كون كوكلن: ملالي إيران يواجهون أياماً صعبه/د. ماجد زافيزادا: الشكر لترامب فالملالي في طريقهم للإفلاس/Con Coughlin/Hard Times for Ayatollahs In Iran/Majid Rafizadeh: Thanks to Trump, the Mullahs Are Going Bankrupt
Iran: Hard Times for Ayatollahs كون كوكلن: ملالي إيران يواجهون أياماً صعبه Con Coughlin/Gatestone Institute/November 21/2019
Thanks to Trump, the Mullahs Are Going Bankrupt د. ماجد زافيزادا: الشكر لترامب فالملالي في طريقهم للإفلاس Majid Rafizadeh/Gatestone Institute/November 21/2019
************************* Iran: Hard Times for Ayatollahs كون كوكلن: ملالي إيران يواجهون أياماً صعبه Con Coughlin/Gatestone Institute/November 21/2019
It is an irony that not even the most devoted supporters of the ayatollahs can ignore that a country such as Iran, that prides itself on being one of the world’s largest oil producers, is unable to produce enough fuel to satisfy the needs of its own population.
These are, moreover, hard times for the ayatollahs in many other respects. Not only are the leaders coming under pressure at home for their disastrous handling of the economy. They are also seeing their efforts to export Iran’s Islamic revolution to other corners of the Middle East being roundly rejected, with anti-Iran protests taking place in Iraq and Lebanon.
With the Iranian economy under such intense pressure as a result of the sanctions, however, the regime has little room for manoeuvre, so it faces a stark choice: either radically reform its conduct or continue to face the wrath of the Iranian people.
With the Iranian economy under such intense pressure as a result of the sanctions, the regime has little room for manoeuvre, so it faces a stark choice: either radically reform its conduct or continue to face the wrath of the Iranian people.
Any suggestion that the wide-ranging sanctions regime the Trump administration has imposed against Iran was not having the desired effect has been roundly refuted by the nationwide protests that have erupted in response to the regime’s decision to increase petrol prices.
Critics of American President Donald J. Trump’s announcement that he was withdrawing the US from the Iran nuclear deal last year and imposing a fresh round of sanctions against Tehran have argued that the measures would fail to have the desired effect, and claimed that the ayatollahs would be able to circumvent the sanctions by trading with countries such as China, that remained committed to the nuclear deal.
Those arguments have now been decisively proved wrong after Iranians took to the streets in towns and cities in their tens of thousands throughout the country in protest at the regime’s decision at the end of last week to raise the price of petrol by 50 percent, as well as rationing the amount drivers could purchase to 60 litres a month without being obliged to pay a higher premium.
It is an irony that not even the most devoted supporters of the ayatollahs can ignore that a country such as Iran, that prides itself on being one of the world’s largest oil producers, is unable to produce enough fuel to satisfy the needs of its own population.
While the requirement to raise fuel prices is deeply embarrassing for the government of Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, however, it has not stopped the regime from responding with its characteristic brutality to anti-government protests.
Precise casualty figures are hard to come by, not least because the regime has responded to the latest protests by closing down access to the internet, the classic response one expects to see from an authoritarian state under pressure.
Unofficial reports compiled by Iranian exiles suggest that around 200 people have been killed and around 3,000 injured after Mr Rouhani ordered Iran’s security forces to deal with the protests, which he said amounted to rioting.
“People have the right to protest,” Mr Rouhani said shortly after the anti-government protests began, “but protests are different from riots. We should not allow insecurity in our society.”
Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, went even further, claiming the protests were nothing more than “sabotage and arson” being carried out by “hooligans, not our people. The counter-revolution and Iran’s enemies have always supported sabotage and breaches of security and continue to do so.”
As often happens when the Iranian regime finds itself under pressure, such as the Green Revolution in 2009, when there were mass protests against the result of the presidential election, the ayatollahs resort to the brute force of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and the Basij, the IRGC’s volunteer militia, to crush dissent. The regime employed similar measures during the Green Revolution, when thousands of Iranian protesters, who were dismayed at the prospect of former Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad serving another four-year term of office, staged the largest anti-government protests Iran had witnessed since the 1979 Islamic revolution.
It is too early to say yet whether the current wave of protests will gather the same momentum, especially as the regime has become more adept at crushing anti-government opposition.
Regular outbursts of dissent have been reported throughout Tehran since the end of last year, mainly in response to the crippling effect the US sanctions regime is having on the economy, where inflation is running at around 40 percent, and the collapse in the value of the rial, the national currency, has caused dramatic rises in the cost of basic staples, with red meat and poultry rising by 57%, milk, cheese and eggs by 37%, and vegetables by 47%.
These are, moreover, hard times for the ayatollahs in many other respects. Not only are the leaders coming under pressure at home for their disastrous handling of the economy. They are also seeing their efforts to export Iran’s Islamic revolution to other corners of the Middle East being roundly rejected, with anti-Iran protests taking place in Iraq and Lebanon.
Indeed, fears that the protests currently taking place in Iran might spiral out of control, as they have done recently in both Iran and Lebanon, has prompted some lawmakers in the Iranian parliament, or Majlis, to call for the increase in petrol prices to be reversed.
*Con Coughlin is the Telegraph’s Defence and Foreign Affairs Editor and a Distinguished Senior Fellow at Gatestone Institute.
Thanks to Trump, the Mullahs Are Going Bankrupt د. ماجد زافيزادا: الشكر لترامب فالملالي في طريقهم للإفلاس Majid Rafizadeh/Gatestone Institute/November 21/2019
One of the reasons behind IMF’s gloomy picture of Iran’s economy is linked to the Trump administration’s decision not to extend its waiver for Iran’s eight biggest oil buyers; China, India, Greece, Italy, Taiwan, Japan, Turkey and South Korea.
Iran’s national currency, the rial, also continues to lose value: it dropped to historic lows. One US dollar, which equaled approximately 35,000 rials in November 2017, now buys you nearly 110,000 rials.
On November 12, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani acknowledged for the first time that “Iran is experiencing one of its hardest years since the 1979 Islamic revolution” and that “the country’s situation is not normal.” (Image source: Tasnim News/CC by 4.0)
The critics of President Trump’s Iran policy have been proven wrong: the US sanctions are imposing significant pressure on the ruling mullahs of Iran and the ability to fund their terror groups.
Before the US Department of Treasury leveled secondary sanctions against Iran’s oil and gas sectors, Tehran was exporting over two million barrel a day of oil. Currently, Tehran’s oil export has gone down to less than 200,000 barrel a day, which represents a decline of roughly 90% in Iran’s oil exports.
Iran has the second-largest natural gas reserves and the fourth-largest proven crude oil reserves in the world, and the sale of these resources account for more than 80 percent of its export revenues. The Islamic Republic therefore historically depends heavily on oil revenues to fund its military adventurism in the region and sponsor militias and terror groups. Iran’s presented budget in 2019 was nearly $41 billion, while the regime was expecting to generate approximately $21 billion of it from oil revenues. This means that approximately half of Iran’s government revenue comes from exporting oil to other nations.
Even though Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, boasts about the country’s self-sufficient economy, several of Iran’s leaders recently admitted the dire economic situation that the government is facing. Speaking in the city of Kerman on November 12, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani acknowledged for the first time that “Iran is experiencing one of its hardest years since the 1979 Islamic revolution” and that “the country’s situation is not normal.”
Rouhani also complained: “Although we have some other incomes, the only revenue that can keep the country going is the oil money. We have never had so many problems in selling oil. We never had so many problems in keeping our oil tanker fleet sailing…. How can we run the affairs of the country when we have problems with selling our oil?”
Thanks to the US policy of “maximum pressure,” the Islamic Republic’s overall economy has taken a major beating as well. Lately, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has again adjusted its forecast for Iran’s economy and pointed out that Iran’s economy is expected to shrink by 9.5% rather than 6% by the end of 2019.
One of the reasons behind IMF’s gloomy picture of Iran’s economy is linked to the Trump administration’s decision not to extend its waiver for Iran’s eight biggest oil buyers; China, India, Greece, Italy, Taiwan, Japan, Turkey and South Korea. Instead of showing economic growth in 2019, Iran’s economy would be 90% of its size by the end of 2019 in comparison to two years ago, based on a recent report from the World Bank.
Iran’s national currency, the rial, also continues to lose value: it dropped to historic lows. One US dollar, which equaled approximately 35,000 rials in November 2017, now buys you nearly 110,000 rials.
In addition, the Islamic Republic appears to be scrambling to compensate for the loss of revenues it is encountering. A few days ago, for example, Iran’s leaders tripled the price of gasoline. It appears a sign of desperation to generate revenues in order to fund their military adventurism in the region and support their proxies and terror groups.
This increase immediately led people to rise up against the government. In the last few days, several Iranian cities have become the scenes of widespread protests and demonstrations. The protests first erupted in Ahvaz and then spread to many other cities in the Khuzestan province as well as in the capital Tehran, and Kermanshah, Isfahan, Tabriz, Karadj, Shiraz, Yazd, Boushehr, Sari, Khorramshahr, Andimeshk, Dezful, Behbahan and Mahshahr.
Tehran’s diminishing resources have also caused Iranian leaders to cut funds to the Palestinian terror group Hamas and the Lebanese militant group, Hezbollah. Hamas was forced to introduce “austerity plans” while Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Iran’s proxy, Hezbollah, has also called on his group’s fundraising arm “to provide the opportunity for jihad with money and also to help with this ongoing battle.”
To the likely dismay of Washington’s critics, President Trump’s Iran policy has been heading in the right direction. By escalating economic sanctions, the ruling mullahs and their proxies are going bankrupt. Other nations now need to join the US by also adopting a “maximum pressure” policy — even if they would rather continue to do business with Iran and undermine President Trump’s administration — to them, a “twofer”. If Iran succeeds in developing its nuclear weapons breakout capability, in the end it will be used to blackmail precisely them.
*Dr. Majid Rafizadeh is a business strategist and advisor, Harvard-educated scholar, political scientist, board member of Harvard International Review, and president of the International American Council on the Middle East. He has authored several books on Islam and US foreign policy. He can be reached at Dr.Rafizadeh@Post.Harvard.Edu
