This came in over the counter from a regular reader; it seems the threat of renewed sanctions is causing Iran’s currency to take a nose-dive. Excerpt:
Iran’s currency traded at a fresh record-low of 119,000 to the dollar on Tuesday, a loss of nearly two-thirds of its value since the start of the year as US sanctions loom.
The Iranian rial has been crashing in recent days as the country anxiously awaits the reimposition of full US sanctions, starting on August 6.
It hit 100,000 to the dollar for the first time on Sunday and continued its decline, losing 18 percent of its value in less than two days.
On January 1, the dollar was worth 42,900 rials.
The government has been in crisis mode, replacing its central bank chief last week.
The central bank issued a statement on Monday, blaming the currency volatility on the “enemies’ conspiracy” and vowing fresh counter-measures “in the coming days”.
And it couldn’t happen to a nicer bunch of mullahs.
We could argue the sense of our foreign policy re: Iran all day, but that last statement is the one that caught my eye: Iran is ‘vowing fresh countermeasures “in the coming days.”‘
Uh huh.
Iran’s nutbars-in-charge are always vowing fresh countermeasures. They are a paranoid bunch, and rant as they will, they just plain have no cards to play here. The U.S., largely in part to eased restrictions and (more so) technical advances on drilling, is far less dependent on Middle Eastern oil than we used to be. I have a funny feeling President Trump’s response to Iranian threats is going to be on the order of “knock yourselves out, cupcakes.”
Personally I’ll settle for not sending them any more pallets of U.S. currency.
The Iranian theocracy is dying at any rate. They have an increasingly restive younger generation, their birthrate is declining, and they have bad economic problems even without Western sanctions. Theocracies are, happily, a governing model destined for history’s trash heap. In the case of Iran, it can’t happen soon enough.
