Iran revolutionary victory poster in Arabic. C. 1979

I recently posted a brief article on the Chart of the Year for Tehran. You may wish to consult that in concert with charts in this article.

The geopolitical position of contemporary Iran will be well-known to anyone likely to read this article. The situation is becoming acutely dire as western powers continue to impose sanctions and essentially treat the Iranians like wayward children. Persia is an ancient and proud culture and her people don’t take well to manipulations by other nations who most assuredly do not have their best interests at heart. Moreover, these other nations are considered as the abodes of the unbelievers. Prior to the ousting of the Shah, there was certainly corruption, but Iran was not a Theocracy. This allowed for a porous relationship with the rest of the world.

In the abstract to his 1994 MA Theis,  Bhasin Gurbeen writes “the…