The fragile ceasefire and the enormous uncertainty about the future have provoked a wave of contradictory reactions among the Iranian population. A sector, especially among supporters of the Islamic Republic, rejects any concession to Washington, convinced that control of the Strait of Hormuz gives Tehran a position of strength. Many others, however, fear that insisting on the closure of that maritime passage and not reaching an agreement between the United States and Israel. They are all united, however, by concern for .
According to the latest data from the official statistics office, food prices have more than doubled in the last year. Iranians like Behnam, a turner and father of two children in Isfahan, in the center of the country, know that poverty, now increased if possible by the war, not only prevents many families from making ends meet but is also a weapon in the hands of the United States.
This man in his 40s assures that Donald Trump “knows that Iran’s economy is bad and is putting pressure on it to collapse” with his blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, through which Iran also exports a good part of the State’s main source of income: oil. “And to think that Trump and Netanyahu will give up is not realistic,” this worker laments by text message.
The impact of the war on the economy has become a major concern for Iranians, with rampant inflation and mass layoffs. The Deputy Minister of Cooperation, Labor and Social Welfare of Iran warned this Sunday of the strong impact of the war on the labor market of the Islamic Republic. Gholamhossein Mohammadí, also president of the Technical and Vocational Training Organization, has stated that, according to preliminary calculations, the conflict has caused the loss of more than one million jobs and has left some two million people directly and indirectly unemployed.
“Many have lost their jobs and I have not been paid this month,” says Nima, a clerk in a clothing store in Tehran. This thirty-year-old looks to the future with apprehension. Not even the Persian New Year, which begins in March, with the arrival of spring – a time when Iranian spending traditionally skyrockets – has managed to prevent sales from falling. “There is no money in people’s hands,” he deplores, and those who have it are prey to “uncertainty,” so perhaps they do not spend it.
and the massive destruction that it is causing, one of the great triggers of the massive protests in January was, precisely, the economic deterioration and the strong devaluation of the rial, the Iranian national currency, which caused the uprising of the mobile phone dealers in the Grand Bazaar of Tehran. The bazaarists have traditionally been a conservative group, previously related to the Islamic Republic.
Sin internet
This already deep economic crisis is now deepening due to: Iran now has 51 days of digital blackout, according to NetBlocks. An unprecedented blockade that has left the country practically disconnected from the global network and that is ruining especially small businesses.
Like that of Sureh, owner of a startup of Persian crafts that he sold through social networks like Instagram. The profile of this Iranian is abundant among the promoters of these small initiatives. Many times they are women with higher education – Sureh is an agricultural engineer – who did not find work in their field and found an alternative to make a living with these businesses. In his case, it took him “seven years of continuous effort” to strengthen a company that now, he regrets, “is going bankrupt.” His story mixes frustration and helplessness. “It seems that we are condemned to survive amid bombings and hardship,” he summarizes.
Iranian authorities estimate that the average resistance of digital companies to internet outages is 20 days and that some 10 million direct and indirect jobs are at risk. Deputy Minister Mohammadí estimated the losses from the digital blackout at “about five billion tomans a day”, 27 million euros at the exchange rate. Given the recent sharp depreciation of the Iranian currency, even the authorities now use the Toman, equivalent to ten rials.
As these official data indicate, the Islamic Republic is well aware that the shutdown of the Internet is dealing a very hard blow to the national economy. However, between controlling the speech and criticism of Iranians that may reach abroad at the price of ruining the population even more, or opening the Internet and losing that control, the authorities have opted for the former, judging by the blockage of the network that has now lasted more than 50 days.
The absence of clear future prospects, the digital blackout and the climate of insecurity during the 40 days that the bombings lasted before the current and fragile truce have led some Iranians to consider emigrating. Tania is one of them.
More than thinking about herself when thinking about leaving her country, this 40-year-old director of an engineering company thinks about her 10-year-old daughter. “I don’t think my daughter has a future in Iran. I love my country, but circumstances force me to leave, and that is deeply sad,” he concludes. The woman then points out the frequent closure of schools, internet outages and the risk of the war being prolonged. “I always expected a change that would guarantee well-being and security, but the situation worsens every day,” he deplores.
Meanwhile, some supporters of the Government claim to be willing to sacrifice well-being in the name of endurance against the external enemy. They are those who, like Mohsen, interpret the survival of the Iranian political system as a victory: “The United States and Israel did not expect our resistance,” boasts this owner of an insurance service. catering in Tehran, which states that Iranians are “ready to endure any difficulty” to defeat their enemies.
This speech copied from the officer is not the one that prevails, says Simin, a mechanical engineering student in her twenties, who affirms that those who defend are a minority, although “their voice is amplified through state television.” He then mentions the presence of members of Shia allied groups of the Islamic Republic at security checkpoints on the streets of the country. “If they had that much support, they wouldn’t need to bring [a estos milicianos] from other countries like Iraq.”
“If you watch Iranian television, it seems that Israel has been destroyed and that the United States has suffered enormous losses,” says this student who, like many Iranians, turns to satellite channels in Persian for information. These chains have always been a key source of information, but now they are even more so, in the face of the widespread internet blackout. “Some supporters of the regime believe its propaganda and do not even want to negotiate; they do not watch satellite channels,” adds the young woman.
Sahar, a 50-year-old woman who lives in Tehran, repeats, for her part, a common criticism among Iranians: that the Islamic Republic cares more about supporting its allied militias in the region than the well-being of its citizens. “The precondition for an agreement [de paz] “With the United States it is not the Iranian citizens, but the survival of Hezbollah,” says this housewife, alluding to the fact that this also includes the territory of Lebanon, the country of that militia.
“What use would it be if the missiles reached the United States if we have no future?” the woman asks. She then states that the strength of a country “does not come from missiles, but from the well-being of its people. If there is another war and they destroy what is left of the infrastructure, the situation will get even worse,” says this Iranian.
Between the precariousness and the threat of the war resuming again, other Iranians, like Zahra, a teacher at a school in Tehran, ask themselves “why did their country go to war” and face so many hardships to now end up agreeing to open the Strait of Hormuz, handing over the enriched uranium that Trump demands that it renounce and pledging not to enrich that mineral. The woman, in her 50s, says, “If we give in, the enemy will not leave us alone.”
Foad Izadí, associate professor at the Faculty of World Studies at the University of Tehran, also considers it dangerous to accept certain conditions from Washington: “Removing enriched uranium from Iran and limiting control over Hormuz will encourage future attacks.” In his opinion, the United States and Israel follow a long-term plan: “It is not one or two years, but four.”
