'Big Jobs To Small People' Stirs Controversy In Iran

A health official in the city of Ahvaz said on Wednesday that the number of patients in the east of the city has risen five times compared with previous week and another report put the country’s average increase at 175 percent in the past three days.

Health ministry officials in provinces of Esfahan and Kerman also reported sharp rises in the number of cases, while an official from Qom province said that the number of Covid-19 patients is increasing exponentially because over 30 percent of the people in the province have not even received their first vaccine shot.

As the number of hospitalizations has jumped by 77 percent throughout the country, an official from Iran’s Covid-19 taskforce, Hamidreza Jama’ati, said the next peak will hit in the next few weeks, adding that omicron is set to become the dominant type of coronavirus in Iran.

Last week, the World Bank confirmed a $90-million loan for measures to fight the Covid-19 pandemic in Iran, saying it is "the epicenter of Covid-19 infections in the region".

Iran, which confirmed the first Omicron case on December 19, is the worst hit country in the Middle East by at least 132,000 deaths since February 2020.

The interview with the IRGC Aerospace commander Amir-Ali Hajizadeh was published by the hardline Kayhan newspaper Wednesday and was focused on Soleimani, the slain commander of the IRGC Qods Force, who was killed in Baghdad by a US drone strike on January 3, 2020.

Hajizadeh told Kayhan that the meeting with the former president was held during his second term of presidency to warn him that the IRGC would not stay silent regarding his “transgressions.”

Hajizadeh was probably referring to Rouhani's meeting including Commander-in-Chief Mohammad-Ali Jafari and Soleimani on July 25, 2017, a few days before the confirmation of Rouhani’s re-election by Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. Hajizadeh's account of the meeting is in stark contradiction to state media reports at the time which said Rouhani and the commanders had expressed support for each other without mention of any confrontation.

Summer of discontent

Tensions between Rouhani and the IRGC rose to new heights after his re-election on May 29, 2017. In a June 23 meeting with businessmen, Rouhani strongly criticized IRGC's business activities. "Part of the economy is controlled by an unarmed government, but we surrendered it to a government armed with guns," he said about IRGC's meddling in government affairs.

Rouhani was apparently referring to IRGC-affiliated business consortiums' taking over big companies such as the Iran Telecommunications Company in 2009 in the name of privatization during the presidency of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. The Mobin Trust Consortium, largely owned by the IRGC Co-op Foundation, had won the tender for $7.8 billion along with two other state entities under irregular and suspicious circumstances.

In the interview with Kayhan, Hajizadeh did not make any mention of IRGC's economic activities and said the commanders offered to help Rouhani's government. "You saw in crises such as floods and earthquakes and other things the IRGC was really present," he said in the interview while accusing Rouhani of "assaulting friendly forces," meaning regime insiders.

"The Revolution, people, the ruling system, and the Leader are our redlines. Don't think you can always say these things and we will remain silent," Hajizadeh said the commanders in the meeting warned Rouhani while adding that Soleimani expressly warned Rouhani not to follow the same path as Ahmadinejad.

"Do you want to become like him? Why are you self-harming? Why are you constantly attacking us? Let's solve the problems," Soleimani told Rouhani according to Hajizadeh.

Do you want to become like Ahmadinejad?

Many allege that it was the IRGC that helped Ahmadinejad, a quite obscure figure, to climb the political ladder and capture presidency in 2005.

Relations between Ahmadinejad and the IRGC deteriorated during his second term, after he was once again helped by the Guards to overcome rivals in the disputed elections of 2009. But in 2011, Ahmadinejad publicly defied Supreme Leader Ali Khameneiover sacking his intelligence minister Heydar Moslehi. He also attacked the Guards publicly on several occasions and even dubbed them "our smuggler brothers" in reference to IRGC's massive role in hugely profitable illicit imports through ports under its direct control.

Apparently referring to Ahmadinejad and Rouhani's objection to IRGC's support of proxy forces in regional countries, Hajizadeh said under the influence of "poisonous propaganda" many questioned Soleimani's spending of Iranian money in other countries. "Why does he take our money abroad? Why, in their view, does he support a dictator? Why should we get involved in Syria anyway?" Hajizadeh said, presumably referring to Ahmadinejad and Rouhani.

In the interview, Hajizadeh also admitted that there was so much opposition to the IRGC's involvement in Iraq and Syria that the death of its forces in the early days of the conflicts had to be kept secret. "We really didn't know how to justify the deaths of the first martyrs of the wars in Iraq and Syria," he said adding that not being able to call them martyrs and burying them as such was a big problem and they had to be buried without any ceremonies.

The report is produced by the Iranian Parliament Research Center, which is not one of the official economic reporting organs of the state.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has estimated about 2.5% real GDP growth for 2021 and 3.4% growth for 2020, after a 12.8% cumulative economic contraction during 2018 and 2019.

Iran will need years of much faster growth just to return to the point where it was in 2017.

These figures represent the total value in 2010 “constant prices” of final goods and services produced within a year, disregarding current inflationary prices and the fall in the value of the national currency.

Regarding the increase in both oil production and exports in the current Iranian year, the real GDP growth is reasonable, but not to the level that could compensates the 12.8% economic contraction in 2018 and 2019.

The data intelligence company, Kpler, has estimated Iran’s crude oil and gas condensate exports to have reached 620,000 barrels per day in 2021, which indicates almost 100% growth year-on-year. The figure was 2.5 mb/d during pre-sanctions era.

OPEC also estimated that Iran’s crude oil production has increased to 2.4 mb/d in 2021, about 400,000 b/d more than in 2020. The figure was 3.8 mb/d during the pre-sanctions era.

Iranian Parliament’s Research Center says the oil sector has experienced 9.9% growth in the first half of current fiscal year and may continue in this pace and possibly climb 18% for the whole year, in an optimistic scenario.

The real face of the economy

The “real” GDP growth is a method to compare GDP in a specific period with a corresponding period in the past, without measuring inflation and fluctuations in the value of a country’s currency.

But, the average annual inflation rate in Iran during 2018-2021 was about 35%. On the other hand, Iran’s national currency has lost most of its value, plunging from below 50,000 rials/1 US dollar to 250,000 rials/1 USD during this period.

Both IMF and the World Bank updated their estimations in late 2021 about Iran’s nominal GDP, based on the “current prices” (with measuring inflation).

IMF’s calculation says Iran’s nominal GDP, based on the low “official” USD rate (42,000) has almost doubled since 2017 and reached about $835 billion in 2020, but the World Bank says it declined from $445 billion in 2017 to $203 billion in 2020, based on the USD rate at Iran’s open currency market.

Considering the fivefold difference between official and open market currency rates in Iran, the huge gap between the two estimates is quite reasonable.

Iran’s government plans to eliminate the low “official” dollar rate that the IMF has used. This rate was applicable only to controlled imports of essential goods, such as food and medicine. It is not clear why IMF made its calculations based on this rate. Therefore, it is expected that the IMF will adjust its calculation and put the country’s nominal GDP at a level, close to World Bank’s estimated figure.

In this case, Iran’s nominal GDP with 83 million population, equals half of United Arab Emirates’ and one-third of Saudi Arabia’s or Turkey’s GDPs.

In a Bloomberg report published on Tuesday, data by market intelligence firm Kpler indicate that the world’s biggest oil importer bought 324 million barrels from Iran and Venezuela in 2021, about 53% more than the year before.

Chinese buyers, particularly private firms also known as "teapot" refineries, have benefited from Washington’s sanctions on Iran and Venezuela because they bargain for more discounts while other buyers have stopped purchases in fear of US financial system freezing their assets.

A global 50-percent rise in prices over the past year and Beijing’s issuance of more import quotas have encouraged teapots to buy more from Iran because these shipments are “up to 10% cheaper” and not registered in official customs data.

Iran was producing 3.8 million barrels a day before the United States pulled out of the 2015 nuclear agreement in May 2018 and imposed sanctions on Iran’s oil exports.

Iran’s exports dropped from more than 2 million barrels per day in 2016-2017 to less than 200,000 in 2019 but started to grow in September 2020. No one can say with any certainty how much Tehran is exporting but estimates say volumes reach over 600,000 barrels per day.

Referring to the sizable number of security and military officials working for President Ebrahim Raisi as top managers, she said, "Raisi is just a front man. There are others who puppeteer him from behind the scenes and influence his decision-making." She said, "I hope I am mistaken, but if this is true, Raisi is going to be blamed for his aides' mistakes."

Faezeh hashem is the daughter of Iran's former president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, who was a close collaborator with Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei but later fell out of favor whne he supported protesters in 2009.

Meanwhile, Hashemi said Iran has been involved in killing some 500,000 people in Syria. Pointing out Iran's involvement in killing Muslims in Yemen and elsewhere, she said it is highly unlikely that Israel has killed 100 to 200 thousands Palestinians. "We have killed more Muslims than Israel with our wrong policies," she said.

In an interview with the news website Didehban-e Iran [Iran Monitor], published on Monday [January 10], she said IRGC officers who have joined the Raisi administration as his provincial governors-general cannot help him solve the country's problems. She also charged that Basij militia and IRGC officers are placed in cabinet ministers' offices to control them. She warned Raisi that in this way, he is going to have more problems in the future.

Hashemi, who spent time in jail as a political prisoner, shocked many in April 2021 when she praised Donald Trump and Iran’s last monarch, Mohammad Reza Shah.

Hashemi criticized the government's economic policies and said that Vice President Mohammad Mokhber, who has been working in an organization confiscating people's properties throughout his career, cannot understand the importance of privatization and economic reforms as the leader of Raisi's economic team. "There is no bright prospect for Iran's economy," she said.

She further criticized the appointment of inexperienced officials to key posts and said, "Corruption is not limited to financial corruption and astronomical salaries. Appointing incapable individuals to key posts will lead to corruption."

Hashemi’s criticisms of Raisi’s appointments are shred by many observers and politicians, some even from the country’s conservative camp.

Speaking about some government officials who usually suggest that people should tolerate hardships, Hashemi said: "OK. We will tolerate, but first we need to know where we are going. Are we tolerating the hardships to reach freedom? Good economy? Justice? Development? Or what? Unfortunately, there is no prospect ahead of us."

Criticizing Khamenei's policy for increasing Iran’s population, she said, he should have first assessed why there is a decline in population growth. Perhaps people do not want more children because of economic hardships. She added, there is nothing wrong with men and women living together without getting married, but she said she detested the idea of some men getting married to more than one woman.

To hardliner lawmakers who wish to impose an ideological lifestyle on Iranians, she said: "They are reckless. Iran is not North Korea." Speaking about other ideas such as only female doctors being allowed to treat female patients at hospitals, Hashemi said "these are Taliban-style policies."

In another part of the interview, Hashemi said the presidential election that brought Raisi to power was odd. "Everything was pre-planned for his election and anything that could possibly prevent his election was taken out of the way."

Speaking on the impact of sanctions on the Iranian economy, she said: "Sanctioned have caused essential problems, but the impact of mismanagement is bigger. If it were not for mismanagement, we would have not been sanctioned in the first place."