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notices and features - Date published:
6:00 am, January 2nd, 2026 - 24 comments
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Open mike is your post.
For announcements, general discussion, whatever you choose.
The usual rules of good behaviour apply (see the Policy).
Step up to the mike …
Reality bites….
Natalka
@NatalkaKyiv
“Enough about our horrific past. Let's talk our horrific future,” sums up Russian blogger Maksim Kalashnikov’s assessment of the impact the past 3 years will have on Russia’s future.
https://xcancel.com/NatalkaKyiv/status/2006424738210717764
Much as I hate the silly season and it's more a test of endurance to get through it, I do like the fact that NZ politics also shuts down for a few weeks. Once again, NZ keeps ticking over with nay a politician in sight. And the best thing- if they're not here, then they can't do anymore damage.
Which begs the question- is there any practical use for a politician?
Imagine Christine Rankin making all the decisions about Work and Income policy and direction.
Fair point.
Monarchs need subjects, subjects don't need monarchs.
Can anyone catch me up on what's happening in Iran, in a paragraph or two?
Here you go.
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/1/1/several-killed-as-iran-protests-over-rising-cost-of-living-spread
Looks like pressure from Israel & increased sanctions by the US is taking it's toll economically and socially.
I know how to google thanks, I'm asking for an explanation.
4 key details
One problem is they have faced years of drought. They now have a severe water shortage.
Their currency is at low levels. There is inflation.
They are burning dirty oil for power generation, rather than gas.
The Ayatollah is keeping a very low profile.
The economy has not improved since this in October.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-63154987
thanks. What's the driver of the low currency and inflation?
looks like Karolyn's comment answered that. Is it mostly the sanctions?
One would imagine the collapse in oil price is having an effect
https://tradingeconomics.com/commodity/crude-oil
I doubt it's mostly the sanctions. It's common among leftists (I used to do it too) to assume totalitarian regime X would be a great place for other people to live in (not me though!) if only the liberal democracies wouldn't apply economic sanctions, but there are plenty of countries suffering poverty that don't have mass demonstrations against their rulers. Iranians didn't ask for the rulers they have and many of them want change.
" Iranians didn't ask for the rulers they have and many of them want change."
Well, that’s true to some extent in recent years. But it’s more complicated than that, being the result of ongoing US interventions. It was US intervention in the 1950s that resulted in a democratic elected Iranian govt being ousted and an authoritarian Shah being installed to govern. The Iranian people resented the US intervention – some considered it too authoritarian, some that it was too "modern" & wasn't Islamic enough – and toppled the Shah,
And that's the CNN version. That problem has been repeated in many countries where the US has toppled democratic govts for their own ends. And it has resulted in ongoing problems in later years.
It's true, if the US hadn't overthrown Mossadeq, things would be different now.
However, it's also true that if the communists hadn't decided it was safe to make common cause with Islamists on the mistaken assumption that it would be the communists rounding people up and executing them after the revolution, things would be different now.
If Carter hadn't abandoned the Shah, things would be different now.
If Saddam Hussein hadn't invaded Iran, things would be different now.
If Khomeini hadn't put a fatwah on Salman Rushdie, things would be different now. All of it's true, none of it's particularly useful for explaining the current protests.
I think you might be conflating the economic drivers, with the sociopolitical ones? I was asking why the low currency and inflation.
It's largely the sanctions driving inflation though it's also the economic disruption going on due to the political instability driving that. Significant international sanctions are in virtually all cases associated with high inflation rates. Only exception seems to be where countries have developed alternative supply sources avoiding sanctions. The mechanism seems pretty simple to suggest, basically if sanctions are applying many are not willing to sell imports as they get paid in a difficult to deal with currency or people cut off from the global financial system. So, imports come at a premium to begin with and then goods shortages lead to domestic price increases.
I don't think we can know the true reason for the economic problems.
For the people who imagine to find the USA at the bottom of every rabbit hole they go down, it's a well-duh that economic sanctions are the only reason for the problem.
For others, it's more that totalitarian regimes have to put huge resources into controlling their own populations, the people doing the controlling reward themselves accordingly, and in Iran's particular case there's a spectacular amount spent on pursuing pointlessly stupid goals around regional influence, Shi'a vs Sunni and the destruction of Israel. Just consider how much has Iran put into Hizb'allah, Hamas and the Assad regime in the last couple of decades, let alone the amounts wasted on nuclear weapons development. That stuff isn't good for your economy.
Iran's support of proxies is part of its doctrine of 'forward defense' – to confront powers obviously hostile to them (principally Israel and by implication the US) outside their own borders. We can argue about the direction in which the primary current of hostility actually runs in an effort to locate some original sin – but in my reckoning both sides present as thoroughly detestable. How well forward defense stacks up in terms of a military strategy I wouldn't know, but it seems to me a somewhat odd strategy when your ultimate enemy is not another similar regional power, but in effect a military hyperpower, the US.
This 2021 report from New America notes that the strategy has a relatively low cost, but even that is a strain for an economy under sanctions. Moreover, forward defense tends to provoke escalation:
"So far, Iran’s forward defense appears largely to have been implemented on a tight budget. Iran is not the biggest military spender in the Middle East today. But Tehran also has far less cash on hand due to American sanctions. President Hassan Rouhani has
claimed that American sanctions have cost Iran $200 billion. The issue of Iran’s ability to fund its proxy allies, and the reliance of its approach in cases like Syria on stopgap measures that can encourage escalation on the part of its rivals, poses a threat to the sustainability of the forward defense model. However, it is not an imminent risk to Iran’s ability to pursue the strategy."
And:
"Meanwhile, as the Islamic Republic faces a deep crisis of legitimacy at home, it is difficult to see how Tehran can stay the course without risking political blowback from an Iranian public that yearns for nation-building at home and an end to costly foreign projects. "
It's not really that common. More common is to assume that sanctions and similar activities, such as funding thinktanks, media and internal opposition groups that are hostile to a government, put that government under such pressure that mere survival pushes it in a totalitarian direction – or exacerbates an existing totalitarian tendency. And that in fact, this is how sanctions are intended to work – to drive a government into such desperation that it starts to undermine its own internal legitimacy. It seems to me that this is not an unreasonable assumption, it's certainly a serious one that's not to be casually mocked.
To that list I would add overpopulation (expected to top out at c100 million in 2025 – a five-fold increase in a century). One wonders (but hasn't time to check) whether the infrastructure has kept pace.
It's another round in what's becoming a regular sequence: people in Iran demonstrate for the right to not be ruled by Islamist totalitarianism, and we get to watch and hope that this time maybe the regime won't just shoot them. I'm usually an optimist, but in this case my money's on the regime just shooting them again.
Shamima Begum was a child when was groomed and trafficked and then subjected to the most appalling experiences imaginable. But rather than taking responsibility for her plight, the British estabishment is doubling down on the abuse of a vulnerable young woman.
Pricks.
The home secretary will "robustly defend" the decision to strip Shamima Begum of her British citizenship, as European judges scrutinise the move, according to a government source.
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c3wzp693nv3o