Confronted with Washington’s “maximum pressure” campaign, and facing international isolation, Iranian regime officials desperately want to depict an image of strength.
But, in reality, the regime has never been as vulnerable and fragile as it is today, argues Dr. Ali Safavi of ‘s Regime Would Need Oil at $195 a Barrel Next Year to Balance Budget: IMF
— NCRI-FAC (@iran_policy) regime’s : Terrorism | Iranian Regime Aggression
— NCRI-FAC (@iran_policy) October 28, 2019
The largest portion of state revenues and expenses are monopolized by Khamenei and the IRGC in order to pursue their parochial interests and destructive policies that are completely divergent from the Iranian people’s interests.
Political Corruption Causing Economic Devastation
As a result, the value of the national currency has dropped by a half in less than a year and tens of billions of dollars are taken out of Iran annually by regime officials and their associates, Dr. Safavi pointed out, adding: Meanwhile, the regime’s central bank continues to swell the money supply – triggering further inflation – by printing more bills to address short term demands without paying mind to strategic needs.
Domestic production has hit rock bottom, causing an “army of the unemployed.” Over the past decade, 50% to 70% of the country’s factories have closed down after being transferred to incompetent “private” owners, typically entities controlled by the IRGC, who plunder the assets and quickly divest. Well-established brand names in the manufacturing, textile, lumber, and agricultural sectors are among the casualties, leaving millions unemployed, according to state-run media reports.
To this situation, one must add the real threat to the regime’s survival: The explosive state of Iranian society, which is the source of the mullahs’ paranoia. They fear that economic pressure could trigger another popular uprising, which would not be contained.
Indeed, the ranks of the impoverished continue to swell in Iran and the middle class gets further decimated because of the mullahs’ corrupt and disastrous regional and domestic policies. The situation has led to increasing public outrage, percolating in the form of daily protests across the country. Most recently, thousands of protesters in the town of Lordegan clashed with security forces, chanting “death to the dictator” and setting fire to the Governor’s Office.
Like embers burning beneath the ashes, millions of disenchanted people are lurking in the streets, awaiting the right moment to rise up. And the Resistance Units of the main opposition, the Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK) are hard at work organizing them. Sooner than anyone can imagine, that could result in only one outcome: the downfall of a medieval theocracy that does not belong to the 21st century, but to the dustbins of history.