Sandstorms and dangerously polluted air led to the closure of schools and some government offices in Iran’s capital Tehran as well as several other cities across the country on Monday.
Abed Maleki, a senior member of the city’s governor-general’s office, announced the closures Sunday evening, and cautioned vulnerable residents to take precautions. Banks and the Tehran Stock Exchange would remain open, he added.
According to reports, several cities from the North Khorasan province to the southwestern Khuzestan province are also shut down, with many citizens decrying the government’s discrimination in announcing the closures. The level of pollution is much higher in eastern and southern cities but the government rarely shuts down schools and businesses.
Tehran was logged as the most polluted city in the world in April with air quality hazardous and visibility very low largely due to the very high level of airborne particles. The capital’s pollution is mainly blamed on poor government policies, desertification and low water levels, as well as climate change that has intensified sandstorms.
Since mid-March, massive dust storms have hit various parts of the country, causing a health crisis that has forced the government to shut down schools and government offices in some cities and cancel outdoor sporting events on multiple occasions.
Dust storms, originating in both Iran and neighboring countries, have also increased markedly in recent years in several Iranian provinces, notably Khuzestan, Kermanshah, and Sistan-Baluchestan.
Moreover, the usage of highly polluting diesel and mazut fuels in power plants jumped in Iran in 2021 on top of increases in previous years.
A day after Fars claimed that Iran’s oil exports in 2022 will reach $36 billion, it published an article quoting senior officials that contrary to other reports, Iran relies very little on barter in exchange for its oil.
There have always been suspicions and some evidence that Iran did not receive much cash payments for its crude exports banned by United States’ sanctions, and it received goods, especially from China, its biggest customer. There was evidence during international sanctions from 2011-2016 that Iran imported sometimes useless merchandise instead of getting paid in cash for the illicit oil exports.
Fars quoted oil minister Javad Owji speaking in a television program, who said that “All oil incomes are received at the due date. We receive 80 percent in cash and we import medicines and essential goods with the remainder.”
Owji underlined that the 20 percent of barter was not imposed on Iran, but were cargos ordered based on need and expected quality of goods.
Mohsen Khojasteh-Mehr, general manager of the National Oil Company of Iran confirmed the same information to Fars, but slightly in more vague terms. “Oil export income returns to the country, which means receivables are received,” he said.
Suspicions that Iran might not have been receiving cash for oil exports are reinforced by the financial hardship the government faces. Many government-sector workers have not been paid for months while the national currency has lost 25 percent of its value since March.
Facing a large budget deficit estimated to be at least a 50—percent shortfall, the government stopped food import subsidies in early May. Some officials have said the subsidy was costing $15 billion a year and was expected to reach $20 billion with rising global inflation.
The move pushed food and other prices higher in May and June bringing the overall official annual inflation rate to 55 percent while food prices rose by 80 percent compared with May 2021. This led to many protests around the country.
Fars said that oil revenues are collected in various ways as third-party US sanctions restrict Iran’s banking international banking options.
Creating new and undisclosed bank accounts, networking through the informal hawala system or money exchangers, using the potential of smaller banks, barter and receiving payment in the national currencies of oil importers were the main methods used, Fars said.
After former US President Donald Trump withdrew from the 2015 nuclear deal, or JCPOA, in May 2018 and imposition of sanctions, Iran’s oil exports declined to almost 10 percent of what they were before. The government relied on the National Development Fund, or its foreign currency reserves, to finance essential needs.
Amid its economic crisis, Iran has so far refused to make a deal with the United States to revive the JCPOA and lift the sanctions. This has led to demands by politicians and people for agreeing to the US terms and the hardliner government backed by the IRGC is engaged in a daily campaign to convince the public that overall situation is good and there is little need for a nuclear deal.
Oil exports began to recover in November 2020 as Joe Biden won the US election and signaled his intention to open talks with Iran to revive the JCPOA. Iran’s oil shipments kept rising in 2021 from around 250,000 barrels per day to more than 750,000, raising its income and claims that it had defeated US sanctions.
Speaking in an interview with Didban Iran [Iran Monitor] news website, the Esfahan University professor said that if protests continue in Iran they will turn out to be more dangerous for the country than a nuclear bomb.
Iran’s runaway inflation, currently at an annual rate of 55 percent, has impoverished a vast majority of the population and is seen as the result of a nuclear program that has brought on international and US sanctions for the past 15 years, crippling the economy.
Meanwhile, Renani added that because of the ongoing dissent, officials are losing their self-confidence and keep making hasty decisions secretly to cope with a multitude of problems.
He said revolutions have been constantly taking place in Iran for 110 years now. "The constitutional revolution of 1905, the Qajar Dynasty’s fall in 1920, the Iranian oil nationalization movement of the early 1950s and the Green Movement of 2009 against Islamic Republic policies have all been revolutions."
However, he added that all of those revolutions were the consequences of Iranian elites and leaders' inability to maintain dialogue among themselves and with the people.
Renani warned against the declining self-confidence of decisionmakers in Iran, adding that Iran is at a stage where too many crises happen at the same time. "In such a situation, the regime is entangled in a quagmire of instability, challenge, and wrong social and economic decisions. The only thing the government can do is fight fires: “Putting out fires here and there while ending up in a strange confusion as a result of its inefficiency," the economist said.
He was most likely referring to hurried decisions made by President Ebrahim Raisi’s administration to cope with the country's biggest economic crisis in its modern history. Those decisions including a desperate attempt to eliminate food subsidies and increase prices of essential commodities.
When these decisions led to a major crisis in early May and culminated in protests, the government announced various new measures including rationing bread, issuing coupons and promising higher cash handouts, while so far it has not able to do any one of those things. In the meantime, price kept rising and dissatisfaction has led to a situation hard to control or continue.
Since 2017, Renani has been leading a series of academic dialogues to discuss solutions to Iran’s problems. He says the "Development Dialogues" is an academic attempt to look for the missing give-and-take between the elites and the government during the past 110 years.
"Throughout this time, intellectuals thought that Iran can reach development only through regime change," he said. He added that Iranian academics are collecting some 50 different narratives that could determine the route to development. However, he regretted that "We have not been able to turn this into a real dialogue among those who pursue Iran's development."
"Unfortunately, many join the discussions only to prove themselves. They are not there to listen to others in order to correct their narratives. Some even refused to join the conversation to avoid possible criticism," he said, most likely pointing at lack of interest on the part of the officials to listen to critics.
Renani added that some 95 percent of private sector institutions in Iran are formed and maintained by less than five individuals each. "That is because we cannot talk to each other," he stressed.
