Sanctions, economic warfare and need to manage consumption
By Mohammad Eslami
Head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran
The US objective behind all sanctions is more specifically to force Iran to surrender and seize control of the country. Their ultimate goal, after taking control of and subjugating the country, is to break Iran up. They are pursuing the same “Greater Middle East” plan that they set in motion nearly two decades ago. The Americans sought to turn the territory stretching from Israel’s borders to the Indian Ocean into small countries locked in conflict with one another, with rulers of their own choosing. Because in the American mindset, democracy means following American dictates. Likewise, peace and freedom, in their view, mean safeguarding US security and interests. The new economic sanctions do not pursue any objective beyond what they have sought to achieve over the past 30 to 40 years.
However, the key point is that these measures have psychological and localized effects within Iran. One example is the value of the rial against the dollar. The value of a country’s national currency is linked to the wealth of a nation, its achievements, political stability, social stability and a productive economy that expands the country’s gross domestic product. Yet perhaps Iran is the only country where the value of its national currency has no connection whatsoever with its wealth and achievements. As can be seen, through a psychological operation, the dollar exchange rate is being set via Telegram channels from rooms in other countries. If all these rooms are traced, the trail leads back to the same rooms in Israel and foreign intelligence services — the very people seeking to put additional pressure on the Iranian people. Therefore, the way to deal with this new situation is to manage conditions properly.
In 2018, the United States said it had concluded that military and cyber measures were not the appropriate means of confronting Iran and instead opted for economic warfare, an approach it had already tested. Through measures accompanied by psychological operations, they reduced the value of the national currency by 30% overnight. The US calculated that repeating the move several more times would cause the rial to collapse, prompting people to take to the streets and ultimately overthrow the government. Now they have gone back to the same option and want to target the Islamic Republic’s legitimacy and popular acceptance.
The depreciation of the rial in these conditions is a psychological issue and has absolutely no mathematical or economic basis. Under these circumstances, consumption must be managed effectively. Doing so would eliminate much of the artificial demand in the market. As artificial and emotional demand subsides, market fluctuations and instability will also ease.
Today, everyone must stand united and manage consumption so that, by making use of what is available and within our current capabilities, without increasing demand, the upward trend in the dollar exchange rate can be contained on its own.
Sanctions remain the most important tool the United States has used to undermine the Islamic Republic’s popular acceptance. When sanctions are imposed, official channels for financial transactions and exchanges are disrupted, forcing activity into unofficial channels. These channels are vulnerable to abuse and carry a greater risk of corruption. The aim is to push transactions into such channels and then use allegations of corruption to undermine the government’s legitimacy and popular acceptance.
The tools employed by Iran’s adversaries go beyond missiles and bombs. Their broader objective is to destabilize and ultimately bring down society. When the United States fails to achieve its objectives through military means, the US president resorts to insults against the Iranian people, their history and their civilization. Economic warfare is also intended to further increase pressure on the Iranian people and push those under economic strain toward protests and impulsive, unlawful actions. Such methods have already been tested and failed to produce the desired results. Today, as well, the vigilance of the Iranian people and measures taken by officials would ensure that they fail again.