Double, double toil and Iran's trouble

Yesterday there were reports hinting at the continuing tensions in Iran. Iran actually fired across the border into Iraq.

Iraq has accused Iranian forces of entering Iraqi territory and shelling Kurdish rebel positions in the north.

Iranian troops bombed border areas near the town of Hajj Umran before crossing into Iraq, the defence ministry in Baghdad said on Sunday.

It said the Iranians targeted the PKK, a Kurdish group that has waged a 15-year insurgency against Turkey.

The PKK is believed to have links with anti-Iranian Kurdish fighters. There are no details on casualties.

The Iraqi defence ministry also says Iran launched a similar attack on Kurdish rebel positions in the same area on 21 April.

Persians account for only about 51% of the population in Iran. The rest are various ethnic groups such as Azeris (24%), Kurds (7%), Arabs (3%), Balochs (2%) and others.

All of the ones I've mentioned have been responsible for some measure of opposition against the Iranian regime, and remain a prime opportunity for fomenting regime change in Iran.

John Robb wrote of this at Global Guerrillas in a post entitled "Collapsing Iran."

In addition, there is unrest among the Iranian population as a whole, as Iran's economy is not a powerhouse, and unemployment and labor troubles bubble away beneath the surface.

Today, in fact, May Day, there were large demonstrations in Iran.

Cliff May has posted some photos at The Corner.

CNN reports:

Thousands of Iranian workers on Monday protested the growing use of short-term employment contracts. It was the most vociferous May Day demonstration the Islamic state has seen in years.

The protest came as a reminder to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad that, although embroiled in an international dispute over his country's atomic ambitions, he was elected to improve living conditions for the poorest members of society.

Short-term contracts, while better paid than regular staff contracts, allow bosses to fire workers more easily and cheaply.

"The contract worker is a slave as he lives in fear of being sacked," said Aliasghar Ghaliaf, 37, who has worked in a textile factory on a permanent contract for 19 years.

"Employers set us up against the contract workers, accusing us of not working hard enough," he added.

Paper-factory worker Masoud Cheraghi, 40, said, "Some employers even make contract workers sign a resignation form without a date on it."

The demonstrators, numbering some 10,000, called for Labor Minister Mohammad Jahromi to resign and brandished placards with bread stuck on them to symbolize their hand-to-mouth existence.

Regime Change Iran has translations of Iranian accounts describing some of the labor trouble. (See here and here and here and here.).

More than 120 service workers of district 2, sectors 11 of Tehran’s city hall have not been paid in 2 months. The regime-run news agency, ULNA reports that these workers who work in two backbreaking 10-hour shifts only receive the equivalent of $90. to $130. Per month and now they are not even receiving that.

According to the regime-run news agency FARS from Ghazveen, at 10 A.M. on Monday, April 24th, workers from the Farnakh Textile factory gathered to protest their working condition by blocking the Tehran-Ghazveen and Ghazveen-Zanjon freeways.

One of the workers interviewed by the Fars reporter said: “We have not been paid for 6 months and nothing we have done seems to get the attention of the management; all they tell us is that they’re looking into it and that it will resolve itself! So at this juncture, we will take the action necessary in order to bring attention to our concerns.”

Another worker said: “How much are we meant to put up with; if it was just us, it wouldn’t have mattered… we could die of hunger but what have our wives, children and hungry family members done to deserve this abuse from the management?”

Sporadic clashes have happened following the celebration of the International Workers Day in several Iranian cities and especially in Tehran where workers were attacked by anti-riot and plainclothes agents.

The workers along with teachers, collective bus drivers and students were shouting slogans protesting against their conditions in the Taleghani avenue and in front of several official premises, such as, the Ministry of Employment, the Office of Social Security and the occupied Office of Bus Drivers when attacked.

Some slogans were calling for the resignation of the Minister of Employment and other for the immediate release of arrested workers and bus drivers.

Several protesters have been injured or arrested.

Based on received reports from Tehran, on International Workers Day, Monday, May 1st, 2006, at 11:30 A.M. the bus drivers of the greater Tehran bus company and their families will gather in front of the bus company’s headquarters to protest their conditions.

Member of their union, who as a result of going on strike, were fired, will take part in this protest in order to condemn the denial of their rights and to demand the immediate and unconditional release of their imprisoned leader Mansour Osanlou.

At the higher levels of Iran's government, it is not crystal clear how much of the crisis over Iran's nuclear program is due to President Ahmadinejad's belligerence, and how much is actually supported by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei.

Expediency Council Chairman Rafsanjani is also a rival of Ahmadinejad, and it isn't clear just how much he is in line with the current approach. On April 11, Rafsanjani announced that Iranian was a nuclear nation before Ahmadinejad made his speech, perhaps an impertinent usurpation of the President's privilege.

In this post, I speculated that because Rafsanjani's visit to Syria coincided with a suicide bombing in Tel Aviv, just as Ahmadinejad's visit in January did, that this might be a direct message from Iran warning Israel what might happen if Israel attacks Iran.

If there is a power struggle going in Iran, perhaps Rafsanjani was not a party to the terrorist attack. Perhaps factions in Teheran loyal to Ahmadinejad, if not Ahmadinejad himself, arranged to have the suicide attack to take place while Rafsanjani was in Syria in order to discredit Rafsanjani, by tying him to the attack and making it look as if Rafsanjani was a willing supporter of terrorism, thereby tarnishing his "moderate" image.

That is speculation, of course, but the labor and ethnic unrest in Iran is not. There are as yet alternatives to military action. But, these openings must be exploited. The world community must act, whether through sanctions or supporting opposition groups directly, but there must be action. If nothing happens, Iran will continue its march to nuclear weapons.

Tick tick tick...