Mediocrates
07-15-2010, 09:02 AM
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3917570,00.html
Tehran's powerful merchants don't need street protests to make their anger known – the sound of shops being locked up and metal grates clanging shut during a wave of anti-tax strikes last week was enough to unsettle Iranian authorities.
The closures – with Tehran's expansive bazaar as the epicenter – present another dilemma for Iranian leaders still trying to weigh the fallout from wider UN and American sanctions (http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3914003,00.html).
A sustained fight with the influential merchant class would pull Iran's (http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3284215,00.html%20) rulers onto a path littered with warning signs from the past.
The bazaar has been the tipping point in popular unrest for more than a century, including the 1979 Islamic Revolution, when merchants pulled their support from the Western-backed monarchy, paving the way for its ouster and the installment of rule by Islamic clerics.
Tehran's powerful merchants don't need street protests to make their anger known – the sound of shops being locked up and metal grates clanging shut during a wave of anti-tax strikes last week was enough to unsettle Iranian authorities.
The closures – with Tehran's expansive bazaar as the epicenter – present another dilemma for Iranian leaders still trying to weigh the fallout from wider UN and American sanctions (http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3914003,00.html).
A sustained fight with the influential merchant class would pull Iran's (http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3284215,00.html%20) rulers onto a path littered with warning signs from the past.
The bazaar has been the tipping point in popular unrest for more than a century, including the 1979 Islamic Revolution, when merchants pulled their support from the Western-backed monarchy, paving the way for its ouster and the installment of rule by Islamic clerics.