longbrained
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I am no sage, but I predict Iran will be much better 10 years from now and will never become North Korea or Cuba. In North Korea, there is no dissent at all, the leader is accepted as a kind of god. Cuba is an island with not much resources. It is wrong to compare Iran to them. In Iran you can have dissent of sorts as long as you accept Iran as an Islamic republic and its constitution. Not an unreasonable demand, since all countries have such restrictions. In Germany you can not criticize your government to the point of making it Nazi again, despite Nazi sympathizers already being present in enough numbers. So Iran is not that bad.
As for the advancement, I believe, the eastern cultures unfortunately unless they are not under huge pressures do not perform well. Iran infact needs some push from sanctions and like to push it to develop its own industries and become more productive. It is not only at governmental level, even at an eastern home, children are pushed to perform. You can say we are lazy, I say that is our culture. But it is a reality. Iran in 1979 had electricity generation capacity of 7000 MW, with a population of 30 million. Today it has a capacity of 65000 MW with a population of 75 million. This capacity is the most important indicator of industrialization. The other indicator is the amount of steel produced in a country which Iran is producing plenty of and dozens of times more than before revolution. So things are improving, it is not like Iran is becoming a sub-Saharan country.
There are issues as I said, but they can be solved, internally and non-violently. For example I had earlier said in another post in this forum that I expect in the next ten years, I predict, Iranian constitution to be amended and there is a good possibility that the seat of supreme leader to get a tenure, which would make Iran 100% democratic and all objections to it void. For example they can say, only an Ayatullah can become a supreme leader indirectly elected by assembly of experts much like prime ministers are indirectly elected in western countries. And the supreme leader is going to have a tenure of let's say 8 years in office and after that, assembly of experts is going to vote again on it. Also they can say, no Ayatullah can become a supreme leader for more than two times. So the possibility of change is there. But this change can not be done now due to various factors, it is a long term plan.
As for Iranian economy and sanctions, I guess, there is alot of propaganda. Sanctions have effect but the real cause of Iranian economical problems are the inefficient structure of economy which badly needs a structural reform. Now this might sound like IMF but this is the truth. I like Ahmadinejad for this same reason since he is so much pro-structural reform. Whether subsidies or other areas. Actually the original Ahmadinejad called for reform and complete revamp of 6 areas of which subsidies is just one of them. But as you can see, there are powerful economical players in Iran which do not like this structural reforms and are resisting full force. The most powerful element being traditional Bazar which I have heard is so powerful that no Shah, or Ayatullah has ever messed with it. The problem with Bazar is that it thinks in old terms of doing business with no innovation and all its dealings are based on non-productive quick profit type, which is keeping Iran back. According to IMF there is 400 billion dollar of excess money in this Bazar which is just roaming around and instead of turning to invest in innovation and technology production is causing hyper inflation by making bubbles after bubbles in commodity markets such as gold, dollar, housing etc etc.
Anyways one other area of Ahmadinejad structural reform was in customs. Basically he wanted to have complete control over the borders and kill all corruption by using ASYCUDA smart software. Not sure if he has been able to implement it yet. Since again there must be opposition there as well, from all kinds of smugglers, vested interests and Bazar itself.
Anyways this opposition exists in every country and structural reforms are huge gambles and very difficult to do without any opposition in any country. May be if Iran was North Korea it would have been easier, but in Iran there are too many factions and groups. And to actually read some neutral scientific analysis about Iranian economy Please see this site which is written by an American Economist who actually knows about Iran and has access to real data since most of the popular media is not doing a technical analysis of Iranian economy and is simply propaganda: Tyranny of numbers
