Efforts by Iran’s central bank to stop the decline in the value of the rial and end the black market trade of the currency have backfired, undercutting President Hassan Rouhani’s statement that he can steady the Iranian economy against US sanctions.
The Regime’s first move was to introduce a fixed exchange rate in April (42,000 rials per USD as opposed to 60,000+ on official markets) and threaten anyone trading at different rates with execution. This affected not just money changers, but anyone who had brought goods in dollars and would now be effectively selling them at a loss. However, many businesses sold their goods on the black market.
The Iranian economy, which was already unstable thanks to decades of corruption and mismanagement by the Regime, has been put into freefall ever since Donald Trump announced that he would be pulling the US out of the flawed Iran deal in May.
Protests
Protest over the failing economy broke out last week in Tehran’s Grand Bazaar, where shopkeepers stopped working and began to demonstrate against rising prices and the weakening rial. Meanwhile, the phrase “transparency in currency allocation” has become a trending topic on Iranian social media.
Other recent protests in Iran have been the result of water shortages, which were caused by drought and exacerbated by the Regime, who diverted water to ethnically Persian provinces.
The end of the Regime is nigh
All in all, Rouhani and the Regime as a whole are on shaky ground. The European signatories to the nuclear deal may be trying to save the deal, but the US is not offering sanctions waivers and European companies are pulling out fast. Trump is even putting pressure on US allies to stop sourcing oil from Iran, which has caused other oil producing companies to increase their production.
The Regime is trying to deflect the blame onto the US, their opposition, and even the Iranian traders that sold at the global rate rather than the Regime’s artificial rate, but they won’t succeed. The Iranian people know that the economic problems in Iran, as with all problems, start and end with the Iranian Regime.
When the Iranian economy collapses, the Iranian people will be better able to fight back against the Regime, as the mullahs won’t be able to afford their security forces any more. This will bring regime change in Iran and government by and for the Iranian people.
Source » ncr-iran