Iran’s radical Muslim leaders have made it clear that virtually nothing about Western culture and government appeals to them. Yet in one important way, they have emulated the behavior of governments such as ours.
Like their counterparts in the United States and many other countries, leaders in Iran decided that one means of making their people believe government really is working for them is to tinker with market forces. Both there and here, gasoline prices have been one major target — but the Iranians have carried market tinkering to an extreme not yet considered seriously in the United States.
Governments in both countries have pledged to do all they can to hold gasoline prices down. But in Iran, the government strictly limits prices and provides subsidies to oil companies in order to hold them down. The official price of gasoline for the owner of a private car is 38 cents per gallon for the first 26 gallons of fuel.
As economists have warned, such tinkering can limit supply of necessities such as gasoline. It has done precisely that in Iran. Though the country is the second-biggest oil exporter in the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, it does not have enough refineries to meet domestic need. About half of the refined gasoline used in Iran is imported.
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Iran’s radical Muslim leaders have made it clear that virtually nothing about Western culture and government appeals to them. Yet in one important way, they have emulated the behavior of governments such as ours.
