Page 1 of
2 Mahmud Ahmadinejad - the
movie By Sami Moubayed
DAMASCUS - First it was John F Kennedy.
Then Fidel Castro. Then Yasser Arafat. And now
Mahmud Ahmadinejad. The only thing that unites
these four controversial leaders is that they
appeal to Hollywood director Oliver Stone. While
he succeeded in bringing the first three to the
big screen, it has not been so easy with the
president of Iran.
Ahmadinejad has turned
down Stone's offer to make a Hollywood picture
about him. He certainly would have done the Iranian
president a great public
relations favor and been somewhat sympathetic to
Ahmadinejad's anti-Americanism, as the case with
Arafat, who was depicted in Stone's Persona Non
Grata as a nice old man - a victim, rather
than an aggressor against the Israelis.
Surprisingly, however, Stone's request was
turned down by the increasingly paranoid Iranian
leader. Mehdi Kalhor, a media adviser to
Ahmadinejad, told the Fars News Agency, "It is
true that [Stone] is known as a dissident in the
US, but he is still part of the Great Satan." That
was the term used by ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini
to describe the United States at the outbreak of
the Islamic Revolution in 1979.
Should
Ahmadinejad have accepted? Film directors in Iran,
whose works are among the finest and most
sophisticated and artistic in the East, urged
their president to say yes. They know the power of
the US film industry and realize that Stone's
touch could do wonders for Ahmadinejad's troubled
career.
Sources from within Iran confirm
that Ahmadinejad was opposed to letting an
American into his inner circle, while others said
the president accepted on the condition that if he
gave Stone access to the upper echelons of power
in Tehran, the US must accept that Iran sends an
Iranian filmmaker to make a film about President
George W Bush and have access to the upper
echelons of the White House. The Iranian spokesman
added, "We believe that US cinema is devoid of
culture and that their art is only a stratagem."
Let us pretend that the Iranian president
had accepted Stone's proposal. How would a film
about Ahmadinejad look? Where would Stone have
started? One way would be to depict the violent
street protests where angry demonstrators stormed
and destroyed 30% of the country's fueling
stations. The rioters ripped through cities
including Tehran, Esfahan, Mashhad, and the
president's own native Garmsar. They were
objecting to a law passed by Iranian authorities
partially lifting the subsidy on gasoline and
rationing it.
Although one of the world's
biggest oil exporters, Iran does not have enough
refineries to meet its local demand for gasoline
and imports more than 50% of its domestic
consumption, at US$10 billion, then sells it to
drivers at below-cost prices. Tehran is trying to
reduce that number at the expense of the average
Iranian citizen who has gotten accustomed to
subsidized petroleum since the Islamic Revolution
came to power in 1979. They expect gasoline at
rock-bottom prices. One driver was quoted in the
Associated Press as saying: "Ahmadinejad promised
paradise, but his government has made life hell
for the Iranians."
The government had
raised the price of gasoline by 25% in May, but
that was not enough to curb consumption by
drivers. The new rationing system, which is being
frowned on by Iranians and leading to a lot of
discontent with Ahmadinejad, allows private
drivers 100 liters per month at subsidized prices.
Any amount larger than that has to be bought at
higher prices. The quota for taxi drivers is 800
liters a month of subsidized gasoline.
Iranian officials are arguing that in
addition to cutting back expenses for the
government, the new measure is preemptive, aimed
at making Iran self-dependent, in case the
international community decides to stop selling
fuel to Iran. The decision is a security-economic
one, they claim.
It is unclear whether
Ahmadinejad supports this, since on coming to
power in 2005, he promised his countrymen more
money - and an easier life. He promised to put
revenue from petroleum on their tables - something
that has not happened - and to fight unemployment
and combat corruption. That is what got him voted
into power. It was the youth, the unemployed, and
the poor who voted for Ahmadinejad.
Unemployment under Ahmadinejad has reached
a staggering 30% (although the government puts it
at 10%), while the price of fruit and vegetables
has tripled since January. Housing prices have
more than doubled since June 2006. Inflation is
reported at anywhere between 14% and 25%. If the
latter figure, put forth by certain economists, is
correct, it would mean that Iran is in serious
trouble, because no matter how high the economic
growth rate is, it can never reach 25%.
Already there is a bipartisan panel in the
US House of Representatives proposing to reduce
Iran's access to imported gasoline. The proposal
says that any company selling gasoline to Iran
would be prevented from selling to the US market.
Other debates are ongoing in the US and Britain on
passing a new set of sanctions on Iran, since the
last two United Nations resolutions, 1737 (last
December) and 1747 (this March) have not made the
Iranian leader change his policies.
The
first resolution, sponsored by France, Germany and
the United Kingdom, imposed sanctions against Iran
for failing to stop its uranium-enrichment program
after Resolution 1696, which banned the supply of
nuclear-related technology and materials and froze
the assets of key individuals and companies
related to the enrichment program.
Back
then, the Iranian president commented, "I am sorry
for you who lost the opportunity for friendship
with the nation of Iran. You yourself know that
you cannot damage the nation of Iran one iota."
Wanting to prove that it could, the international
community followed with Resolution 1747,
tightening existing sanctions, imposing a ban on
arms sales, and stepping up the freeze on assets.
Forget gasoline. Oliver Stone could go
back to Ahmadinejad's first annual budget (April
2006), set at $217.4 billion, calling on
state-owned banks to allocate a larger portion of
their resources to consumer loans for low-income
families and small enterprises in underdeveloped
regions. It also called for an increase in housing
subsidies for low-income families, accounting for
roughly $1 billion. Today, more than ever since
Ahmadinejad came to power in 2005, these promises
are nothing but dreams for the Iranian citizens.
Or Stone could document the Iranian
president's out-of-this world comments last
October, opposing birth control and those wanting
to limit Iranian families to just two children,
saying that Iran can live with an additional 50
million people. One wondered about the president's
wisdom in making these remarks at a time when
economists were trying to curb inflation and
unemployment.
Ahmadinejad was actually
repeating Arab rhetoric of the 1960s, repeated by
Khomeini in the 1980s, which called for more
children to help the "struggling" nations of the
world fight imperialist enemies such as the United
States and Israel.
Neither Ahmadinejad nor
Khomeini took the time to think about how this
would affect poverty, education and living
standards in general. Didn't Ahmadinejad realize
that currently Iran can barely
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