Iranians protest as currency plummets
Discussions continue abroad for furthering economic sanctions
As Iranians marched through the streets blaming their government for the collapse of their currency, an adviser to Iran’s supreme leader said the country would defeat the “conspiracy” that has severely depressed its economy.
Protesters blamed Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad; many have called him a traitor for mismanaging the economy. The Iranian economy has been badly damaged by international sanctions over the country’s nuclear program — widely feared in the West to be for military purposes.
In the past 10 days, the Iranian rial has lost one-third of its value next to the U.S. dollar, bringing out the protesters.
The government responded with riot police, who fought with protesters and swept through a Tehran bazaar, removing street-corner currency traders.
So far, demonstrators have saved their criticism for Ahmadinejad and have refrained from speaking out against the country’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
While tempers flared in the Iranian capital, the United States and the European Union were contemplating further sanctions against the Middle East regime.
In Brussels, European diplomats were going as far as discussing a wide-reaching trade embargo against the country — something diplomats described as a generally “taboo” subject in the European Parliament because of the harm such sanctions cause to the general population, not just its government.
EU countries aren’t yet eager to take the step of a full embargo, as many see it as drastic, but there is debate within the parliament whether to take the step.
However, many diplomats said the implementation of a full embargo is still far off, if not impossible.
The EU has already imposed a series of energy, business and financial sanctions against the country.
Washington lawmakers are hoping that furthering their sanctions would apply enough pressure on Iran to drop its nuclear ambitions — something they so far haven’t achieved.
While the current proposals are only that, proposals, they would punish foreign banks for handling any significant transactions with the Iranian central bank. Currently, the U.S. only imposes such restrictions on oil-related transactions.
The hope is that these measures would put more pressure on already-depressed foreign currency reserves in the country.
One congressional aide said the feeling on Capitol Hill is that banking sanctions against everything but medicine and food would see to the quick collapse of Iran’s economy.
Despite the discussions on both sides of the Atlantic, UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon Friday tabled a report saying the sanctions already imposed against the Islamic regime were having a “significant” effect on the Iranian people.
The report said the effects included a rise in inflation, commodity prices and energy costs, as well as increased unemployment. Stocks of medicines and other important supplies have seen a decline in the last year.