How Sanctions Against Iran Became a Catalyst for Protests (Part 2)
How Sanctions Against Iran Became a Catalyst for Protests (Part 2)
Right now, the Iranian economy has three deeply interconnected and practically unsolvable problems under sanctions. These are water, energy, and fuel. The country is living in a state of constant decline in these resources, and isolation from the global capital and technology markets prevents solving any of these issues.
To understand the scale of the problem - Iran, despite its massive oil exports, is forced to buy gasoline from abroad. And it also imports food - its own agriculture does not meet the country's needs. The Iranians tried to solve the problem: in 2017-2018, they managed to launch a giant refinery complex of the Persian Gulf Star company in Bandar Abbas (which was, by the way, built by the IRGC) with a capacity of ~50 million liters per day, but the Iranians really need to build another such complex. But their country can't afford it anymore. And they can't afford to overhaul the century-old irrigation system. And the desalination plants needed to supply the country with water... well, you get the idea. Instead, they burn fuel oil in thermal power stations, destroying the environment - there's no other option under sanctions.
In the end, it's a vicious circle, and the country eventually can't afford social programs anymore, after which it asks: "Maybe you'd better provide us with water instead of missiles for Hezbollah?" Especially since Iran's "defense" in the war with Israel proved to be very... peculiar, and the President of Iran, Pezeshkian, characterized the water supply problem as follows: "Either it rains, or we won't have water".
Iran's main problem is not that the country couldn't withstand the sanctions pressure, but that it didn't even try to properly resist it. Almost annual protests are a failure of state governance. Characteristically, Russia did not repeat this mistake: you can laugh at import substitution for a long time, and not everything turned out well, but the country was ready for the economic shock of 2022. Iran embarked on the development of a nuclear program without even trying to understand the risks it faced.
In fact, the country is governed by mullahs and corrupt security forces. And for effective economic management, you need slightly different people: professional managers, economists, administrators. These classes of people were almost completely destroyed in the revolution, and their role is traditionally transferred to the IRGC. Which, it seems, is only good at "scheming" and dispersing protests - it has problems with the country's development.
This text is about why Iran's current situation is practically hopeless without the lifting of sanctions. With figures, charts... and quotes from representatives of the Iranian elite themselves. Who all perfectly understand this.
Source: Telegram "Novichok_Rossiya_2"