Ahmadinejad Under Fire In Iran

Ahmadinejad is learning that it is a lot easier to taunt foreign countries than to rule a country--and the Iranian people are noticing it too.

Iran Leader Under Fire for Gas Shortages

Iran's supreme leader Monday reversed a decision by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and ordered him to implement a law supplying natural gas to remote villages amid rising dissatisfaction with the president's performance.

The move by Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was a major rebuke to the hardline president, whose popularity has plummeted amid rising food prices and deaths due to gas cuts during a particularly harsh winter.

In response to a request by the conservative-dominated parliament, Khamenei ordered the president to implement a law spending $1 billion from the Currency Reserve Fund to supply gas to villages after he balked for budgetary reasons.

...Ahmadinejad was elected in 2005 on a populist agenda promising to bring oil revenues to every family, eradicate poverty and tackle unemployment. He now faces increasing criticism for failing to meet those promises.

Ahmadinejad is being criticized for focusing more on anti-Israel and anti-US rhetoric instead of the economy as--criticism that is especially bitter considering that Iranians are dying from the cold despite the fact that Iran has the second largest natural gas reservoir in the world.

Dissatisfaction with Ahmadinejad is nothing new. It is an ongoing story--the question is what, if anything, the Iranians are going to do about it.

Technorati Tag: Iran and Ahmadinejad.