Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei has ordered officials not to worsen the country’s crisis as Iran economy sanctions pressure drives inflation above 80% and collapses the rial to record lows.
In a written statement issued late last month, Khamenei banned officials from ‘committing anything that harms social cohesion’ and urged them to avoid ‘discouraging statements that weaken national and public motivation,’ according to Reuters.
Khamenei has not been seen in public since the U.S.-Israeli strike on 28 February that killed his father.
Economic crisis deepens as Iran economy sanctions pressure mounts
In the same statement, Khamenei called on the government to act on what he described as ‘the chain of economic and livelihood challenges, such as inflation, unemployment, management of prices and the market for goods and services.’
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian also acknowledged the damage in a separate interview with state media, admitting ‘we have many problems.’
Pezeshkian estimated that Iranian trade has plunged 25% to 35%, with imports falling more steeply than exports. He directed sharp words at those who deny the toll: ‘Some people say that sanctions have no effect at all. I really don’t know what to tell these people. I just want to say this: Saying that sanctions have no effect is not consistent with these facts.’
The rial has crashed to 2.2 million rials per U.S. dollar, down from about one million a year ago. Prices for certain food staples have risen 100%, and a currency collapse last year triggered widespread unrest in which the regime killed thousands in a crackdown.
Long queues at petrol stations have already prompted fresh protests, though not on the scale seen in January. Senior Iranian sources told Reuters that the U.S. blockade and its crackdown on sanctions evasion are growing increasingly difficult to withstand. One senior source said Iran holds only two months’ worth of petrol supplies, which must be imported due to limited domestic refining capacity.
Operation Economic Outcast targets Iran’s evasion networks
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has announced what he called an ‘economic D-Day’ to shut down the avenues Iran uses to dodge sanctions.
The campaign, formally named Operation Economic Outcast, was unveiled by the U.S. Department of the Treasury and goes beyond targeting Iranian entities directly.
According to The Hill, Bessent’s approach treats the infrastructure of evasion as targets in their own right: brokers, exchange houses, logistics firms and front companies that help Iran circumvent restrictions. Senior Iranian sources told Reuters that the effort to cut Tehran off from international financing networks represents an especially urgent threat.
The U.S. pressure also relies on the Navy’s continued presence to maintain its blockade and to protect oil tankers from Gulf Arab producers passing through the Strait of Hormuz.
Energy Secretary Chris Wright told Fox News Sunday that the Navy is getting better at defending against Iranian attacks and that other countries have expressed a wish to help. ‘But there’s simply no other country on earth that has nearly the military capacity of the United States,’ he said. ‘So in this conflict where it’s still a little bit hot, it’s dominated by the United States right now.’
Wright added that he hoped allied nations from outside the region would join ‘soon,’ though he gave no timeline.
Analysts have cautioned that Iran’s repressive regime is unlikely to be moved by the suffering of ordinary citizens and is prepared to endure economic hardship longer than U.S. public tolerance for high fuel prices may last. Iran also needs only to sustain limited strikes on commercial shipping to keep traffic below pre-war levels, stretching U.S. naval resources over an open-ended mission.
Operation Economic Outcast represents the most direct public acknowledgement yet of Washington’s intent to sever the evasion networks propping up Iran’s oil revenues.
