"Iran's rulers urge a baby boom to double population by 2050"

The Telegraph reports:

Iran's divorce and fertility rates have settled at Western levels. In a country that claims to be a model Islamic society, about a third of all marriages in Tehran end in divorce. Meanwhile, the number of births per woman of child-bearing age has fallen from 7 in 1980 to 1.8 last year - below Britain's fertility rate of 1.9. 

In the first decade after the Islamic Revolution of 1979, Iran experienced a baby boom and the population became larger and younger. 

But the plummeting fertility rate has reversed that trend. Today, Iran remains a youthful country by Western standards, yet the average age of the populace is starting to creep upwards. Meanwhile, annual population growth - which approached 4 per cent in the 1980s - now hovers around one per cent, not much higher than Britain's 0.7 per cent.

David P. Goldman must be feeling a "told you so" moment. However, this merely makes Iran's situation more desperate as the number of military age men declines, and the number of elderly increases.