The website Strategy Page has an article about Iran up that I found rather interesting since it shines some light on the conditions and constraints the Iranian government is laboring under. The article has some bias - I, for one, wouldn't exactly equate internet censorship with "terrorism" - but then how many people can claim to write about a terror-financing theocracy that hangs homosexuals and hosts conferences on holocaust denial without at least some bias?

July 27, 2012: The government
confirmed rumors that it was importing additional food (mainly wheat,
cooking oil, sugar and rice) and explained that it was doing this to
create a three month emergency supply of food for the entire population.
This was to allay growing fear of food shortages and provide a tool to
control rapidly increasing food supplies. That has been caused by
difficulty importing some food items, and prices for those items
skyrocketing. There's also more panic buying of staples, causing local
shortages of those basic foods (wheat, cooking oil, sugar and rice) and
driving up prices. Inflation is currently running at over 30 percent a
year. The official government rate is 21 percent, but no Iranian who has
gone shopping lately believes that. While the government subsidizes the
prices on some food items, many unsubsidized items cost three times
what they did a year ago. There have been videos of recent street
protests against the high prices for meat.

I think it is important to keep in mind how the western embargoes affect the Iranian people and not so much the Iranian regime itself. While I'm not really enthusiastic about a nuclear-capable Iran (it reminds me of the old quote by Carl Sagan about two opponents standing in a room awash with gasoline, both of them having too many matches) I also don't believe that current (U.S.) schemes of undermining the Mullah's rule by fostering internal dissent will work. In the face of foreign aggression - and don't start harboring any illusions that the bulk of Iranians see it as just that - people, especially proud ones like the Iranians, tend to stick together.

While Iran has added a lot of
new weapons (especially Chinese missiles) to its arsenal in the last
decade, its military leaders are well aware that their opponents (the
Gulf Arabs and their Western allies, especially the U.S.) have also
upgraded, and generally beefed up their military power more than Iran
has. Much of the Iranian buildup was largely propaganda. Most Iranians
don't know this, but Iran's enemies, and Iranian military leaders (most
of them) do. Thus Iran recently backed off on its threats to try and
block the Straits of Hormuz (the entrance to the Persian Gulf, through
which most of world oil exports move) as long as Iran was still allowed
to use it.
Iran continues to refuse to negotiate restrictions on its
nuclear power program and denies that it is working on nuclear weapons.
Iran is equally opposed to any limitations on its ballistic missile
program and is apparently trying to develop an ICBM that could hit North
America. Iran appears to understand that possessing nuclear weapons (no
matter how primitive) will compensate for their growing inferiority in
non-nuclear weapons. Israel and Gulf Arabs are terrified at the prospect
of Iranian nukes.

It goes on to state that

Iran is accusing Israel of carrying out the July 18 suicide
bombing in Bulgaria that killed seven (including five Israelis). This is
in response to the growing pile of evidence that Iran was behind the
attack, in an effort to strike back at Israel for the many successful
Israeli assaults against Iran's nuclear weapons program in the last two
years. Iran has openly vowed to strike back, and Israel claims that Iran
has agents in 24 countries trying to organize attacks. In the last
year, Iranians have been arrested in eight countries and charged with
planning terrorism against Israel. Documents, weapons and explosives
have often been seized as well. Iran denies everything, but the pattern
is embarrassing. Bulgarian and Israeli investigators have tracked the
July 18th attacks to a team that had spent a month in
Bulgaria setting things up. It is believed that Iran used Hezbollah
personnel to help organize this operation. It is believed that the
bomber was a European (he had fair skin and blue eyes) who had been
hired to smuggle drugs and that the bomb was set off remotely by the
terrorist team that hired him. The bomb was apparently set off
prematurely because the bomber (who had the bomb in his backpack) had
gotten into an argument over wanting to carry his bag onto the bus
instead of keeping in the cargo area under the passenger compartment.
The bomber was carrying fake American documents and remains
unidentified. Hezbollah is heavily involved in the drug trade and has
many operatives and supporters in Europe.

You can read the full article here.