Iran earned nearly $ 1,377 billion in oil sales during the forty years after the anti-monarchy revolution. About $700 billion was earned during Ahmadinejad’s presidency. However, when Ahmadinejad’s eight-year term ended, he left nothing but a ruined, bankrupt, and devastating economy.
In addition to the theft and looting of a nation’s assets through those around him and corrupt ministers of his cabinet, Ahmadinejad spent the country’s income to fund the Revolutionary Guards, internal repression, exporting terrorism abroad, and Iran’s missile and nuclear programs. There was no benefit for the Iranians from the windfall during the Ahmadinejad era.
When Rouhani came to office, the situation became worse.
Theft and looting reached new heights in Rouhani’s term. The extent of thefts was revealed during factional disputes.
For example, it was revealed that Ali Rastegar Sorkheh, the CEO of Sepah Bank, with the help of President Hassan Rouhani’s brother Hossein Fereydoun, embezzled over 3,700 billion tomans (Iran’s currency) from this bank.
In another case, two women affiliated with Rouhani’s brother embezzled 600 billion tomans and left Iran. These are just two cases among many more.
Since Rouhani himself had hand in this corruption, he tried to ignore or justify these cases through lies.
Time after time, he promised a better future for the people of Iran and delivered empty promises in almost all his speeches.
After eight years in power, the situation in Iran has become so devastating that Rouhani himself cannot hide it. Instead, he blames the failure of his government on President Trump and the US sanctions.
Meanwhile, according to a regime official, at least 80% of the country’s problems are due to mismanagement and corruption, which have nothing to do with the sanctions.
Experts say Iran’s devastating economy has never been worse in the past 42 years. Not even during the eight-year Iran-Iraq war has the situation in Iran been so critical.
The new president of the Iranian regime, Ebrahim Raisi, is believed to only attended six grades and does not know anything about management or the economy.
According to an economics expert in Iran, the social and economic problems awaiting Raisi will be a minefield. Every step, in any direction, could end up on a mine, leading to explosions and the collapse of the regime. This expert has pointed out some important issues:
There is a budget deficit of 350,000 billion tomans for this (Persian) year, which is midway through. Due to the continuation of US sanctions, including oil exports, Iran’s main source of income, the budget deficit will be impossible to cover in short term. The state of Iran’s economy is so bad that the regime is experiencing difficulties with government employees and workers. As usual, they will print unsupported banknotes. This growth in liquidity, which has been around 40% over the past four years, will intensify to unprecedented inflation, which is now above 50% and for some essential items close to 80%. It has caused more than 60% of the country’s population to fall below the poverty line and the middle class to disappear. High prices have forced over 38 million people to move to the outskirts of cities and live in impoverished areas lacking basic facilities.
Lack of transparency in Iran’s banking system is another problem that has intensified significantly during the eight years of Rouhani’s term. The government’s debt to pension funds has grown significantly. Rouhani’s government has continuously withdrawn money from these funds to cover its expenses, which resulted in an increasing government debt and further devaluation of Iran’s national currency. In 2020, the Iranian currency was the second weakest circulating currency after the Venezuelan Bolivar, and its value has depreciated by over 3,500 times compared to the beginning of the revolution. According to the head of the Tehran Chamber of Commerce, the resilience of Iran’s economy now ranks 128th out of 130 countries. On the other hand, Iranian society has witnessed a continuous difference in society classes over the past eight years.
Most people live below the poverty line in Iran.
Forbes magazine said that despite the continuation of sanctions and the Covid19 pandemic which hit the global economy hard, in Iran, 250,000 people live with an income of over one million dollars a year. Thus, Iran ranks as the fourteenth country in the world in terms of the number of millionaires and ranks first in the Middle East.
This level of wealth is rooted in bribery and corruption used by the regime elites, who have lives of luxury.
Meanwhile, about 60 percent of Iranians live below the official poverty line and about 30 percent below the absolute poverty line. In fact, in today’s Iran, there is a very small class of “super-rich” associated with the regime’s elites and a very large class of “absolutely poor”, who are the ordinary people.
This situation cannot last long, and the impoverished Iranians are facing poverty, unemployment, the COVID-19 virus, droughts, unannounced and extended blackouts, and many other economic problems.
The Iranians are suppressed through the regime’s violent crackdowns. However, the Iranian people cannot be suppressed forever, and the collapse of the corrupt regime is close. Many analysts, even regime insiders, describe the current social environment as a powder keg waiting to explode.
Many experts believe that Raisi will not see the end of his four-year presidential term.
Source » irannewswire