On Sunday The Washington Post published an article "Iran's ice cream challenge to America." The article is devoted to the problem of Iranian-Iraqi-American economic relations on Iraqi territory. The Iranian "Ice Pack", an aggressive new franchise that proclaims its intention to challenge U.S. fast-food hegemony worldwide, will open its Green Zone branch in January. Meanwhile, as Ice Pack expands across Iraq, there are no plans to open Baghdad branches of McDonald's, Starbucks, Burger King or any of the other U.S. brand names that are entrenched in most other countries in the region. Hundreds of thousands of Iranians visit Iraq's holy Shiite shrines every year, Iranian goods flow freely across the border and Iraqi politicians are acutely aware that they will have to continue dealing with Iran, with which Iraq fought an eight-year war in the 1980s, long after U.S. troops have gone home.
The Los Angeles Times reported on Sunday on the first steps in major policy by new foreign minister of Iran. The author of an article headlined "Iran fetes new foreign minister ahead of nuclear talks" says that Tehran and Washington are seeking to expand their regional influence ahead of another round of talks over Iran's nuclear programme. On Saturday, Iran feted its newly-designated caretaker foreign minister, Ali Akbar Salehi, with a reception in Tehran. Salehi announced that he would seek to strengthen ties with Turkey and Saudi Arabia, a Sunni Arab-led power that has bristled at Shiite Iran's growing influence in the Middle East, describing them "as the two countries that hold the most significant position" in Tehran's worldview. Meanwhile, in Bahrain, Admiral Michael G. Mullen, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, met with the island nation's king on Friday night and sought to rally friendly Arabian Peninsula nations to the cause of curbing Iran's nuclear program. He said military strikes on Iran's nuclear facilities would be "destabilizing" and called for dialogue with Tehran.
The New York Times published an article relating the difficult situation involving increasing prices for gasoline, natural gas and other commodities in Iran. Gasoline prices nearly quadrupled on Sunday and riot police guarded filling stations around the capital as deep cuts in subsidies on fuel and other essential goods took effect. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad announced the long-anticipated subsidy reductions in a live television interview on Saturday night, calling the reform "a great victory for Iran." Policy-makers have described the program as a "rationalization" or "targetization" of Iran's vast and inefficient system of subsidies, but some analysts fear it could increase living costs for millions of middle- and low-income households.
Today the Los Angeles Times touches on the same theme. The author of "Iranians brace for fuel subsidy cuts" says that Iranians braced themselves on Sunday as the government launched a series of subsidy cuts, expected to increase the price of fuel as much as ninefold and jack up the cost of such necessities as bread and water. Ahmadinejad fashions himself as a populist leader eager to serve the interests of the poor against a corrupt wealthy class. However, Iran's new class of wealthy merchants and traders will feel little pain from the subsidy cuts, but ordinary Iranians will be hit hard. People will get some cash to ease the shock of higher costs. If the plan works, it will make Iran more self-sufficient, economically lean and impervious to Western sanctions, which have taken a heavy toll on the economy.
On Sunday the Turkish news agency Hurriyet published an article headlined "After WikiLeaks, US-Turkish relations in need of catharsis, not recriminations". Relations between the United States and Turkey have always been dynamic and reflective of the moment. As the release of classified U.S. government cables by WikiLeaks most recently demonstrated, turbulence in U.S-Turkey relations should be expected in the short term and ignored only at both countries' peril, the author believes. According to him, the sooner both partners come to terms with the new realities of their relationship, the better.
Another article published recently by Hurriyet is entitled "Confuzzled by the Central Bank". The Central Bank of Turkey, or CBT, did not surprise anyone at all on Thursday when it cut the base rate from 7 to 6.5 percent. Friday's reserve requirement hikes were also in line with expectations. According to the author of the article, the Bank is reacting to liquidity emanating from the quantitative easing of the developed world finding its way to Turkey in the form of short-term capital flows. As the other side of the same coin, the current account deficit is growing from two distinct channels: First, because of the cheap and abundant borrowing, credit, domestic demand and imports are rising. In addition, imports are shooting up because of the real appreciation of the lira.
On Saturday the Iranian news agency Press TV published an article headlined "Iran, a victim of state-sponsored terrorism". "Those who mischievously called Iran part of the so-called "Axis of Evil" and put its name on their fabricated list of state-sponsors of terrorism - a list from which the name of Saddam Hussein's Baathist regime was removed in 1982 so that the United States and its European stooges could rationalize their unjustified, immoral and insane war against Iran - have blatantly forgotten that Iran has long been one of the guiltless victims of terrorism, sponsored by the United States, Israel, the UK and their puppets in the Middle East," says the article.
