Word: iranian
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...Most Iranian commentators do not think so. Although House Foreign Affairs Committee chairman Howard Berman called Kyl and Lieberman's Iran Refined Petroleum Sanctions Act "a sword of Damocles" hanging over the Iranians, the view from Tehran is quite different. In Tehran's daily newspaper Mardom Salari, columnist Hamid Reza Shokouhi recently wrote, "It is possible to turn this sword of Damocles into an opportunity for gaining self-sufficiency." (See pictures of the turbulent aftermath of the Iranian elections...
While the Obama Administration may think that a gasoline embargo, even a partial one, would pressure the Iranian regime to suspend its nuclear activities, Tehran may be hoping for just that sanction to help it with one of its longtime goals: reducing gasoline consumption. Indeed, the Iranian government, which has been subsidizing pump prices for years and keeping them well below the international market price (at a huge burden to the national budget), would love the U.S. to take the political hit for helping to end the subsidies...
Former President Mohammad Khatami stated that his greatest economic failure during his tenure was not reducing the massive subsidies the Iranian government spends to keep gas prices low. Every year, his government had to draw millions of dollars from Iran's special "rainy day" oil revenue reserve fund in order to pay out the subsidies. By 2003, the leaders today associated with the ongoing Green Movement opposition - Khatami, Mehdi Karroubi and Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani - all supported rationing gasoline in order to reduce domestic consumption and government expenditure...
Finally, under President Ahmadinejad, a rationing program began in the summer of 2007. Every Iranian with a registered motor vehicle received a smart card that could be used at any pumping station. Up to 100 liters (26 gallons) a month could be bought at a still subsidized price of about 38 cents a gallon. After the 100 liters is up, drivers can pay a fixed price of about $1.50 a gallon for any additional gasoline, known as the "open price." (For comparison, U.S. gasoline prices averaged $2.63 per gallon at the end of August...
...Baer, a former Middle East CIA field officer, is TIME.com's intelligence columnist and the author of See No Evil and, most recently, The Devil We Know: Dealing with the New Iranian Superpower...