The supreme leaders and mad mullahs of Iran have spent more than $100 billion on their nuclear project. Many of the nuclear facilities , especially those at Natanz, Fordow, and especially Isfahan, have been destroyed or severely damaged. Iran has also spent tens of billions of dollars manufacturing thousands of ballistic missiles; Iran began the last war with 3,000 missiles, and is now believed to be down to 1,000. Iranian ballistic missiles range in price from $100,000 each for Shahed missiles to over $8 million for long-range missiles capable of reaching Israel. Iran has spent more than $15 billion on its missile program; most of that money has now gone up in smoke, with the missiles destroyed on launching pads, or in warehouses, or used up in attacks that are intercepted in the air, or land harmlessly in an open field. Very few do manage to hit an intended target; the Gulf Arab states, and not Israel, have been the chief victims of Iran’s missiles.
Iran has also spent tens of billions of dollars — in money and weaponry — over the last few decades, supporting Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas in Gaza, the Houthis, the Kata’ib Hezbollah in Iraq, and the Assad regime in Syria.
Finally, Iran’s leaders have stolen many billions of dollars from the state treasury. Just one man, the late Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, reportedly controlled a business empire worth $95 billion. Who knows how much of that wealth was squirreled away in Swiss bank accounts, cryptocurrency, real estate in London, Paris, and the Riviera, never to be returned to Iran?
And in addition to that misallocation of Iran’s financial resources to weapons acquisition during the past 47 years, there is the cost of the present war with the U.S. and Israel. The sanctions on Iran that Obama lifted have again been put on by Trump; most countries are as a result afraid to buy Iranian oil for fear of secondary sanctions. The U.S. threatens to cut off any foreign financial institution from the U.S. financial system if they knowingly process “significant” transactions for Iranian petroleum or petrochemical products. Consequently, Iran must sell its oil to China, its best customer, at a steep discount from the world market price.
And now Iran, after the U.S. and Israel have thoroughly battered its military and much of its civilian infrastructure, has a new economic woe. The Americans have put a blockade on all of Iran’s ports, meaning that no imports can enter Iran by sea, and no exports can be sent out. That blockade is costing Iran an estimated $47 million each day.
More on Iran’s economic collapse can be found here: “Behind Tehran’s calm, Iran faces deepening economic collapse,” by Amichai Stein, Jerusalem Post, April 29, 2026:
On the surface, the streets of Tehran appear to have returned to normal.
Cafés are open, and traffic jams in the capital have resumed their usual pace. However, beneath this routine lies a nation on the brink of financial collapse, one that even the most brutal crackdowns may not contain.
While the streets are full of people, their pockets are empty. The Iranian rial has become a liability that citizens are desperate to offload.
“There is simply crazy inflation in the market because nobody wants to hold the Iranian currency,” explains Prof. Amos Nadan, head of the Dayan Center at Tel Aviv University, adding, “This currency is fundamentally unstable.”
“Unstable” is putting it mildly. Consider that in 1978, during the last year of the Shah’s reign, one dollar could buy 70 rials. Today, one dollar can buy 1,316,000 rials. Keep that staggering fact of runaway inflation in mind.
Even before the recent military escalations, Iran was grappling with an inflation rate of approximately 70% – the highest since World War II.
Today, the numbers tell the story of a struggling middle class. The new monthly minimum wage stands at over 160 million rials, a figure that sounds astronomical until it is converted to its actual value: just over $100….
Iran’s economic woes were not caused by the war; they were merely accelerated by it. Long before the first shots were fired, the country suffered from a chronic energy crisis, forced rolling blackouts, and a persistent drought that dried up the nation’s reservoirs….
Indeed, the nationwide historic drought has led to many of Iran’s hydroelectric dams ceasing to operate. Furthermore, there is simply not enough water for people to drink in some cities. Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian has now suggested that, given how many reservoirs have been drying up, it might be best if all of the 9.8 million residents of Tehran moved elsewhere, to places that still have enough water to meet their needs.
Wellington says
I keep hearing how wonderful the Persian people are and how they have been terribly oppressed for half a century. I have also been told that they have a great heritage, a wonderful civilization and all that.
Well, count me dubious here across the board. What great contributions have they made to mankind (perhaps with Zoroastrianism but what else?). Seems to me this is a people that have regularly been in major underperforming mode, including having the present government and, a la that old line, every people have the government they deserve.
Look, I wish the Persian people well. I don’t wish any people ill (even the Somalis) but I don’t see how the Persians have even remotely been a great people from antiquity onwards. Frankly, I think they’re a mess.
࿗Infidel࿘ says
The pre-islamic Persians – the ones who had an empire from Balochistan and the Hindu Kush to Anatolia and Egypt – were definitely great. They did have the world’s first human rights declaration, and pioneered concepts of human liberty independently – w/o denying the Greeks or Romans their due in this realm. Yeah, they were stopped by the Greeks at Marathon, Thermopylae and Salamis, but they were nothing like what was depicted in the movie “300”. Zoroastrianism was there, but I’d not call that the greatest of their achievements. They were however very weakened by the conquest by Alexander the Great, and even more so by constant wars w/ the Byzantines that weakened them to the point that the Arabs could overrun their entire country
That said, it’s arguable whether today’s Iranians can be said to be the inheritors of their legacy. Although some are trying valiantly to do that – citing the Cyrus cylinder and wanting to turn Iran into an island of democracy in the region. To do that, they’d have to be willing to do something that even some among the revolutionaries are reluctant to do – outlaw islam, even while otherwise guaranteeing the freedom of conscience. A new Iran can’t be great if it has a fifth column wanting to undermine it and make it what the regime of the last 47 years have been
As far as the current impasse goes, they have been told by Reza Pahlavi not to come out until the regime falls, and so I don’t fault them on that. I do think that Pahlavi should know that it can’t simply be all bloodless, the way South Africa or the Soviet Union lost their Apartheid and Communist regimes. While waiting for economic collapse of the regime is fine for US and the Israelis, the Iranians don’t have that luxury of time, and so they need to expedite that regime’s demise. Right now, there is anarchy in that regime, so they do need to overthrow it, even if it means losing some of their own in the process
Wellington says
The Achaemenid Dynasty (c.550-330 BC) established an impressive empire though it showed very little originality compared to ancient Greece except for Zoroastrianism which influenced Judaism and Christianity tremendously, especially with respect to eschatological matters. After Alexander’s conquest and a temporary Seleucid rule, it was taken over by so/so polities, first the Parthians and then the Sassanids. Thereafter it fell to Islam and more or less went into a kind of civilizational torpor with an occasional bright spot (e.g., Omar Khayyam). In the modern era it has produced very little of substance and then entered a true dark age as of 1979 whereby Iran became arguably the single most annoying nation on the planet.
I just don’t see how the Persian people are all that great. Show me the money.
AM/Opinion says
The Iranian people have already lost an estimated 40,000 men, women, & children to the death cult Islamic regime last Jan 8 & 9, 2026. It was a brutal slaughter of unarmed protesters! I pray those deaths are not in vain. Islam by now must be recognized for what it is: an ideology with no respect for life, not even it’s own people. No one “deserves” a totalitarian govt. Islam is presently overtaking UK, & even parts of the US. Iran’s IRGC needs to be crushed before it crushes anymore civilians there. And Islam needs to be outlawed.
Westman says
It’s only a potential, now. I once knew their university students who were bright and wanted to be like the West and do great things. What they got was death in the 8 years war.
Cyrus The Great wouldn’t be so great today when major world governments could all defeat him with modern technology.
Persians were just getting a start on educational progress into 20th century competence when those unable to understand the necessary change took Iran back to ignorance and brought that dour, heartless, old, “no joy” man from France to lead them. Some leadership. He and his successor frittered away the people’s wealth on war and terrorist proxies, bringing a Nakba upon Iran.
It’s amazing how much incompetence and vicious evil will be accepted under the banner of Shi’a Islam.
Kepha says
It warms my heart to see that Mr. Reza Pahlavi II apparently knows Isaiah 45:1-7, plus various passages in Ezra, Nehemiah, Esther, and Daniel.
I also wish all nations well. But I share some of your misgivings, Wellington.
But the big question is, will the blockade, attacks on the Basiji, and military targets in Iran encourage the dissident movement to grow bolder and more proactive, or, will it drive the Iranian populace closer to its mullahocracy? Attacks from outside sometimes drive fractured nations together.
Look at how the Japanese invasion drove China into a United Front in World War II. Look at how the Nazis missed a golden opportunity to exploit the hatred the Ukrainians and others felt for “Big Whiskers”–and, I know of at least one Jewish survivor of the Nazi death camps who recalled that the Soviet Ukrainian forces that liberated her camp would’ve gladly shot the Jewish survivors had they been allowed to. I have long feaed that too much US involvement in anti-Mullah sentiment in Iran would backfire; and possibly even bring in such fiends as the Mojaheddin-e-Khalq.
gravenimage says
Agreed, Wellington.
shosh says
This is the tragedy of islam. The LORD says to bless Israel. You will be cursed if you curse Israel. Numbers 24:9: “Blessed is he who blesses Israel, and cursed is he who curses Israel,”
Why would anyone who believes in GOD test this verse ? Islam teaches people to hate, murder, lie, steal, destroy, torture, and commit suicide to honor their god. What kind of god hates its own creation? Allah is not a name but a descriptive noun meaning “god” in Arabic. This is like a robot relationship….there is more intimacy and personal relationship with a statue. At least the statue has a personal name and is not just called statue. All you who are weary and heavily laden, empty and aching….Come to Me and I will give you rest and peace….Jesus is talking to you right now…Ask Him to be real to you. You will never regret doing this. Jesus is a real Person Who knows your name…HE wants you to know HIS.
Bo says
Amen!
gravenimage says
The Islamic Republic of Iran’s Economic Collapse
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I hope so…