JERUSALEM (MarketWatch) — They laughed hard this week in spy agencies across the West as Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad dubbed “a great victory for Iran” his latest decree: an overnight quadrupling of gasoline prices.
Yet behind what outsiders heard as vintage Orwellian Newspeak lurked a measure of political boldness that the rest of the world would do well to follow closely, as at least one major part of the Islamist Revolution begins to fall apart.
The outspoken Iranian leader’s statement was, to be sure, fraught with cynicism: He neglected to mention his deployment of riot police in numerous gas stations where millions of drivers were about to learn just what the president’s “victory” meant for their wallets.
But the removal of subsidies, as this column noted more than two years ago, was one bit of major surgery that the Iranian economy had to undergo if it was to feed, house and employ its increasingly restless population.
Even more important, price reform may well unleash economic dynamics that will first humble the conservatives and then discredit the value system that, so to speak, makes Iran’s leadership tick.
