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Iran’s ruling establishment is increasingly treating economic deterioration and social dissent as parts of the same security problem. On October 7, 2026, parliament speaker Mohammad-Bagher Ghalibaf told the SSF command that, after failing in war, the “enemy” was now seeking “insecurity inside the country.” IRNA reported that he paired the warning with a pledge that the three branches of government would make “serious and immediate” efforts to meet the police force’s infrastructural, economic and livelihood needs. The combination is revealing: economic resilience and coercive capacity are being discussed together at the top of the system.
The rhetoric extends beyond foreign threats. Amir-Hossein Ghazizadeh-Hashemi, a former vice president under Ebrahim Raisi, described the January 2026 uprising as an attempted “internal coup” in which domestic actors supposedly sought to “lock the economy and people’s livelihoods” and prevent oil-sale revenues from returning to Iran.
That follows SSF Chief Ahmad-Reza Radan’s warning earlier this week that the bazaar itself is a front in an “economic war,” with merchants cast as economic “officers.” “The time is a time of war,” he told merchants, urging them to work with police against hoarding and warning them not to “play the enemy’s game.” Together, the statements show the regime increasingly securitizing inflation, shortages and market instability as potential triggers or instruments of renewed unrest.
Iran’s dollar hit 268,500 tomans despite fresh Central Bank intervention.
A senior MP says people are dying because #medicine and treatment are unaffordable, alleges insurers are effectively bankrupt, and says $100 billion in trustee funds has not returned.
Meanwhile, gas…
— NCRI-FAC (@iran_policy) October 3, 2026
Bread, wages and the dollar
The economic pressure is visible in parliament’s own language. MP Beitollah Abdollahi told the chamber on October 4 that each rise in the dollar feeds inflation because so many goods and services are linked to the exchange rate. He said government employees, teachers, retirees and other groups were struggling to meet “minimum necessities of life” and demanded that salaries and pensions be adjusted for inflation.
The security response is also becoming more explicit. Parliament on October 6 approved Article 22 of its “countering foreign infiltration” bill, prohibiting Iranian citizens from interviews or participation in discussions with media designated “hostile” by the Intelligence Ministry or linked to specified foreign governments. Violations can bring degree-six penalties, while officials are exempt. The Majles’ website reported that the provision passed by 174 votes to six, with two abstentions.
At Sharif University of Technology, university president Masoud Tajrishi gave an unusually clear description of how disciplinary leniency is being conditioned on political submission. Mehr reported on October 7 that fewer than 40 of more than 200 referred cases had resulted in final disciplinary rulings, while five or six students remained expelled. Tajrishi said students who “expressed remorse” received support, while some expulsions remained because students “insisted on their previous positions” and did not repent. The logic echoes a coercive practice long documented in Iran’s prisons: leniency conditioned on political recantation, with refusal in some historical cases preceding execution.
The Iranian regime’s judiciary chief is warning officials not to “anger the people,” treating #economic collapse as a security threat.
Inflation on some goods has hit 150–160%. The free-market dollar is near 270,000 tomans. Meanwhile the regime is tightening controls on…— NCRI-FAC (@iran_policy) October 6, 2026
Factional pressure
For now, the attempt to impeach Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi remains a factional pressure signal rather than an imminent government crisis. Tasnim reported that the impeachment request had been registered but had not reached parliament’s presidium and apparently originated with one MP. Its sponsors accuse Araghchi of crossing regime “red lines,” weak economic diplomacy and persisting with negotiations with Washington.
More significant is how Ghalibaf is containing the confrontation. Nobonyad noted that as many as nine ministers had previously faced impeachment moves, yet none reached a vote; it reported that the Parliament Speaker resisted advancing them after Khamenei publicly backed the government.
Two police officers were killed in another armed attack in Sistan and Baluchestan.
Meanwhile, the dollar remains near 270,000 tomans—and authorities now threaten websites that publish what they call “false” exchange rates.
On #WorldTeacherAppreciationDay, 47 Iranian teachers…
— NCRI-FAC (@iran_policy) October 5, 2026
That tension is increasingly centered on economic management. Economist Morteza Afqah said he had personally warned Abdolnasser Hemmati against the government’s exchange-rate policy when Hemmati was economy minister and argued that, after Hemmati’s removal and later return to economic policymaking, “the same wrong policy” was pursued with the results now visible.
The political implication is that the regime is trying to project cohesion because it can ill afford to display how deep its internal disputes have become. Cabinet removals are being contained from above even as MPs, security officials and former officeholders blame economic failure on incompetence, infiltration or political deviation. That may suppress visible rupture in the short term, but it also suggests a system with little tolerance for open disagreement: policy failures are increasingly recast as questions of loyalty and security, making meaningful correction harder without exposing the fractures the leadership is trying to conceal.