{"id":237778,"date":"2021-04-12T08:54:27","date_gmt":"2021-04-12T13:54:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ncr-iran.org\/en\/?p=237778"},"modified":"2023-02-01T04:59:18","modified_gmt":"2023-02-01T03:59:18","slug":"irans-economy-suffers-from-effects-of-corruption-not-sanctions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ncr-iran.org\/en\/news\/economy\/irans-economy-suffers-from-effects-of-corruption-not-sanctions\/","title":{"rendered":"Iran\u2019s Economy Suffers from Effects of Corruption, Not Sanctions"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Iran’s IRGC controls huge construction projects<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Iran\u2019s economic problems have been growing steadily worse for many years. Iranian officials have made concerted efforts to blame that situation on Western sanctions, but this narrative ignores the fact that the downturn was ongoing even when the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, or Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, was in full force. In fact, it was in December 2017, several months before the US pulled out of that agreement and began re-imposing unilateral sanctions, that the Iranian people staged their first in a series of nationwide uprisings<\/a>, spurred in part by grievances over rising levels of inflation, poverty, and unemployment.<\/p>\n

Although that uprising quickly assumed a broad political message, the first constituent protest was organized in the city of Mashhad specifically as a response to worsening economic indicators. Subsequent demonstrations clarified that the Iranian people attributed that trend to government mismanagement and corruption, and not to foreign pressure. As a matter of fact, even after US sanctions were re-imposed and expanded on the Iranian regime, protesters were regularly heard to chant slogans such as, \u201cThe enemy is here; they are lying when they say it is America.\u201d<\/p>\n

Increasingly, the regime\u2019s narratives about sanctions and the economy are being contradicted not just by ordinary citizens and political activists but also by the regime\u2019s economists. In recent remarks, some of which have been carried by state media, a number of those experts have sought to quantify the effects of longstanding corruption that spans government entities and a private sector that is dominated by political elites and members of the regime\u2019s hardline paramilitary, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cIran’s political economy has been increasingly taken over by the mafia from the end of the Iran-Iraq war until today,\u201d said Farshad Momeni, a professor of economics at Allameh Tabatabai University. After that conflict empowered the IRGC politically, subsequent \u201cprivatization\u201d of government-run industries served to channel more and more wealth into the hands of IRGC front companies like the Khatam al-Anbia<\/a> construction conglomerate. Today it is estimated that the IRGC controls, in whole or in part, entities that account for well over half of Iran\u2019s gross domestic product.<\/p>\n

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Iran\u2019s Regime Pays Terrorist Quds Force Mercenaries Five Times More Than Iranian Nurses<\/div><\/div>
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