Indeed, the government indicates that it may begin rationing gasoline.
Iran, a close ally, was shaken by unrest in June when its government rationed gasoline, which cost 34 cents a gallon at the time.
Mr. Ahmadinejad, who faces an election next spring, caused anger, and some rioting, last year when he rationed gasoline and increased its price in an effort to curb consumption.
Alec Issigonis designed the car for the British Motor Corporation, after Britain's fighting in the Suez crisis in 1956 set off fears of an oil shortage and the government began rationing gasoline.
New York City will begin rationing gasoline on Friday for the first time since the 1970s, in response to a persistent gas crisis that has shuttered hundreds of gas stations and forced desperate drivers to wait in line for hours to fill their tanks.
In oil-rich Iran, civil unrest spread through Tehran this summer after the government rationed gasoline in an effort to curb the country's addiction to cheap fuel; gasoline in Iran, imported because the country lacks refining capacity, is heavily subsidized and cost about 40 cents a gallon at the time.
It's bad up there: lines for rationed gasoline, homes and businesses destroyed, and millions of people still without electricity.
It's worth remembering, after all, that this was a period when a Republican President embraced wage-and-price controls and state-ordered rationing of gasoline, concepts that few liberal economists today would describe as good ideas.
By Mollie Panter-Downes The New Yorker, March 21 , 1942P. 33 LETTER FROM LONDON about: announcement of Sir Stafford Cripps's mission to India; the Japanese treatment of British subjects in Hong Kong; curtailment of horse and dog racing; rationing of gasoline; what constitutes food hoarding?.... View Article By Phil Klay By Larissa MacFarquhar By John Cassidy By Rivka Galchen.
