Is Iran About To Experience A Regime Change?

Iran faces economic collapse, rising protests, military setbacks, and potential regime change amid leadership uncertainty.

- JOHN DOBSON

“The country is like a powder keg, and further economic strain could be the spark that sets it off,” said an official, close to Iran’s government last week. In January alone, Iran’s Statistical Centre disclosed that a third of essential commodities increased in price by more than 40 percent, to leave them more than double that of the previous year. At the same time, state media reported that the price of rice had soared 200 percent over the past year, while housing and utility costs had sparked sharply, climbing more than 60 percent in some Tehran districts in recent months, due largely to soaring material costs and a steep fall in the value of Iran’s currency.

Since the re-imposition of sanctions in 2018, the rial has shed more than 90 percent of its value against the US dollar. With inflation officially at 40 percent, although many believe it to be much higher, it’s not surprising that the poverty rate in the country is hovering around 50 percent, so said Iran’s Jomhuri-ye Eslami newspaper last week. “The situation worsens daily. I can’t afford my rent, pay my bills or buy clothes for my children,” said 42-year-old Alireza Yousefi, a teacher from Isfahan, last week.

It’s not only the economy which is causing deep concern among Iran’s population. More than two years after the “Women, Life, Freedom” movement the persecution of Iran’s female population continues. In January, the Iran Human Rights NGO published a report which shed some light on the realities of women’s executions in the country. According to the report, 2024 marked a grim milestone. Last year the Islamic Republic recorded its highest annual number of women executed in 17 years, with 31 women hanged in Iranian prisons. “The execution of women in Iran not only reveals the brutal and inhumane nature of the death penalty but also exposes the deep-rooted gender discrimination and inequality within the judicial system,” wrote Mahmood Amiry Moghaddam, Director of Iran Human Rights.