Iran International
Iran’s parliament speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf ramped up pressure on the government to issue ration coupons for essential goods, invoking Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei’s warnings about the deterioration of the economy.
His initiative appeared to be a thinly-veiled rebuke to the relatively moderate president as Iran's ruling classes resort to traditional infighting as diplomatic isolation and sanctions mount.
“The livelihoods of various social groups are under duress. Once again I stress the urgent need for officials to implement the electronic coupon scheme,” Ghalibaf told lawmakers on Sunday.
“This is not the first time I have raised this point from this podium,” he added, in an implicit jab at President Masoud Pezeshkian — who defeated him in the 2024 election.
Ghalibaf’s call highlighted the depth of hardship and the absence of a coherent strategy from the cabinet, but also the continued factional attempts to score points.
The president has indeed acknowledged the severity of the crisis, but his responses remain vague and reactive, prompting critics to see him as resigned rather than decisive.
Blame game
Recent measures such as removing four zeros from banknotes are widely dismissed as superficial attempts to patch a sinking economy.
Several economists have warned in recent weeks that while such steps may cosmetically reduce exchange rate figures, they do little to address underlying problems of inflation, unemployment or a growing budget deficit.
But Iran’s crisis is not only economic. Its roots are political as well, shaped by fundamental foreign-policy choices that fall far outside Pezeshkian’s remit.
Both Ghalibaf and the Supreme Leader he invokes know this, yet they continue the blame game rather than confront the structural causes.
Khamenei’s intervention at last month’s cabinet meeting served mainly to bolster his image as a defender of the poor.
Television bulletins and newspaper front pages were saturated with his concern over rising prices, portraying him as attentive to ordinary people’s plight even as implementation of solutions lags.
For the Supreme Leader, the messaging is as much about maintaining legitimacy as it is about practical policy.
Priorities lost
The Pezeshkian administration does not help itself, offering almost daily reminders it is out of touch.
Last week, Beheshti University of Medical Sciences announced it was renaming its “Office of Vice Chancellor for Student and Cultural Affairs” to “Office of Vice Chancellor for Cultural and Student Affairs,” a cosmetic change that amused and angered many Iranians on social media.
In Manjil, northern Iran, local officials staged a ribbon-cutting ceremony for a new staircase at the regional power authority headquarters, just ten meters from an existing one.
A photo of the local Friday Imam inaugurating the stairs ran in conservative outlet Ghatreh News, sparking public frustration and ridicule, with many questioning priorities and the government’s will to address real problems.
The expletive-laden jibes on social media point to a deeper truth that neither Ghalibaf nor Pezeshkian are willing to admit: inefficiency in Iran’s theocratic system is not incidental, but systemic.
Located near the city of Kermanshah, Sarab Niloufar -- famous for its blue lotus flowers and migratory birds -- has turned into cracked earth after years of over-extraction of groundwater, repeated droughts, and unregulated farming, Tasnim reported on Tuesday.
Provincial authorities blamed excessive water use for crop irrigation, illegal wells, and reduced rainfall for the collapse of the lake’s ecosystem.
Soraya Ghorbani, deputy head of Kermanshah’s Department of Environment, said this week that more than half of the factors driving the crisis stem from “repeated planting of water-intensive crops and poor management of groundwater resources.”
She warned that even heavy rainfall would no longer be enough to restore the body of water due to severe shortage of its groundwater.
Experts say the drying of Sarab Niloufar mirrors a national trend of environmental decline.
A new satellite-based study shows that Iran is undergoing severe land subsidence across 106 regions covering about 31,400 square kilometers -- an area roughly the size of Belgium -- mainly due to excessive groundwater extraction for agriculture.
Iran’s water reservoirs have reached their lowest levels in decades -- with only 35% of dam capacity remaining, according to government data -- while 19 major dams are nearing depletion and three have already run dry.
Across the north, wetlands in Golestan Province have also shrunk dramatically after years of drought and dam construction, leaving vast tracts of land barren and driving away hundreds of thousands of migratory birds.
Environmentalists warn that the loss of these wetlands could turn fertile regions into new dust storm hotspots, worsening air quality and threatening nearby farms.
In western Iran, the crisis has both ecological and social dimensions. Once a key habitat and tourist attraction, Sarab Niloufar supported local livelihoods and served as a natural water reservoir.
Officials say its disappearance shows how climate change, mismanagement, and overuse are converging to push Iran’s fragile water systems toward collapse.
“Without immediate national action on sustainable agriculture, groundwater control and interprovincial water sharing, more wetlands will follow the same fate,” Ghorbani said.
Zanjani wrote on the social platform X that the UAE-based Crescent Petroleum had “not only seized Iran’s Oil Ministry building in London worth $125 million, but also confiscated $2.3 billion belonging to the National Iranian Oil Company held in Malaysia’s First Islamic Investment Bank.”
He added that the funds had been converted to euros and were awaiting transfer “to a Singapore bank,” while the company’s total claim against NIOC had reached $2.9 billion plus $13 million in accrued penalties.
According to Iranian media, the Kuala Lumpur High Court implemented a 2021 ruling by The Hague’s arbitration tribunal, ordering Iran to compensate Crescent over a failed 2001 gas supply contract for the offshore Salman field. The enforcement follows similar seizures of NIOC properties in London and Rotterdam.
On Monday, Iran’s state media also confirmed that a UK appeals court had upheld the confiscation of the NIOC House, a historic £100 million property near the British Parliament, ruling that it could be used to help satisfy Crescent’s arbitration award.
The judgment found that Iran’s attempt to transfer ownership of the building to another state entity was intended to evade debt recovery.
The Crescent case -- one of Iran’s longest-running energy disputes -- stems from a 25-year gas export contract. Iran withdrew from the deal in 2010, alleging unfavorable terms, prompting years of arbitration and legal challenges.
Once worth an estimated $13.5 billion, Zanjani made his fortune helping Iran bypass Western sanctions during the presidency of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad through complex oil trading networks.
Zanjani, convicted in 2016 of embezzling $1.9 billion in oil revenues, had his death sentence commuted to 20 years after agreeing to help recover state funds abroad. Released last year, he has since rejoined Iran’s oil sector under government oversight, according to local media.
The remarks by Expediency Council member Mohammad-Reza Bahonar come as Iran’s leadership struggles to contain public discontent while facing renewed UN sanctions.
The fierce subsequent backlash underscores deepening fractures within Iran’s conservative establishment over how far the state should go in policing morality and religious codes.
Speaking to reporters on October 3, Bahonar said the Hijab and Chastity Law—quietly shelved by Iran’s Supreme National Security Council (SNSC) in May—is “no longer legally enforceable.”
It was likely shelved due to concerns it would inflame tensions after the 2022 death of a young woman, Mahsa Amini, in morality police custody sparked nationwide protests which were quashed with deadly force.
“The paradigms of the Islamic Republic are being gradually and softly reformed,” Bahonar said, adding there is currently no binding or enforceable law regarding hijab. “The system’s general decision is that there is no compulsory hijab law in force.”
The veteran conservative bashed ‘Hezbollahis’—hardline Islamist loyalists—for attempting to dictate their preferences to the 90 percent of Iran's citizenry who “want to live” as they choose.
‘Savage, naked' West
At Saturday’s heated parliament session, ultra-hardline lawmakers launched a coordinated attack.
“Which system’s interests are you defending in the Expediency Council—the Islamic Republic’s or that of the savage, naked Western system?” senior MP Ahmad Rastineh said, addressing an absent Bahonar.
“Those who promote and defend nudity and say there is no hijab law are no different from those who frighten the nation with the shadow of war. Both target the Islamic system,” he added.
Amirhossein Bankipour, one of the law’s architects, blamed Speaker Mohammad-Bagher Ghalibaf and President Masoud Pezeshkian for blocking its enforcement, saying on state TV that both men had “failed to communicate Parliament’s decision to executive bodies.”
In a recent Fox News interview, Pezeshkian reaffirmed his opposition to coercion, saying he “does not believe in forcing women to wear the hijab.”
Bankipour invoked Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei’s position, insisting: “The Leader has stated several times—publicly and unambiguously—that there will be no retreat on the issue of chastity and hijab.”
Hossein Shariatmadari, editor of the hardline daily Kayhan, denounced Bahonar’s terminology, saying the phrase “compulsory hijab” was “fabricated by the enemies of Islam and the Revolution.”
“Mr. Bahonar has not explained what he means by using the term ‘compulsory hijab,’” Shariatmadari wrote. “If the hijab is a legal requirement—and it is—why should it not be enforced?”
Quiet retreat
Khamenei last forcefully touched on the issue in an April 2023 when he declared that disregarding the hijab was both “religiously and politically haram (forbidden).”
Meanwhile, the reformist outlet Ensaf News reports that Iran’s urban landscape has already moved past the old debate.
In Tehran and some other cities, the number of women wearing headscarves has markedly decreased, while many others wear loose scarves on their shoulders and the back of their hair.
The once-ubiquitous manteau coat has nearly vanished, replaced by long blouses and trousers. Crop tops and open shirts have become increasingly visible among young women—a quiet but unmistakable shift in daily life.
