As a new administration prepares to take over in the U.S. in January, many of the elite of Iran's government are attempting to determine how they can spin the current economic situation to have the U.S. lift sanctions.  According to them, U.S. sanctions are at the root of Iran's troubles.  Yet the current economics in Iran is actually the result of years of oppressive measures, poor management, and in some cases outright theft of the Iranian people's resources.  That has the regime scrambling to find a scapegoat, yet as is evident by the comments of Iranian economists that the problem lies within the government itself.

Farshad Momeni, a professor of economics at Allameh Tabatabai University, said in a speech on Student Day: "Iran's political economy has been increasingly taken over by the Mafia since the end of the war, and it is surprising that for three decades, all four presidents have followed one economic policy."  Emphasizing that all governments over the past 30 years have played a role in expanding these mafia relations, Momeni noted that over the past three decades, the Iranian people, especially the lower classes and producers, have fallen victim to this policy.  However, sanctions and COVID-19 exposed the bitterness of a mafia-dominated political economy.

Moreover, Hussein Raghfar, an economist close to the regime, emphasizes that the main problem is not the U.S. economy and sanctions.  "The main problem with the [Iranian] economy is lies to divert public attention from the bitter realities that the regime has brought to the people," he said.  The United States has consistently been cited as the main cause of the country's problems, while these problems are the work of the government and have nothing to do with sanctions.

A member of the parliamentary health commission tweeted that the increase in commodity prices has nothing to do with sanctions and currency prices.  It has been heard that the consignment of 81,000 tons of corn has been cleared through customs without the permission of the Ministry of Agriculture, and it is not clear to whom the profit from the sale of that corn on the black market, which is worth more than 1,600 billion tomans, has gone.

It is clear that sanctions are effective when domestic production capacity is destroyed as a result.  Yet production capacity from the ninth government onward deteriorated, and the country became dependent on imports, with imports rising from $16 billion in 1984 to $90 billion in 1990.  In this way, Iranian sources of production are already lost every day.

Next year's budget in terms of resources and expenditures is 2,435 thousand billion tomans, of which the general part of this budget — i.e., 929 thousand billion tomans — is passing through the parliamentary filter, and the rest — i.e., 1,561 thousand billion tomans as of this document — is the budget of state-owned companies.  This year, like every year, it is to be implemented without the supervision and approval of the parliament.

In 1997 and 1998, according to the Iran central bank, $180 billion was exported from the country, but it is not clear where the currency from these exports was used.

According to studies, with the same currency, it was possible to supply basic goods and products for three years up to $35 billion.

The emergence of Arsene Le Pen in the economy of the clerical regime

Yahya Al-Ishaq, the former minister of commerce, who was one of the founders of the economic system of brokerage and mediation since the beginning of the Velayat-e-Faqih (absolute rule of clergy) system and is described as one of its examples by other economic actors of this regime, criticizes the current situation in the country.  With the loss of the courage of the officials to make decisions in special circumstances, Arsene Le Pen has appeared to raise all the assets of the country without the slightest bit of remorse (Fars, December 7, 2020).

Surprisingly, international institutions estimate the number of people who actually hold positions in the clerical regime that exclusively own and manage financial, banking, oil, and other economic resources.  Interestingly, the secretary general of the Iranian Society of Certified Public Accountants has approached this figure in another way subconsciously and said: "About 12,000 individuals and legal entities in 13,000 economic units of the country, consumed nearly 110 billion foreign currencies that the audited financial statements.  They did not provide a device and were not monitored and accountable at all" (Bazaar, December 6, 2020).

Conclusion:

More than $150 billion in blocked Iranian money was released after the JCPOA deal, and the Iranian regime has sold at least two million barrels of oil a day until the United States withdrew from the JCPOA and sanctions began.  However, the 2017 and 2019 uprisings were based on poverty, inflation, and unemployment and shook the government.

The reactionary regime of Iran, with its belligerent policies and the creation of various militant groups throughout the Middle East, has decimated all the country's wealth while destroying its productive resources and infrastructure and has created exemplary poverty in one of the richest countries in the world.

Meanwhile, the Iranian regime and its lobbies around the world pretend sanctions are the cause of the current poverty and misery of more than seventy percent of the Iranian people.  The big problem of Iran's economy is the IRGC mafia and institutions affiliated with the supreme leader and the country's looting rule and institutionalized corruption.

Image credit: Pixabay public domain.