One. Over the past few days security, judicial and police officials have been broadcasting claims of uncovering the largest consignment of illegal drug trafficking, something in the amount of 8,685 kilograms.

While news of finding large and small caches of drugs has been a daily or monthly event in Iran since 1979, the regime uses such claims to demonstrate the effectiveness of its police and law enforcement forces. However, if the policy of fighting illegal drugs was in fact effective, it should have after the passage of some 33 years eradicated the illegal trade or at the least the issue of addiction in the country.

During president Mohammad Khatami’s administrations, officials responsible for drug enforcement in Iran argued that two decades of work on the issue had not been effective and thus changed the priority from fighting supply to reducing demand for drugs. What followed were new rehab policies and greater socio-cultural policies among the youth. After Mahmoud Ahmadinejad became president however, these programs were stopped and once again the priority was battling supply: a policy that is staunchly supported by the law enforcement agencies partly because it brings them greater financial and other resources. In fact, among the key supporters of fighting illegal drugs are the law enforcement agencies and the armed forces that are using the drug issue to increase their budgets in the east of the country. Even senior Revolutionary Guard (IRGC) commanders and the police in the province of Sistan and Baluchistan get side benefits from this policy.

Two. News agencies affiliated with the ruling circles in Iran and the national radio and television station are currently using the unrest in London for propaganda purposes against the UK. The Iranian regime which blamed the BBC radio station for fuelling the eruption of violence in Tehran and other major cities after the disputed 2009 presidential elections, is now taking its revenge and talks about “the uprising of the deprived” in London and the UK. By exaggerating the actions of the British police, the Iranian regime is also trying to justify its own crackdown and legitimize it. What is important to Iranian officials today is to show social unrest in Western countries that oppose the regime in Tehran and that they utilize force to suppress social protests. Their goal is to show that such actions are the norm in today’s world, and so the brutal crackdown by the Iranian regime that included such atrocities as rape, murder, imprisonment, banning of political or any social activism, independent media, etc are routine and not limited to Tehran.

Three. “Iran is rapidly becoming a space country.” This is what Iran’s president Ahmadinejad said during a recent meeting with faculty members from a number of domestic universities when he also said that among the country achievements were that Iran had now become nuclear, despite the hue and cry of some. The nuclear issue has been settled and established he claimed.

He also said that becoming a space country is another accomplishment of his administration and added, “In the near future, our satellites will be stationed beyond the 34 thousand meter orbit.”

Conclusion. A regime that began the week by claiming to have uncovered its largest cache of illegal drugs totaling 8,686 kilos and ended it by asserting that it has satellites circling the earth at high orbit, and one that does not understand the difference between thousands of prisoners and a hundred killings and victims of torture at Kahrizak with the riots in London and its measures to control the situation is perhaps in fact doing engaged in activities that are natural for a space regime.

Source : Roozonline