed groups in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The government has also made provisions worth $4 billion to cope with emergencies in its quest to dominate Iraq in case the Americans run away.

....Fears that the nation’s economy may be heading for the rocks prompted 57 of Iran’s best-known economists to publish an open letter to Ahmadinejad, warning that his policies were making for disaster. The letter, circulated and widely discussed throughout the country, forced Ahamdinejad to invite the signatories to a debate.

In the event, some 40 economists turned up but there was no debate. Instead, Ahmadinejad treated them to a gallimaufry in which obscurantist religious beliefs were mixed with half-understood economic concepts. He told the critics that his administration feared no economic meltdown for two reasons. The first was that the “Hidden Imam” would not abandon “the world’s only truly Islamic regime,” at a time it faced a war with the American “Great Satan.” The second was that the government was launching a massive privatisation programme to raise billions of cash.

Source

Unfortunately for the common Iranian, Ahmadinejads "privatisation plan" is eerily reminiscent of Vladimir Putin's privatisation plan in Russia--a corrupt "giveaway to presidential cronies" at the expense of the public.

One is forced to wonder what the mullah-kings of Iran think about the upstart president's plan. Their high living style depends upon the profits of state-owned enterprises. If Ahmadinejad sells some of the more profitable businesses to his friends, that would represent a significant shift in power for the Islamic Revolutionary state.

30% annual inflation will not destroy the government, but it will not make it more popular with common Iranians on fixed incomes. With popular dissent steadily increasing, the clumsy and corrupt handling of Iran's economy may make for more interesting domestic times than Ahmadinejad is planning for.

Saudi Arabia and Iran: Pathetic Loser Nations In the Eye of the Storm

Out of Iran's population of 70m or so, 51 per cent are ethnically Persian, 24 per cent are Turks ("Azeris" is the regime's term), with other minorities comprising the remaining quarter. Many of Iran's 16-17m Turks are in revolt against Persian cultural imperialism; its 5-6m Kurds have started a serious insurgency; the Arab minority detonates bombs in Ahvaz; and Baluch tribesmen attack gendarmes and revolutionary guards. If some 40 per cent of the British population were engaged in separatist struggles of varying intensity, nobody would claim that it was firmly united around the London government. On top of this, many of the Persian majority oppose the theocratic regime, either because they have become post-Islamic in reaction to its many prohibitions, or because they are Sufis, whom the regime now persecutes almost as much as the small Baha'i minority. So let us have no more reports from Tehran stressing the country's national unity. Persian nationalism is a minority position in a country where half the population is not even Persian. In our times, multinational states either decentralise or break up more or less violently; Iran is not decentralising, so its future seems highly predictable, while in the present not much cohesion under attack is to be expected.

....We devote far too much attention to the middle east, a mostly stagnant region where almost nothing is created in science or the arts—excluding Israel, per capita patent production of countries in the middle east is one fifth that of sub-Saharan Africa. The people of the middle east (only about five per cent of the world's population) are remarkably unproductive, with a high proportion not in the labour force at all. Not many of us would care to work if we were citizens of Abu Dhabi, with lots of oil money for very few citizens. But Saudi Arabia's 27m inhabitants also live largely off the oil revenues that trickle down to them, leaving most of the work to foreign technicians and labourers: even with high oil prices, Saudi Arabia's annual per capita income, at $14,000, is only about half that of oil-free Israel.

Saudi Arabia has a good excuse, for it was a land of oasis hand-farmers and Bedouin pastoralists who cannot be expected to become captains of industry in a mere 50 years. Much more striking is the oil parasitism of once much more accomplished Iran. It exports only 2.5m barrels a day as compared to Saudi Arabia's 8m, yet oil still accounts for 80 per cent of Iran's exports because its agriculture and industry have become so unproductive.

The middle east was once the world's most advanced region, but these days its biggest industries are extravagant consumption and the venting of resentment. According to the UN's 2004 Arab human development report, the region boasts the second lowest adult literacy rate in the world (after sub-Saharan Africa) at just 63 per cent. Its dependence on oil means that manufactured goods account for just 17 per cent of exports, compared to a global average of 78 per cent. Moreover, despite its oil wealth, the entire middle east generated under 4 per cent of global GDP in 2006—less than Germany.

Source


Sometimes it seems as if the world revolves around Iran and Saudi Arabia--the two headquarter nations for dysfunctional Shia and Sunni Islam. It is clear that both arabs and persians aim to control the Ummah, the body of world Islamic belief. That is why both Saudi Arabia and Iran strive for nuclear weapons--the ultimate mark of power in an international community of third world failing nations.

Bombs Over Iran--April Fools? But Who Is The Joke On?

A week ago, I reported on speculation that Iran might be the recipient of unwanted attention from the community of high explosives, this month.

Finally, mainstream web news is catching up to that story. The speculation appears to be originating from various Russian sources. Debka File, a highly speculative news and comment site, is full of stories that orbit around the possibility of a coalition strike against Iran--if the UK sailors and marines are not released promptly.

The much speculated upon attack would reportedly take the form of twelve consecutive hours of precision bombings and pinpoint cruise missile attacks--directed against Iranian nuclear sites and other strategic military and infrastructure targets.

Iran has put on a recent marathon diplomatic mission to all its arab neighbor states, to obtain guarantees that they would not allow the US to launch airstrikes against Tehran from their territories. Apparently the Iranians are unaware that the US does not need to launch from arab or Turkish territories to strike a crippling blow against Iran.

Needless to say, the price of oil and gas would skyrocket after such an attack, for at least several weeks. It is not unlikely that terror cells are waiting for such an attack before carrying out their programmed sequence of terror strikes.

Bloody dictatorships have been common in the middle east, historically. With the current worldwide tide of jihad rising, Iran's leaders must consider themselves somehow in the vanguard of history. But then, Hitler, Stalin, Mao, and Saddam felt the same way, in their time.

Selling Iran Short

First a key Iranian official defects

Next,Russia starts getting tougher with Iran on uranium enrichment

Then, Iran seizes 15 British sailors and marines

Next, the UN Security Council strengthens sanctions against Iran

Will the next move be for bombs to fall on Iran in April?

Update 1 April 2007: See here

The corrupt Islamic government of Iran is under assault by its own citizens. You have the teachers in revolt. You have the Kurds. You have a large number of other ethnic groups verging on the edge of revolt against the tyrannical theocracy.

But probably the group that represents the greatest danger to the brutal and bloody dictatorship in Teheran is the women of Iran.

Let us see what atrocities the fundamentalists have committed against women in Iran.

In truth, the people around the world have been informed of a very small portion of the tragedy that has affected women in my country. As you might know, misogyny is distinctive to the fundamentalist ruling Iran.

No one but Iranian women have experienced body and soul this misogyny.

The mullahs' rule came down on women's rights, liberties, culture, family and private lives like a huge avalanche.

- Executing thousands of female opponents, which is unprecedented anywhere in the world;
- Torturing tens of thousands of women political prisoners;
- Executing pregnant women, the torture of mothers in front of their children;
- Degrading women's social and economic standing to second class citizens;
- Imposing gender apartheid;
- Controlling women's presence in the streets;
- Imposing compulsory veiling, controlling the color and forms of women's attire;
- Lacerating and splashing acid on women's faces because of their clothing and make up.
- Systematic assault on women in prisons;
- Denial of the right to divorce and the right to custody of children;
- Promoting polygamy and temporary marriage, justified by the mullahs' disgraceful Sharia;
- Applying medieval and painful punishments such as stoning, whose victims are primarily women;
- Injustice and discrimination in economic participation, employment and education;
- The sale of small children by impoverished families and their trafficking to other countries by the mullahs' criminal gangs in a country as rich as Iran;
- Selling innocent girls' body parts due to impoverishment, hunger and many other calamities;

Indeed, these are only parts of the tragedy women have been experiencing under the rule of the fundamentalists. I must emphasize that these come at a time when the Iranian Resistance movement has been waging a relentless struggle against this regime for 27 years. Imagine what the fundamentalist mullahs would have done to women if this resistance did not exist.

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An invasion of Iran by a western coalition would be absurd. But clearly the current brutal Iranian dictatorship is pushing the limits of what the civilised world will tolerate.

Clearly the people of Iran are suffering badly under the mad mullahs and the prancing monkey Ahmadinejad. But many westerners, out of political motives, appear to be turning a blind eye toward the suffering people of Iran. Even western feminists seem to be jumping in bed with the patriarchy of Iran.

It is common for many journalists and bloggers to downplay the very real Iranian threat--out of hatred for US President Bush! They may feel that propagating a falsely benign image of Iran to the public will minimise the chances that Bush will attack or invade Iran. But a falsehood is a falsehood, regardless of motive. The thing that concerns me is that they may be fooling themselves!

Rush to Destruction: Iran's Version of the Singularity

Yesterday, I linked to several essays dealing with issues of the technological singularity. Today I am linking to essays dealing with a singularity of a different nature.

Iranian Shias have a legend of the Twelfth Imam, representing the messianic end of the present world and the final triumph of Islam over the infidels. Current day leaders of Iran seem to have taken the legend of the twelfth imam to heart, in their rush to develop nuclear weapons so as to be able to incinerate the enemies of their own version of radical revolutionary supremacist Islam.

Over at Shrinkwrapped blog, the psychologist blogmaster has posted a fascinating series of essays entitled The Singularity and the 12th Imam, Parts I-V. You should first read essay one, then proceed through the essays, being sure to check out the comments.

Here are the links to all five essays in the series:

1. Essay One
2. Essay Two
3. Essay Three
4. Essay Four
5. Essay Five

These essays were written from a psychologists point of view, and incorporate a lot of psychoanalytical thinking. That is part of the beauty of the web, that anyone can publish in his own words, from his own perspective.

A lot of people avoid the reality that tens of millions of religious and ideological fanatics would like to see them enslaved or dead. It is one thing to be honestly ignorant of one's precarious place in the world. It is something else to be studiously ignorant--intentionally ignorant. That verges on stupidity.

Addendum: I recently read VS Naipaul's fascinating account of his visit in 1979 to revolutionary Iran. His poignant style captured the mood of the place at the time, reminiscent of the engaging book describing a different islamist revolution, Kite Runner. You can inhale a bit of the essence of the Iranian belief in the twelfth imam, from the second page of Naipaul's article.