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Two-minute read<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n The clerical regime in Tehran is confronting a crisis of political and economic paralysis<\/a>, exemplified by a disastrous policy reversal in Kerman province. On August 13, 2026, authorities launched a trial fuel scheme pricing gasoline at a refinery-cost rate of 87,200 tomans per liter<\/a>, only to cancel it hours later following immediate public hostility. This rapid retreat followed an explicit admission on August 8, 2026, by the regime’s president Masoud Pezeshkian, who acknowledged that a U.S. naval blockade targeting Iranian ports has cut off vital import routes and left the government without the financial reserves needed to procure foreign fuel.<\/p>\n Compounding this external pressure is an acute structural energy deficit that state infrastructure can no longer conceal. Iranian refineries, suffering from decades of underinvestment and lack of modernization, produce fuel with an octane rating near 85\u2014ten units below required standards\u2014according to Hosseini, spokesman for Iran’s Oil, Gas, and Petrochemical Products Exporters Union, who added that fuel imports are currently impossible. With daily national consumption reaching 129 million liters against a domestic production capacity of just 115 million liters, the state faces an unsustainable daily deficit of 14 million liters. To stretch supplies, officials have slashed quotas and limited fill-ups at station pumps to 15 liters, leaving motorists stranded.<\/p>\n In heat-stricken southern hubs like Bushehr and Hormozgan, public anger has reached a boiling point amid 50\u00b0C temperatures. The state-aligned newspaper Sobh-e Sahel<\/em> reported<\/a> on August 11, 2026, that despite local prosecutors removing refueling limits and doubling free-card allowances, kilometer-long queues continue to immobilize cities. Citizens forced to wait hours in sweltering heat expressed open contempt for government inaction. One Bushehr resident vented at local officials on August 10, 2026: “Mr. Governor… do us a favor and step out from under your air conditioner for 10 minutes to see the problems of these people!”<\/p>\n "You can terrorize an opinion. You cannot terrorize an appetite. You can shoot a demonstrator, and the regime has shot thousands. You cannot shoot #hunger<\/a>, and hunger does not get tired, does not go home at night, and does not negotiate," writes @MansoreGolestan<\/a>.\u2026<\/p>\n — NCRI-FAC (@iran_policy) August 13, 2026<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n