Iran – Den perfekta stormen

“The recent unrest was undoubtedly rooted in economic distress,” Hassan Hakimian, emeritus professor of economics at SOAS, told Al Jazeera. “Decades of chronic corruption and extensive economic mismanagement were accentuated by international economic sanctions, adding to the misery of large swaths of ordinary people.

”On top of this, Hakimian said, Iran has suffered severe environmental-related problems in recent months – “critical  water shortages , power outages and crippling  air pollution  – generating a perfect economic storm”.The value of the Iranian rial, whose near collapse on December 28, when it fell to a  record low  against the dollar, first prompted the protest, remains at a low.

Banking ATMs are offline, flights and currency transactions remain limited, casualties of the shutdown of the National Information Network, Iran’s  state-controlled domestic intranet , which is essentially the country’s internet.

www.aljazeera.com/features/2026/1/16/why-is-irans-economy-failing-prompting-deadly-protests