Iran’s Economic Unraveling Deepens as Currency Falls and Scandals Multiply

Three-minute read

Iran’s overlapping economic and governance crises are converging into a single, corrosive breakdown. Within days of approving a long-delayed currency “unification” at 100,000 tomans per U.S. dollar, the market rate has already slid past 110,000, signaling a collapse of confidence in both the policy and the government that announced it. Prices of food, medicine, and fuel are spiking again, state newspapers are warning officials to “fear the inside,” and corruption scandals are eroding what remains of public trust. The regime’s own voices now echo a single refrain: the danger is no longer foreign—it’s domestic.

Currency Reform Without Credibility

The decision by the heads of Iran’s three branches to replace the 28,500-toman preferential rate with a “unified” rate around 100,000 tomans per dollar was billed as a step toward transparency. Instead, it has exposed the depth of fiscal exhaustion. As the free-market rate breached 110,000 tomans, importers froze orders, fearing another devaluation. Parliament members warned that the move would ignite a new inflationary wave, hitting fuel, food, and medical supplies.

The Darooyar plan, which replaced the 4,200-toman subsidy with free-market pricing for medicine, has already pushed drug and medical-equipment prices up by about 70 percent, according to Rooidad24. Even state-aligned newspapers now admit that hospitals cannot restock essential supplies and that patients are being forced to purchase treatments privately. The conservative daily Khorasan blamed “special companies with import monopolies” and a “mafia of medicine” profiting from the chaos—a rare acknowledgment of cartel power embedded in the state itself.

#Thread #Iran Regime’s Darooyar Plan: Another Plot to Deprive Iranians of Their Healthcare by @MansoreGolestan
Millions of Iranians are forced to buy more expensive medicine or go without it, as the prices of prescription drugs will increase by 20 to 30%https://t.co/fRg4BwYLA5

— NCRI-FAC (@iran_policy) July 20, 2022

Austerity for the Public, Privilege for the Elite

While the government tells citizens to tighten their belts, the regime’s own officials continue to flaunt excess. On November 10, a leaked document revealed that the head of the Environmental Protection Organization requested nearly 50 billion tomans from the public budget for a two-day trip to Brazil—a sum later reduced to 15 billion but still far beyond any plausible cost. The revelation, published by multiple outlets, ignited fury across social media and even among extremist lawmakers, who called it “a portrait of elite arrogance in a bankrupt state,” trying to distance themselves from the fiasco.

The government’s defenders claimed the trip was necessary to represent Iran at an international climate meeting, but the justification only highlighted a deeper contradiction: a regime preaching thrift at home while indulging in extravagance abroad. For ordinary Iranians—many of whom now ration food, delay medical care, and face nightly water cuts—the symbolism could not be clearer.

#Iran’s Middle-Class Youth Forced into Poverty Amid Economic Collapsehttps://t.co/oyVIuZzNKh

— NCRI-FAC (@iran_policy) September 14, 2025

Water Runs Dry in the Capital

As economic pressure mounts, the environmental crisis has turned existential. The state news agency ISNA reported on November 9 that Karaj Dam has reached its “dead volume”, meaning most of the remaining water is undrinkable or unusable. Officials described current conditions as “extreme drought” and “a national supply crisis” affecting Tehran, Mashhad, Karaj, Tabriz, and Arak.

In Tehran, residents are already experiencing scheduled nightly water cuts from 8 p.m. to 6 a.m., a measure reported by Fararu. The head of Mashhad’s Water and Wastewater Company admitted that local reserves are below three percent of capacity. Despite repeated warnings, the government has offered only appeals for “consumption management” rather than infrastructure repair or transparency about depletion rates.

The tone from officials has shifted from denial to resignation. Yet the message remains defensive: conserve, endure, obey—never protest.

#Iran Water Crisis Deepens As 19 Dams Near Depletion; Mashhad Reservoirs Below 3%https://t.co/4wfyLASV8l

— NCRI-FAC (@iran_policy) November 10, 2025

Corruption As Local Governance

At the provincial level, the same pattern persists. In Sistan and Baluchestan Province, the billion-toman Voshkool Khodro auto fraud case has revealed networks of influence linking municipal officials, judges, and relatives inside the judiciary. Victims from multiple towns say they were defrauded of savings by promises of cheap cars and have watched the accused operate with impunity. Local reports claim that some suspects’ family members hold posts in the courts handling the case, and that bribery offers have been made to secure releases.

No national body has intervened. Instead, authorities have remained silent—a familiar response that confirms, to many Iranians, that the rule of law is reserved for the powerless.

Regime’s Dual Exchange Rate System Fueling Massive Corruption in #Iranhttps://t.co/AOVqQsT5v2

— NCRI-FAC (@iran_policy) March 17, 2025

“Fear The Inside”

On November 9, the editorial headline from Jomhuri-ye Eslami—“Fear the Inside”—has become shorthand for the regime’s predicament. Quoting Ruhollah Khomeini, the former regime Supreme Leader and founder, it warned leaders to “fear neglecting the people’s livelihood, fear economic corruption, fear the field left to profiteers.” In effect, the paper acknowledged that social anger, not foreign plots, now poses the real threat to stability.

But these calls are not acts of conscience. They are survival alarms—appeals for better self-preservation within the ruling system, not for relief to the public. Every denunciation of corruption or warning about unrest ultimately ends with the same plea: protect the regime, not the citizen.

#Iran Faces Mounting Crisis: Snapback Mechanism Threats, Nationwide Military Alert, and Fear of Uprisinghttps://t.co/RM2d5Gbltz

— NCRI-FAC (@iran_policy) August 26, 2025

A System Consuming Itself

Across all sectors—the collapsing currency, the failing “Daroyar” subsidy plan, the decaying water system, and the scandals from Qazvin to Sistan and Baluchestan—the pattern is unmistakable. Iran’s clerical state has moved from mismanagement to paralysis, from propaganda to panic. Its leaders quarrel over symptoms but preserve the structure that causes them.

With the rial at 110,000 to the dollar and essential goods priced out of reach, the government’s “reform” vocabulary has lost credibility. The social contract has eroded into coercion and rationing. Inside the regime’s own press, the tone has shifted from triumph to warning—a recognition that the next crisis may not just weaken the system but turn it against itself. The ruling elite’s new mantra, “fear the inside,” may prove prophetic not because it advises vigilance, but because it confesses dread.