It is not American military threats, which in any case Trump keeps making and then keeps backtracking on that threat, that will bring down the regime in Tehran. It is, rather, the slow, steady, inexorable economic collapse, as described at a website of Iranian exiles and dissidents, here: “Iran’s Fuel Freeze and $127 Billion IOU: Why Economic Failure Is Becoming a Political Crisis,” by Mansoureh Galestan, NCRI, August 15, 2026:
Iran’s clerical establishment is confronting a crisis of governing capacity, not simply another bad economic cycle. Inflation, shrinking purchasing power, disrupted energy provision and deteriorating public finances are converging at the point where citizens meet the state: the supermarket, the gasoline station and the pay packet. The political danger lies in this convergence. Each problem is familiar; together they make daily life a running referendum on competence.…
This is why the next phase may be more politically damaging than a single protest wave. Economic grievance is becoming cumulative and geographically diffuse: a worker facing prices, a driver facing fuel queues, a household facing rent and an official facing unpaid state obligations all experience different aspects of the same institutional failure. The system’s vulnerability is not that every grievance will automatically become an uprising; it is that it has no trusted mechanisms for absorbing them.
The clerical regime’s central challenge is therefore legitimacy under scarcity. The fuel freeze may buy temporary calm, but it also advertises fear of the public reaction. If inflation, energy shortages and fiscal arrears persist, internal factionalism is likely to sharpen, while citizens will judge the state less by ideology or external threats than by whether it can provide basic economic security. In that sense, Iran’s crisis is developing not as one dramatic rupture, but as a slow erosion of authority—made more dangerous each time the state postpones the price of governing.
The erosion of the government’s authority proceeds pari passu with the economic misery that deepens every day: three-digit inflation, a scarcity of fuel, the state’s impoverishment that is the result of both incompetent management and a hideous misallocation of resources (the nuclear project alone has cost close to $100 billion, with tens of billions more spent on ballistic missile production), as revealed by the $110 billion that the government has “borrowed” from its own National Development Fund, and the more than $17 billion it also borrowed from the National Iranian Oil Company. Its investment deputy said the proposed oil-field investment scheme intended to recover those claims had still not been implemented. A state that owes its sovereign fund $127 billion has little room to subsidize distress indefinitely, yet withdrawing subsidies risks intensifying it.
The Iranian economy cannot recover. It is being strangled both by American sanctions on countries that buy Iranian oil and by the total American blockade of Iranian ports, that prevents the movement of both imports and exports. “Help is on the way” not with missiles and bombs, but with the economic sanctions that, along with the Islamic Republic’s own colossal misallocation of resources, have brought about the inexorable decline in the wellbeing of the people of Iran. Fuel and food costs keep rising, as do rents, while Iran’s oil sales keep declining. The Iranian government has lost its way and does not know where to put its feet and hands. How much longer will people in Iran, 85% of whom, in opinion polls, tell us that they oppose the government, put up with this state of affairs?
࿗Infidel࿘ says
Yeah, while Iran’s economy has been in the 🚽, what’s different now after the regime ran out of money to pay the subsidies for fuel is that the pain has reached the regime supporters as well. Until now, the islamic republic was a kleptocracy that happily looted people who either didn’t support the regime, or even those (if any) who were neutral, and used those proceeds to bribe their supporters
But since the islamic regime had to discontinue the subsidies, gasoline went from 10,000 tomans a liter to 87,000 tomans a liter. As a result, even regime supporters are now restive. On top of that, this week, there was an incident at the Imam Reza mosque in Mashhad where a bunch of pilgrims tried to chant “Death to America” but were hushed up by the regime’s security personnel there
As a result, from the standpoint of the “Derka” people there:
⮞ They can’t live prosperously in spite of their support of the regime and benifiting from its patronage
⮞ On top of that, they can no longer express their hatred of America – something that they were raised on. This in the same city that their dear supreme leader is buried
The result is that these people – the ones stupid enough to swallow the 47 years of islamic propaganda dished out by the regime – are no longer united. Some of them consider Ghalibaf & his team traitors for talking to the same leaders who oversaw the killing of their supreme leader, maybe 2. Then there are others who, while still ardently islamic, are pissed at the IRGC continuing to drag this war instead of compromising and having an al-Hudaybiyya style treaty where they recoup
In the meantime, the support the IRGC has been getting from Iraq’s Hashd ash-Shabi has been rapidly reducing, due to the Iraqis, Saudis and Americans pounding them in Baghdad. Now the IRGC is only getting support from Pakistan’s Zahidoun and Afghanistan’s Fakiroun shi’a militias
Now it’s predicted that all it’ll take will be one incident to rekindle the demonstrations since December last year, and this time, unlike January 8th-9th, the results will be very different. For one, Iranian opposition activists are claiming that they studied what worked and what didn’t on those 2 days, and this time, they’re trying to arm themselves. Hopefully, either we or the Israelis, if not both, are trying to arm the Iranian dissidents as well. Once they feel confident enough, they should start nationwide protests and bring down the regime
abu taleb says
Then the real loser is the Iranian people. Seems like the US does not really want to topple the Iranian government, but instead it wants to secure its economic interest which can be questionable because the cost of war is very high.
It shows that most governments in the world are basically evil, they are greed for power and do not mind sacrificing people’s lives
࿗Infidel࿘ says
Actually, Trump tried to copy the Venezuelan model in Iran. Except that in Venezuela, most of the people were rational and simply wanted to stay in power: policies were secondary. As a result, Delcy Rodriguez has been happy to do what the US asks, to the point of undoing Hugo Chavez’ policies on Israel
He originally tried to get a deal w/ Ghalibaf, but that didn’t work. Then he tried to get Barzani, the Iraqi Kurdish leader, to take a message to the IRGC chief Vahidi, but got rebuffed. So now, he’s lost patience, but the blockade has been working, and it’s a matter of time before Iran plunges into chaos. At which point, Reza Pahlavi should make his moves
Raja says
Infidel, Your comment sounds music to my ears and I can barely disagree with you.
Here, the Iranian elites, though not Arabs are hardened criminals with psychic behavior, that cannot be explained easily. They seem be taking the route of Wako leaders willing to take down the nation along with the entire population, something like a national suicide mission thrust on the masses by the elites themselves. Their Mahdi or some devil-incarnate will never be seen because allah god of Koran is the father of lies.
࿗Infidel࿘ says
Raja
I was referring to Iranians in Iran and in the US. Not aware what they are like in Britain or Europe
somehistory says
Where, then, is he getting money to pay the reward?
“Iranian military chief announces $30K bounty to kill or capture American troops”
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/other/iranian-military-chief-announces-30k-bounty-to-kill-or-capture-american-troops/vi-AA2aoK5K?ocid=msedgntp&pc=HCTS&cvid=6a85086ca6c64297993b48e4f9925205&ei=23
࿗Infidel࿘ says
They’re just pulling these numbers out of their you-know-wheres. We saw a bit of it when Rushdie was attacked: the guy who attacked him wasn’t given money, but offered real estate in Iran. Right now, the islamic republic doesn’t have cash to pay even its supporters, and on top of things, Emirates has finally ended all negotiations w/ them and declared that it’ll no longer do any business dealings w/ them. And they (not Qatar) were doing the most transactions w/ the islamic republic
I also heard yesterday that there were regime supporters furious at these bounties, when the fuel subsidies have ended and their prices have skyrocketed
somehistory says
Thank you, Infidel. and I saw this was covered yesterday on its own thread. I figured they didn’t really have money to pay anyone
I esp appreciate the way you avoided what most would have written about from “where” the numbers come.
Walter Sieruk says
The feeble and weak economy of that “mullah regime” of Iran might serve as a catalyst for Iranian patriots in their brave and courageous quest to free the people of Iran from malicious bondage of the despotic Islamic tyranny the the Iranian people have to suffer so terribly under.
For the Iranian people do have every righteous and just right to rise up together to overthrow that brutal cruel oppressive horrendously murderous tyrannical Islamic regime of Iran , Then after that horrific tyranny is destroyed , the people of Iran will be free to establish a legitimate , genuine , government that ensures and respects the basic natural human rights of its citizens.
Sarprina81 says
With the Mullahs out of power nothing of value will be lost.
Heloise says
Islam, whether Shia or Sunni, is a theocracy and the gravity of Mohammed hangs like Damocles sword over any government that is not Sharia compliant.
Pres. Trump will not succeed with his “art of the deal” with the Mohammedans as he doesn’t know the rules of the game.
࿗Infidel࿘ says
Yeah, I don’t get those who claim that the shi’a are worse. There is only one verse added to the shi’a edition of the qur’an, which doesn’t change much of the rest of it
Sarprina81 says
I hope Iran will soon be free of the Islamic Fundamentalists’ reign of terror.
Walter Sieruk says
The awful economy of that “mullah regime” of Iran, along the Iranian patriots rising up , with American aid, to overthrow that horrific tyranny for a genuine government to replace it , the goal of a free Iran may be achieved.