Iran Regime’s Freefalling Economy
By Staff Writer
There are only six weeks to go until the second round of US sanctions hits Iran, but already the Iranian economy is spiralling and global economic experts believe that the current Regime will likely fall and soon.
In August, Iran's Central Bank reported that inflation would hit 60% this year, while the rial has hit record lows against the dollar. The unemployment rate amongst their active workforce is approaching 40%, with many university graduates are unable to find a job. Almost a third of the country live in absolute poverty. Even refugees from war-torn Afghanistan are preferring to return home, rather than continue on in Iran.
Struan Stevenson, the coordinator of Campaign for Iran Change, wrote: “Iran's descent into economic chaos can be traced directly to the ruling clerical regime and its tyrannical leader Khamenei. Their policy of aggressive military expansionism across the Middle East has seen them consistently pour men and resources into backing Assad and his murderous civil war, while they have simultaneously driven the genocidal campaign against the Sunni population of neighboring Iraq through their outright support for the brutal Shiia mobilization forces. They have openly financed and supplied the Houthi rebels in Yemen and continue to provide vast funding for the Hezbollah terrorists in Lebanon.”
The Iranian uprising, which began in December and quickly spread across the country, is still ongoing. What began as a protest over soaring costs of basic commodities and the failure to pay wages soon became an uprising against the Regime.
After all, the Regime is responsible for the economic crisis that is plaguing Iran. Decades of mismanagement and corruption have led to the Regime leaders raking the benefits or plowing money into their foreign wars and terrorist plots. This means no money to create jobs, fund health care, or provide food to the needy.
In response to the protests, regime leaders have stepped up the repression of their people, arresting protesters in their thousands, torturing some to death, and executing people in public.
US sanctions on Iran will go some way to limiting the amount of money that the Regime can spend on terrorism and domestic suppression. And the sanctions are already working. Sanctions on Iranian oil have yet to go into place, but Iran’s oil exports have dropped by a third since US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo urged other countries to reduce their purchases to zero.
Stevenson, a former member of the European Parliament and chairman of the EU’s Friends of a Free Iran Intergroup, wrote: “The coordinated nature of the protests has been blamed by the regime on the main organized opposition, the People's Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI or MEK), which has set up "resistance units" across the country. The PMOI, as part of the political coalition -- the National Council of Resistance of Iran, is the democratic alternative to this theocratic state and offers a future of freedom, justice, democracy, human rights, women's rights, abolition of the death penalty, an end to international terror and aggression and an end to the nuclear threat. It is a vision of such contrast to the current chaos and oppression that young Iranians are willing to risk their lives to bring it about.”
The US should combine these sanctions with support for the Iranian Resistance in order to bring about the downfall of the Regime and the freedom of the Iranian people.
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