TEHRAN, IRAN — Visiting a mall full of high-end electronics shops in the Iranian capital one recent day, printing shop owner Mohammad Torabi was in the market for surveillance cameras to protect his property. He expressed satisfaction at the selection: stack after stack of Asian-made close-circuit TV cameras designed to work in daylight or darkness. “God bless China!” declared Torabi, 54, sneering at the U.S.-led economic sanctions that are meant to crimp Iran’s economy and force its leaders to abandon any effort to develop nuclear weapons… For Torabi and 70 million other Iranians, however, the good times are about to end. Crashing prices for crude oil — Iran’s main export — will ravage the country’s economy in 2009, according to Iranian economists and businessmen, and European diplomats.
