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The current snapshot of Iran’s political economy reveals a regime engaged in a corrupt and hypocritical calculus, sacrificing the basic health, economic stability, and even the physical environment of its populace to maintain its own power and fill the coffers of its affiliated networks. From the deepening environmental crises driven by policy failure to the dismantling of social safety nets and the open confession of systemic corruption, the ruling structure is exposed as one that prioritizes the printing of money and the propagation of propaganda over the welfare of the nation.
Fuel, Propaganda, and Poisoned Air
The regime’s energy policy is a direct engine of public suffering and a clear example of its internal contradictions. As gas supplies falter due to structural mismanagement, power plants are forced to burn enormous quantities of Mazut, a heavy, polluting fuel. State media reports confirm that Mazut consumption in power plants recently surpassed 21 million liters in a single day, a volume that would require an oil tanker convoy stretching 14 kilometers.
The social cost of this energy failure is staggering: the regime’s own Ministry of Health estimates that 59,000 deaths annually in Iran are attributable to air pollution, with nearly 7,000 deaths in Tehran alone. The regime effectively chooses to poison its citizens rather than address the underlying structural corruption and mismanagement that starves power plants of clean fuel.
Simultaneously, the regime is laying the groundwork for a new, politically explosive hike in gasoline prices. Official sites report the start of a pilot program to eliminate the generic station fuel cards; a move analysts view as a precursor to raising the price of gasoline purchased outside the basic subsidized rations. This tactic echoes the catastrophic decision-making that triggered the 2019 protests, with the spokesperson for the station owners’ guild publicly calling the 2019 price increase the “worst decision and execution.” The government’s attempt to introduce new constraints and price tiers is not an economic solution, but a desperate, high-stakes gamble to manage an inevitable financial collapse.
#Iran Air Pollution Linked to Nearly 59,000 Deaths Last Year, Health Ministry Official Sayshttps://t.co/q3ThSmXK15
— NCRI-FAC (@iran_policy) November 10, 2025
Fictional Finances and Stolen Sovereignty
The regime’s economic policy is one of calculated theft disguised as national sovereignty management. In a move widely seen by regime media itself as an effort to “cover up the collapse of the Rial’s value,” the regime’s president Masoud Pezeshkian ordered the Central Bank on November 22 to implement the removal of four zeros from the national currency. This cosmetic change does nothing to address the core problem: the government’s own chronic fiscal deficit.
Pezeshkian himself made a rare, stunning admission that reveals the inner mechanics of the crisis: “Inflation is due to the government’s deficit. When the government has a deficit, they are forced to print money. When they print money, high prices arise, and inflation pressures the poor and deprived.”
This is a brazen confession that the state is willingly and structurally “emptying the pockets of the people” through inflationary money printing to cover its own runaway expenses, particularly those linked to security and propaganda.
Further illustrating this cynical prioritization is the astronomical budget allocated to the state broadcaster, the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB), which is under the control of the Supreme Leader. The IRIB’s budget has grown by a staggering 3400% over the past 13 years. A state-run newspaper calculated that the per capita cost to every Iranian for this propaganda machine is 385 million Tomans annually, meaning every family is “condemned to pay a significant part of its budget for a media it does not choose.”
Rationed Water, Three-Tier Gasoline, Prosecutors on Alert: Why #Tehran Fears a November Flashpointhttps://t.co/1YWsOEjAQs
— NCRI-FAC (@iran_policy) November 14, 2025
Crisis, Corruption, and Cannibalizing Welfare
The state’s moral failure is most acutely felt in its willingness to cut the welfare of its most vulnerable citizens while enabling vast organized corruption.
In a shocking display of disregard, the Pezeshkian administration suspended the supplementary health insurance for retirees—a population already facing immense hardship due to unpaid and insufficient wages—on November 22, 2025. This suspension, due to the failure of the Retirees’ Fund to reach an agreement with insurance companies, directly impacts the 60% of retirees who live on minimum wage and are struggling with severe livelihood conditions.
The net result of this corruption is seen on the dinner table: Iranian meat consumption has plummeted to among the lowest in the world, estimated at around 32 kg per capita in 2022, with some reports suggesting current red meat consumption has fallen to less than one kilogram per year for many.
#Iran News: “One Day This Anger Will Overcome Fear”—Regime Insider Warns of Looming Revolthttps://t.co/ciBZMcDL3u
— NCRI-FAC (@iran_policy) April 1, 2025
Global Record Holders in Crisis
The devastating environmental crisis provides the final, chilling indictment of the regime’s failed governance. A senior official with the Water Industry Federation made a stunning admission: Tehran’s District 18 now holds the world record for subsidence, with parts of the country experiencing ground sinking 90 times the global crisis threshold. This ground collapse, a direct consequence of the “super water crisis” and decades of uncontrolled groundwater extraction, now threatens airports, streets, and defensive structures. The official further warned that this disaster is spreading across the capital and that subsidence threatens 40% of Iran’s population.
The government’s response to this litany of crises is not reform but repression and self-serving maneuver. By prioritizing the interests of the powerful “looting company” over the health and survival of the people, the regime demonstrates its profound hypocrisy and accelerates the erosion of its own legitimacy, pushing the nation toward an economic and environmental precipice.