Rial Problems: On Iran Unrest And Declining Economy
Latest protest in Iran reflect rising inflation, a collapsing currency, and a widening gap between economic distress and political response.
Iran finds itself once again confronting a familiar tension between economic reality and political response. What unfolded on the streets in recent days was not sparked by ideology or mobilisation, but by numbers that no longer add up for ordinary people. When the Iranian rial slipped to another record low against the US dollar, it exposed how fragile daily life has become under sustained economic pressure.
The first to react were shopkeepers in Tehran, who stepped out on 28 December as inflation hovered near 40%, making routine transactions increasingly unviable. Over the past year, the rial has lost a significant share of its value, shrinking purchasing power while costs of essentials continued to rise. What followed was less an organised protest than a widening expression of fatigue.
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University students soon joined in, and the unrest spread to other cities, carried by shared experience rather than coordination. The response from authority followed a predictable pattern. Warnings were issued and unrest was framed as disorder, while external actors chose rhetoric over restraint. Yet neither confrontation nor denial addressed the core issue — an economy squeezed by sanctions over Iran’s nuclear programme and weakened further by mismanagement and corruption.
What is unfolding is not sudden rebellion but accumulated strain. When livelihoods erode over time, patience follows. Restoring calm without addressing that erosion may quiet the streets briefly, but it leaves the imbalance firmly in place.
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