The Western strategy towards Iran basically centers on using sanctions to weaken the Iranian economy. While the Iranian economy appears to be having difficulty because of the Islamist inspired socialism that dominates the country, sanctions appear to be having only a limited effect. Indeed, Behrouz Alishiri, the deputy economy minister in Tehran, just announced that there are now some 400 large foreign companies directly investing in Iran. In 2010 foreign direct investment hit $3.7 billion, which is up 124% from 2008. These are the official UN statistics. Iranian officials say that the market is actually much larger than that–on the scale of more than $10 billion.
Sanctions? What sanctions?
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