Iranian president Hassan Rohani and US president Barack Obama share one particular burden - both have overseen welfare projects that threaten to become disastrous failures. In Obama's case it was his administration's pivotal health care program which immediately it was launched came close to collapse thanks to poor planning and an even poorer website. Rohani's disaster has been hardly less embarrassing and, many would argue, just as inexcusable. In a much ballyhooed initiative, the Iranian politician launched a poverty-alleviation program in which free food was to be distributed monthly to no less than seven million low-income families (earning less than $200 a month). It has gone spectacularly wrong. Two main factors have underpinned the debacle. The first is that the Iranian authorities appear to have seriously underestimated the size of the administrative and distribution operation that would be needed nationwide. Thus with the first wave of poor people coming to pick up their free food allowance, it has not been uncommon to find those who have queued for no less than six hours to receive their box of rations. In the main, the handouts are being channelled through state-run stores. One problem has been that the long lines of patient poor have conflicted with better-off customers who can afford to buy their own provisions. A further difficulty has been that an apparently significant number of those seeking the free food were in fact petty criminals with false papers looking to sell on whatever the state gave them. This, however, led to the second and arguably more serious problem. The handouts include two frozen chickens, two dozen eggs, half a kilo of cheese, some vegetable oil and ten kilos of rice. The quality of the foodstuffs being distributed has been found to be seriously low. There are already allegations that the food suppliers did not deliver the higher grade goods they were contracted to, but have nevertheless charged the higher grade prices. In short, Rohani's laudable initiative has become both a presentational and political disaster. The question must be whether or not the debacle has come about through sheer incompetence and bad management, or has been engineered to discredit the new president, clipping his wings at a time when he is apparently on the edge of a breakthrough in the negotiations with the international community over Iran's nuclear program. Conspiracy should not be ruled out. There are already moves by the judiciary to investigate the whole food aid program with the clear suggestion that Rohani himself may have somehow been involved in the profiteering from the substitution of lesser quality provisions. In addition, one judge has muttered that giving away food to the poor somehow compromised people's dignity. It is clear that providing food itself rather than money ran the risk of exploitation and fraud. But then Rohani will have been keen to move away from the program of his predecessor Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who introduced a monthly handout equivalent to $18. Originally targeting the poor, who were particularly hit by inflation and steep rises in living costs, the giveaway was rapidly extended to virtually every Iranian, thus canceling the benefit to those who really needed it while boosting the very inflation that was hurting low-income families. At the very least, this mess demonstrates that Rohani shares the general economic illiteracy that has characterized the Iranian regime since it came to power in 1979.
