Iran: Fuel Rations Will Make Us 'Invincible'

While keeping a secret supply of fuel for car bombers, and realizing that President Bush may finally have them by the short hairs, Iranian authorities are trying to quell the outrage and violence over the recent fuel rationing program.

Iran Focus reports --

"Gasoline (rationing) is among issues that the government decided and implemented bravely,'' Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was quoted as saying Saturday by state-run television.

Iran is one of the world's biggest oil producers, but it doesn't have enough refineries, so it must import more than 50 percent of the gasoline its people use.

"If this huge amount (spent on imported gasoline) is gradually reduced, definitely it will be spent on people's lives, employment, investment, construction of schools and roads,'' said Khamenei.

Hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Saturday that reduced reliance on imported gasoline would make the country less vulnerable to international pressure, at a time when Iran is at odds with the West over its nuclear program.

"Enemies have confessed to this important reality that if fuel consumption is contained and reduced, Iran will become invincible,'' Ahmadinejad was quoted by the broadcast as saying. More....

Instead of fulfilling his campaign promise to "put the oil income on people's tables", Ahmadinejad's policies, rhetoric and push for nukes, has earned them 2 sets of U.N. sanctions, which are driving the country into further despair.

More concerned with eating and being able to drive to work, Iranian working class citizens, who voted Ahmadinejad into office, are not buying the spin.....

"Without fuel I cannot earn," said the driver of a battered saloon car who had finally reached the head of a long queue for petrol. He was a shopkeeper who, like many residents of Teheran, supplements a meagre income by moonlighting as a cabbie. "Ahmadinejad is an ass. This is not what he promised the ordinary man.

"The protests, the most open sign of discontent with Mr. Ahmadinejad's rule since he took office in 2005, were accompanied by a stream of text-messaged jokes, which often serve as a vent for Iranians' suppressed frustrations. "On the orders of President Ahmadinejad," read one, "those who are short of petrol can have a ride on the 17 million donkeys who voted for him."

Meanwhile back in the states, President Bush will be pushing for a third set of U.N. sanctions against Iran. With hopes of getting support from Russia, Bush will be hosting Russian President Putin this weekend at his compound in Kennebunkport, Maine.....

While Mr. Bush is not expected to discuss the specifics of the American plan with Mr. Putin, a senior official said Mr. Bush was increasingly intent on stopping the Iranian nuclear program.

“He will make the point that this is the third set of sanctions against Iran, and now we have to make them really count,” the official said.

Mr. Bush has told aides he has doubts about how willing Mr. Putin would be to put his country’s trade with Iran at risk. Russia supplies much of the equipment and expertise for Iran’s main civilian nuclear reactor, and has other ties with Iran, including in the oil sector.

“We imagine that the Russians and the Chinese are going to play slowball here,” said a senior official involved in the sanctions talks. “They don’t want Iran to get nukes, but they worry what happens if the diplomacy here does not work.” More....