Rubble and Ruin: Epic Fury Now Pushing Iran Into Economic Free-Fall

In the ongoing conflict with Iran, Operation Economic Fury may not be given as much coverage as the military side, Operation Epic Fury; squeezing Iran's finances isn't as flashy and charismatic as our and Israel's armed forces literally curb-stomping Iran's military. But Operation Economic Fury is producing results that may well be more impressive still, as we learn now just how bad things are getting in Iran; their economy is in a tailspin, and short of a deal ending the war, ending the regime, and ending Iran's nuclear program, there's just plain no way out.

The only bad thing is that it's the ordinary, everyday Iranians who are feeling the squeeze hardest.

To contain the economic fallout, the Iranian government has raised wages, subsidized basic goods and handed out cash to the poor. But authorities are confronting a level of hardship not seen in decades, according to residents.
“It is an authoritarian regime, and it can claim that resisting economic pressure is a question of national pride,” said Alex Vatanka, a senior fellow and Iran expert at the Middle East Institute. At the same time, “as the money dries up because of the blockade, we may find that more and more folks have no choice but to mobilize politically,” he said.

The regime may claim that resisting the economic pressure is a "...question of national pride," but it seems wildly unlikely that the regular Iranian folks see it that way. If things on the ground in Iran are like they generally are in authoritarian states under an economic collapse, then the regime officials are comfortable, warm, and well-fed, as they hoard whatever resources are left; that's always how these things work. The regime officials very likely also have golden parachutes in Swiss or Cayman Islands bank accounts, in case they have to get the heck out of Dodge in a hurry, which also always seems to be how these things work.

Here's the kicker:

The war has thrown around one million people out of work directly and another million indirectly, according to early estimates cited by Gholamhossein Mohammadi, an official at Iran’s Labor and Social-Affairs ministry. That is a significant portion of the roughly 25 million people who are normally employed in Iran.
The cost of living has soared, with the annual inflation rate reaching 67% in the month through mid-April from the same period a year earlier, according to Iran’s central bank. The subsidized price of red meat, which was mostly imported through sea routes, has gone up to the equivalent of around $3.60 a pound, beyond the reach of most in a country where the minimum wage is around $130 a month.
Iran’s national currency on Wednesday hit a record low of 1.8 million rial to the dollar.

That right there is a description of an economy in a death spiral, and that's for sure and for certain.

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So what does this mean for the United States? For President Trump and his negotiation team?

This presents the Americans, most especially Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, with an economic target list, just as important as the military target list. This tells Operation Economic Fury where to squeeze, and we might note, economic actions are not under the same legal time restrictions as military actions; we can keep up the economic pressure forever and a day, if that's what it takes. And, as I've been writing and saying since this thing kicked off, if there is to be any real change in Iran, it won't come from the regime or anyone in it. It will come from the Iranian people when they decide they have finally had enough.

There are few things as dangerous as a man who looks at his position and decides he has nothing left to lose. Iran's population may well be approaching that point.

Editor's Note: For decades, former presidents have been all talk and no action. Now, Donald Trump is eliminating the threat from Iran once and for all.

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