Iran: Who’s putting “maximum pressure” on the people?

Iran: Who’s putting “maximum pressure” on the people?

Archive photo: Iranians take to the streets protesting the dire economic conditions. Tehran, June 2018

Analysis by PMOI/MEK

Iran, September 25, 2019—In his latest speech just a few days ago, Iranian regime Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei used the term “maximum pressure” 20 times. Now, whenever Iranian officials talk about maximum pressure and the pressure that the current sanctions regime is placing on the Islamic Republic of Iran, they try deceitfully to pretend that the target of this maximum pressure campaign are ordinary Iranians, especially poorer ones.

There is no doubt that ordinary Iranians are under maximum pressure that is even increasing by the day. However, this pressure is actually exerted by the corrupt Iranian regime itself, which has impoverished Iranians to a point where more than 70 percent live under the poverty line.

What Iranian officials mean by “economic pressure” and “maximum pressure” is first and foremost the pressure that the regime feels on itself from the inside and outside, and its first solution to compensate this pressure is to further insert its corrupt hands into the pockets of Iranian families.

Referring to protests by Iranians who lost their savings in financial institutions affiliated with the Iranian regime, Saeed Laylaz, an Iranian economist close to the faction of Iranian regime President Hassan Rouhani, said on September 22: “In an attempt to calm down the situation and escape these uprisings, the government dedicated 330 trillion rials [around $2.75 billion at the current rate of approximately 120,000 rials per dollar]."

“However, the money landed mostly in the pockets of gangs that are behind these financial and credit institutions. This 330 trillion rials of powerful money that the government had to print created the equal of 2.55 quadrillion rials of liquidity (around $21.25 billion) in this short period of time. At the time of printing, this was equal to 14 to 15 percent of the overall liquidity that was created in the entire history of Iran from day one until 2017. This number created an unchecked inflation across the country,” Laylaz continued.

Referring to the regime’s manipulation of foreign currency exchange rates in 2017 under the pretext of containing the first round of sanctions against the Iranian regime, Saeed Laylaz further said: “We witnessed how the price of the U.S. dollar reached 180,000 to 190,000 rials in the market. The rate of foreign currency shouldn’t have crossed the 80,000 rial threshold, under any condition and measure. This incident created one of the rarest cases of corruption in Iran’s economic history, in terms of quantity.”

“I guess that from early 2018 until early 2019, a total of 7 to 9 quadrillion rials (equal to $58.3 to $75 billion) of corruption, embezzlement and misuse has been inflicted upon the Iranian economy,” he concludes.

Revealing the true source of “maximum pressure” on poor Iranian families, the economic expert continues by saying that this unprecedented corruption “places unprecedented pressure on the impoverished branches of the Iranian society.”

“When in April 2018, the inflation rate reached 52 percent and the inflation rate for food items reached 70 to 80 percent, I guess that the inflation rate for segments of Iran’s poor people, meaning the first and second deciles, was in the three digits. This is a national catastrophe,” Laylaz said.