Popular Uprising Is Possible in ‘Basket-Case’ Iran

U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron, praising the Arab Spring of democratic protests across the Middle East and North Africa, said a similar revolt in Iran should not be ruled out.

“The Iranian regime is one of the most dictatorial and most repressive of all,” Cameron told lawmakers in London today. “And if the Iranian people start to see that there is a future for a democratic Egypt and a democratic Tunisia and a Libyan people struggling to throw off their hideous leader, then people in Iran who have attempted this before might think, well actually we don’t have to go down this autocratic path.”

Iran is under four rounds of United Nations sanctions over its nuclear program, which the U.S. and its allies say is aimed at producing weapons. Iran says it is for generating power.

The European Union adopted sanctions last month against human-rights violators in Iran. A U.S. State Department report on human rights released April 8 said Iran pursued a campaign of violence and intimidation against its own people in 2010, committing extrajudicial killings and using amputation and flogging as punishments.

“I think we can over-demonize Iran as a country run by genius politicians who are strategic masters,” Cameron said. “In many ways it’s an absolute basket case of a country. They can’t even refine enough of their own oil; they are brutal in terms of using the death penalty. We should be describing the regime as much more backward rather than bigging them up. ”

To contact the reporter on this story: Kitty Donaldson in London at [email protected].

Source: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-05-17/cameron-says-popular-uprising-is-possible-in-basket-case-iran.html