Iran warns of crackdown after major protests break out over fuel prices and taxes.

Protesters block a road with their vehicles. Reuters.

Iran's Revolutionary Guards have warned Iranians that there will be decisive action if protests that have spread throughout the country do not end. Reuters. 100 banks and other buildings have been torched so far in protests caused by high fuel prices and rationing. Iran has recently raised prices of fuel 50%. The unrest has been the worst since 2017 and Iran has shut down the country's internet. Iran has said the higher fuel prices will be used to subsidized lower income Iranians and will raise $2.5 billion a year. Iran has been in an economic meltdown ever since President Trump withdrew from the Iran nuclear deal and reimposed sanctions on the Islamic republic. 

My Comment:

Big story that isn't getting too much coverage. To be fair though, Iran seems to go into these kinds of cycles of protest and crackdown fairly often. The last major unrest was in 2017 but it was put down with the kind of brutality you can expect from this regime. 

The big question now is if this revolt is more of the same or does it signify something else. As I said, disorder isn't uncommon in Iran and it could just be another cycle of if this time. Iran's a pretty terrible place and the clerics have a stranglehold on the people who usually don't agree with their actions. 

But it's possible this unrest is more serious than normal. I don't recall Iran shutting down the entire internet before. That's a big hint how big these protests are. Iran doesn't want news to reach the rest of the world via the internet. They also don't want people in their country to be able to coordinate protests via the internet so shutting it down could help to end these protests.

I think that the Iranian people are right to be upset. It seems like a pretty clear bribe to the lower classes at the expense of everyone else. The clerics know that their biggest support is from the lower classes and they don't mind pissing everyone else off.

Fuel prices are one of the things that can really screw over everyone. Higher gas prices not only add a huge new bill for everyone that has a car, it also raises the prices of pretty much everything that is transported by vehicle. It's a huge burden on anyone who works for a living and the only people that will benefit from these taxes are the people getting a payment from Iran. And even those people won't really benefit if they have to pay more money for everything. 

This kind of bad policy often leads to widespread protests. Gas taxes spawned the still relevant Yellow Vests movement in France, which recently celebrated it's one year anniversary. Doing the same thing in Iran, albeit for different reasons, caused the same kind of disorder. All I know is that if I was in control of a country and needed funds, a gas tax would be the last thing I ever considered...

In general though, there seems to be a lot of civil unrest right now globally. There are riots and protest in Hong Kong, France, Bolivia and now Iran. I think the internet is partially to blame. People can compare their lives to the lives of people in other countries and they get upset when they find out that their lives don't measure up. Add that in with the generally terrible decisions governments are making and it's no surprise that there is civil unrest.