Iran is already preparing for the perilous transition from wartime unity to a fractious peace marked by hyperinflation, a 10% contraction in the economy, power cuts and calls for a triumphalist government to end its unprecedented hunting down of dissent.
With peace not yet secured, the debates within the regime about Iran’s future are only just starting to emerge but its rulers are clearly thinking about how after surviving the war, they can survive the peace.
Open discussions on channels such as Azad are heard on alternative future postwar directions for the country. There are advocates of greater openness, and others such as Saeed Ajorlou, close to the Iranian negotiating team, who say, now the myth of a weak Iran has been shattered in western minds, the country must seek development through autonomy.
Much will depend on whether Donald Trump is really willing to lift the economic blockade on Iran by reducing sanctions and ending asset freezes, but few Iranian economists think the relief will be more than a small fraction of the estimated $270bn (£200bn) losses inflicted on the economy including its infrastructure, schools, energy, steelworks and housing.
Iranian commentators such as Fuad Habibi, a sociology professor at the University of Kurdistan, are wary of terms such as social collapse but are very open that the conditions that led to the bloody protests in January have not been solved, and indeed made worse by war.
He said: “Economic crises and livelihood dissatisfaction have clearly increased, even without precise statistics. We are witnessing a rare increase in prices due to the naval blockade and the consequences of the war. The internet blockade has also led to direct or indirect unemployment of at least 2 million.
“Since we do not have a society in which protests are expressed through official channels such as parties, guilds and unions, you will always be surprised.”
The current so-called cohesion is due to the existence of an external factor because, in the face of bombing and destruction by an enemy, internal solidarity is created. But as Hegel said, the moment a front wins is the moment a split begins within it.
If a deal does happen to end the war, the Iranian economy would enter peacetime facing food inflation at its highest since the second world war, with the annual food inflation in May at 130% according to the Statistical Centre of Iran. Inflation for meat and chicken reached 176%. Health experts even warn of an increase in malnutrition, osteoporosis and growth stunting, due to the way in which Iranians are having to eradicate dairy products from their diet.
The former communications minister Mohammad Javad Azari Jahromi wrote on his Telegram channel: “Trump and Netanyahu’s next bomb may not be gunpowder; it may be inflation. The battlefield is the people’s table, housing rent, and … gentlemen in charge, are you aware of the accumulation of dissatisfaction? Is the country’s economic defence ready, or, God forbid, will we be surprised again?”
Masoud Pezeshkian, right, meets with members of the Tehran Chamber of Commerce in Tehran, Iran. The Iranian president appears to have been deputed to keep the domestic wheels of government working. Photograph: Anadolu/Getty ImagesThe president, Masoud Pezeshkian, appears to have been deputed to keep the domestic wheels of government working, and has been repeatedly warning of hard times ahead, and the need to maintain social cohesion.
The ministry of energy was forced to deny controlled two-hour blackouts would start as early as next month despite the damage to infrastructure. Arash Najafi, the head of the energy commission of the Iranian chamber of commerce, had warned this week: “To maintain production, people must prepare themselves for two hours of daily shutdowns.” Incentives such as 30% price discounts are being offered to those who cut their energy consumption by 10%.
The sense of hardship is starting to emerge as internet censorship is slowly lifted, a decision so controversial that it has led to hardliners in the parliament trying to impeach the communications minister.
Rahim Ghomeishi, a political activist, wrote this week: “We had been thrown out of a broken boat. Fear of bloodthirsty whales, fear of terrible waves had taken over our entire being. Now that we have returned to the boat, we cannot be content just because we have been rescued.
“Poverty was not supposed to become normal in the country. We were not supposed to wake up to news of executions every morning. Most people were not supposed to be strangers unable to decide about their own lives and destinies, the most important concern in life was not supposed to be filling our stomachs.”
Although much of the domestic political debate turns on the wisdom of negotiating with America, or an arcane battle about how long Iran should renounce a currently theoretical right to enrich uranium, many believe the true prize from the war will be the end of the economic straitjacket. But the sums likely to be involved are not a bonanza.
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