A quote from “Spengler” in The Asia Times, 13 September 2005
H/T Leon de Winter

Aging populations will cause severe discomfort in the United States and extreme pain in Japan and Europe by mid-century. But the same trends will devastate the frail economies of the Islamic world, and likely plunge many countries into social chaos.

By 2050, elderly dependents will comprise nearly a third of the population of some Muslim nations, notably Iran – converging on America’s dependency ratio at mid-century. […] The industrial nations face the prospective failure of their pension systems. But what will happen to countries that have no pension system, where traditional society assumes the care of the aged and infirm? In these cases it is traditional society that will break down, [...]

[D]eclining Muslim population growth rates give the Islamists just one generation in which to strike out for their goal of global theocracy. […] Between 2005 and 2050, the shift from workers to pensioners will comprise 21% of Iranians, 19% of Turks and Indonesians, and 20% of Algerians. That is almost as bad as the German predicament, where the proportion of dependent elderly will rise from 28% in 2005 to 50% in 2050. […]

As I observed in my June analysis of Iran’s presidential election, “From an economic standpoint, Iran is a changeling monster, an oil well attached to an iron lung, as it were, maintaining with subsidies a rural population that is no longer viable. Oil and natural gas earn $1,300 a year for each Iranian, roughly a fifth of per-capita GDP. The Islamic republic dispenses this wealth to keep alive a moribund economy. Government spending has risen by four-and-a-half times during the past four years, financed via the central bank’s printing press, pushing inflation up to 15% pa [per annum], while unemployment remains at 11%.”

Iran’s ultra-Islamist government has no hope of ameliorating the crisis through productivity growth. Instead it proposes totalitarian methods that will not reduce the pain, but only squelch the screams. Iran envisages a regional  Shi’ite empire backed by nuclear weaponry. And Washington, from what I can tell, has not a clue as to what is happening.

Apart from Iran, the population dynamics described above will lead to more rather than fewer terrorist demonstrations. […] [T]he Islamists have to strike quickly and decisively, not only to advance their cause in the West but also to consolidate their power in home countries where conditions will become unstable before long.