Iran International
A news website in Iran has warned that high inflation was detrimental in the fall of the Roman Empire, as the government conceals data to hide galloping prices.
Fararu website, considered to be moderate in Iran’s government-controlled media environment, wrote on Thursday that as Roman emperors reduced the silver content of their Denario coins, the foundations of the empire began to crumble.
Meanwhile, another website, Ecoiran quoted a central bank source on Wednesday as saying that inflation in the first Iranian month of the year (March 21-April 20) rose by 68.7 compared to the same period last year. Just in that one-month prices jumped 5.2 percent, with the previous month witnessing another substantial hike of 6.6 percent.
If true, this would represent a nearly 20-percent jump compared to the inflation rate last reported by the government in early 2023.
The Central Bank of Iran and the Statistical Center of Iran have not released figures on point-to-point inflation for the past two months, comparing prices to the same months in the past year.
The period in question coincides with persisting low exchange rates for the Iranian currency, rial, which has nearly halved in value since mid-2022.
One year ago, the rial was trading at around 300,000 to the dollar, while in early May it dropped to as low as 550,000.
Rial’s huge drop tells the story of inflation in Iran. The country has to import a large part of its food, animal feed, medicines, raw materials and finished goods it needs. As the local currency loses value, imports become more expensive and higher prices have to be passed on to consumers.
The alarming comparison with the Roman Empire is not too far-fetched, as Iran faces a more immediate danger of rebellion by ever-impoverished masses.
Although large-scale anti-regime protests in the fall of 2022 were driven by social and political oppression, but the current economic crisis was also making hopeless young people restive. Also, labor unrest began to rise in 2023, as workers’ real incomes declined.
It is important to note that price inflation is highest in the food sector, which even last year was estimated to have been between 70-100 percent. Reports began to emerge as early as 2021 that Iranians were cutting down on consumption of meat and dairy products. Recent reports have spoken of lower-income families cutting down on nutritious food and unable to afford many types of fruits and vegetables.
Iran has been suffering from lack of economic growth for more than a decade as international sanctions reduced its oil export revenues that were vital for financing an inefficient government and its more inefficient control of the economy.
But the regime has insisted to stick to its controversial nuclear program that brought about the sanctions in the first place. A brief respite came in 2016-2017, when the JCPOA accord with world powers lifted UN-imposed sanctions, but former US President Donald Trump withdrew from the deal and imposed unilateral sanctions in 2018.
Inflation soon began to surpass 20 percent and the rial started to nosedive, eventually losing value by 12-fold.
Even politicians loyal to the regime have begun harshly criticizing President Ebrahim Raisi’s government for its inability to address the crisis, but almost no insiders openly say that the decision to resolve the nuclear dispute lies with the Iran’s anti-West ruler Ali Khamenei.
Iran’s high inflation rate is just behind other a few other troubled economies in the world, such as Venezuela, Sudan, Argentina and Zimbabwe.
London-based Iranian-British internet security expert and cyber espionage investigator Nariman Gharib released a list of contracts signed between the Islamic Republic's Ministry of Information and Communications Technology and Chinese companies.
The secret document – which has no date and cannot be verified independently by Iran International -- contains a table of 10 contracts for various projects such as development of Iran’s landline network, infrastructure for fourth and fifth generation of broadband cellular networks and three satellite projects as well as production of smartphones and developing messenger services.
Feasibility studies for several of the projects have been carried out but some others are in the planning stages.
The project for the supply and operation of a geosynchronous telecommunication satellite is announced to be at $100 to $450 million for a 42-month project while another satellite project is valued at $300 million for a three-year project.
The project for landline development is worth $220 million while the project for the modernization of Telecommunication Company of Iran, or TCI -- the country’s main mobile service provider -- is $325 million followed by the modernization of MTN Irancell -- another telecommunications company -- at $250 million.
Each company will get 1,500 5G sites and 3,000 LTE networks, according to the contracts.
China’s large-scale effort to control and censor the Internet has become a viable conceptual and technical model for authoritarian regimes, like Iran's Islamic Republic. The Islamic Republic of Iran follows China’s lead in systematic oppression techniques.
China has combined legislative actions and technological enforcement to regulate the Internet domestically, calling it “The Great Firewall” of China.
Cybersecurity expert, Robert Potter, has said in a joint report, "China is known to be building a techno-surveillance authoritarian state domestically."
China’s second-largest telecom equipment maker, ZTE, sells to more than 500 carriers in more than 160 countries, 60 of which have questionable human rights records. In addition to selling services, China provides training programs that include subjects like ‘manipulating public opinion.’
According to a 2012 report by Reuters, China’s ZTE sold TCI a powerful surveillance system capable of monitoring landline, mobile and internet communications. The system was part of a 98.6-million-euro ($130.6 million) contract. Government-controlled TCI has a near monopoly on Iran’s landline telephone services and much of Iran’s internet traffic is required to flow through its network. The ZTE-TCI deal, signed in December 2010, illustrates how despite tightening global sanctions at the time, Iran still managed to obtain sophisticated technology, including systems that can be used to crack down on dissidents.
During a briefing at an annual security conference in Munich in 2020, United States’ officials warned that China will use Huawei’s presence in future communication networks to steal corporate secrets, censor content, and track dissidents. Critics of China say the rapid rise of these tech companies stems from the theft of intellectual property. Chinese tech giant Huawei has done business with North Korea, helped Iran spy on their citizens, and created ‘back doors’ for easier intellectual property theft.
As Washington stepped up pressure on the world's largest telecommunications equipment maker, the US Justice Department accused Huawei Technologies in February 2020 of helping the Islamic Republic track anti-government protesters. In September 2021, Huawei Technologies chief financial officer Meng Wanzhou admitted helping Huawei conceal dealings with the Iranian regime.
Flowing 700 miles, the river – also known as Helmand – enters Iran's Hamoun wetlands in the Sistan-Baluchestan province after originating in the Hindu Kush Mountains near Kabul. Lake Hamoun used to be one of the world's largest wetlands, straddling 4,000 square kilometres (1,600 square miles) between Iran and Afghanistan.
The river constitutes more than 40% of Afghanistan’s surface water, according to water experts, and runs about 1,125km (700 miles) southwest from the Hindu Kush mountains into Iran. The River, which both Afghanistan and Iran depend on for agriculture and drinking water, has been their biggest source of tension for years.
Over the years, Iran has accused Afghanistan of restricting the flow of water from the river by building dams over it, a charge that Afghan authorities deny.
Speaking on Thursday on a visit to the southeastern Sistan and Baluchestan province – a deprived region where the water is desperately needed – President Ebrahim Raisi warned the Taliban: "Take my words seriously so that you don't complain later."Sistan-Baluchestan is the most deprived region of Iran.
"Afghanistan's rulers should allow our experts to come and check the truth of the matter. If our experts confirm a lack of water, we have nothing to say, otherwise we will not allow the rights of our people to be violated in any way," he added.
During his visit, Raisi also inaugurated a project to supply water from the Gulf of Oman to eastern cities of the country, including to more than 150 villages across the Sistan-Baluchestan province.
The new water supply project would take water from the Persian Gulf and Gulf of Oman to the provinces of Sistan-Baluchistan, South Khorasan and Razavi Khorasan via a 1,700-kilometer pipeline.
It has been criticized by experts as another measure by the government that would aggravate the situation, with environmentalist Kaveh Madani describing it as detrimental to unique ecosystem of the Persian Gulf region.
Iran's Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian recently said that the Afghan side has claimed the dam built over Hirmand does not have enough water.
Calling on Afghan authorities to let the water flow, he said, "Our clear request from the Afghan side is to open the gates of the Kajaki Dam before the time is lost," he said.
An agreement between Tehran and Kabul in 1973 stipulated that Afghanistan had to allow Iran an average of 556,000 acre-feet or 820 million cubic meters of water per year.Afghanistan must deliver water from the Helmand River to Iran at a rate of 22 cubic meters per second per annum (normal water year) with an additional four cubic meters per second for “goodwill and brotherly relations.”
Earlier in the month, the Iranian president's special envoy for Afghan affairs, Hassan Kazemi Qomi, only 27 million cubic meters of water reached Iran last year that is a small fraction of how much Iran is entitled to under the water-sharing treaty.
“The issue of the (1973) treaty is a legal issue, to which the Afghan government is committed and has declared its adherence. It must also implement the treaty,” he said.
Iranian Energy Minister Ali Akbar Mehrabian has also recently said that the government is taking "serious steps" to ensure proper implementation of the treaty, adding that Taliban authorities in Kabul are committed to the water-sharing treaty.
The previous Afghan government stopped the flow of water to Iran after inaugurating the Kamal Khan Dam, in Nimroz province in 2021.
At the inauguration of the dam, ex-President Ashraf Ghani, pledged to stick by the 1973 agreement over Hirmand waters, saying that Kabul wanted to trade water for oil. “Afghanistan would no longer give free water to anyone, so Iran should provide fuel to Afghans in exchange for water,” he said.
In late July 2022, Amir-Abdollahian also warned his Taliban counterpart, Amir Khan Muttaqi, that prohibiting Tehran from its rightful access to the Helmand River will only cause further strain to already tattered ties.
Afghanistan argues that complaints about improper allocation of water were made when the Helmand River Basin was under drought which severely reduced the river’s water flow, with Afghani pundits claiming that Iran had been receiving more water during normal and above-normal water years.
One way to solve the issue, as foreseen in the Helmand River Treaty in 1973, is that the two neighboring countries jointly determine places of delivery and construct joint hydrometric stations, regulating their water share more strictly.
In August 2022, Afghanistan and Iran agreed on a timeline for the construction of joint hydrometric stations, but such projects will take years to complete.
Hardliners, who packed the parliament in 2020 with help from the Guardian Council, which barred most other candidates, are seen as determined to hold on to power.
There is also near unanimous consensus among non-hardliners that voter turnout will be very low in the absence of competition, at least among regime factions.
Jahanbakhsh Mohebbinia, a former Iranian lawmaker close to ex-Speaker Ali Larijani has accused media outlets close to the Revolutionary Guard (IRGC) of spreading fake news to create an atmosphere of excitement ahead of the upcoming parliamentary election.
Recently IRGC-linked Tasnim news agency spread rumors about former President Hassan Rouhani and former Parliament Speaker Ali Larijani allegedly considering the idea of running for the parliament. However, Larijani issued a terse response, alluding to “purification” efforts by hardliners.
Referring to Iranian ultraconservatives in the parliament, Mohebbinia said, "They are individuals who had no part in the 1979 Islamic revolution but occupied the country's power centers."
Some Iranian media including Rouydad24 website say there is no election mood in the country, although in the previous rounds of elections unofficial campaigning started more than one year before the election.
Mohebbinia said that hardliners wish to make Larijani angry so that he would make a few controversial comments. He said such methods are "unethical."
"With these news fabrications, Tasnim wishes to ensure a high turnout in the election," said Mohebbinia, adding that "Certainly, the turnout in this round is likely to be as low as the previous election [barely above 20 percent in big cities and around 40 percent in small towns].
Mohebbinia added some moderate conservatives in Iran wish to see Larijani as Iran's next President and Expediency Council member Mohammad Javad Bahonar as the Speaker of the Parliament.
Meanwhile, the leader of the ultraconservative Paydari Party Sadeq Mahsouli told Tasnim news agency: "Our strategy in the upcoming elections is quite clear. We try to elect the best individuals. Currently we are scoring possible candidates and those who score higher will be included in our list of candidates."
Mahsouli added: "We have our own red lines, and we will not make any compromise. However, we are prepared for cooperation with other political groups who share our values." However, he did not elaborate on those values and red lines.
In the reform front, former Vice President Mohammad Reza Aref said: "We need to make big decisions for the country. There are big lessons for us in the Turkish elections."
Aref who is known for his "strategy of silence" and for speaking in vague terms to protect himself against reactions, possibly meant that Iran should introduce democratic processes in its election system and do away with the arbitrary vetting by the Guardian council, which disqualifies reform-minded candidates. He said, "the state [regime] should value the political elites' qualifications rather than making decisions based on a security approach."
In another development, Hossein Naqashi, a member of the Central Committee of the reformist Unity of Nation Party said that the Guardian Council's approach will do harm to the elections. He warned that Iranians still remember the scars of recent protests and voters may not go to the polls even if there are well-known candidates in the elections.
However, it looks highly unlikely that "well-known individuals" would ever be permitted to run for any election. According to Rouydad24, Iranian Interior Minister Ahmad Vahidi on Tuesday told Mehr news agency that he has ordered government offices to fire, as soon as possible, all the managers appointed by the former government under the relatively moderate President Hassan Rouhani. This looked like what Larijani characterized as purging or purification.