Iranian Government Failed

In my previous post I quoted Walid Phares who argued that the Iranian government was playing for time in holding the British hostages. Even though they released the hostages sooner than expected he may have been right. How can this be? It could be that they were not going to get what they wanted and they were increasing their isolation as a result of the kidnapping.

The great VDH explains (as he does so very well).

Please Bomb Me!

What should we make of the Iranians' behavior?

Namely that the country's leadership is in deep political trouble. The Iranian government is desperate to provoke the West to win back friends in the Islamic world, and to quell growing unrest at home. Subsidizing food and gas, providing billions for terrorists and building nukes all cost money at a time when the state-run Iranian economy is in shambles.

Because of incompetence in their oil industry, the Iranian mullahs have achieved the impossible: Despite having among the world's largest petroleum reserves, their production is shrinking and they have managed to earn increasingly less petrodollars even as the world price has soared.

While the Iranian theocrats understand that the entire world, including many of their own citizens, is turning against them, they also know that this could change if a Western nation would just attack them. Their strategy seems to be to find a way to provoke someone to drop a few bombs on them, on the naive assumption that such an assault would be of limited duration and damage. Such an attack, they may figure, would earn them sympathy in much of the world.

As always, read the whole thing for background and supporting information.