A petition to Iran’s labor minister complaining about the country’s stumbling economy suggests growing anxiety among the vast and potentially powerful working class as the ruling system struggles with the latest Western sanctions, which have targeted critical oil exports and blackballed Iran from international banking networks, the Associated Press reported Monday, October 1. It also appears to reinforce the U.S. and European assertions that the economic squeeze is bringing increasing pressures on Iranian authorities. Some 10,000 names were attached to the petition in one of the most wide-reaching public outcries over the state of the country’s economy, which has received a double pounding from tightening sanctions and alleged mismanagement by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s government. The petition, alongside sporadic street demonstrations over the slumping economy, suggest a growing distinction between the national pride of nuclear technology and the economic hardships from Tehran’s defiance.