Iran began implementing a long-delayed plan to drop four zeros from its battered currency after President Masoud Pezeshkian instructed the Central Bank on Saturday to begin two years of preparations.
Under the order, the Central Bank of Iran must prepare the shift within two years before managing a three-year phase in which old and new banknotes circulate together.
Once that cycle ends, all transactions will be settled in the new unit and existing notes will be withdrawn, according to Iranian state media.
Parliament earlier approved a law defining the “new rial” as equal to 10,000 current rials, with “gheran” designated as the subunit.
Economists remain divided over the effect of the redenomination. The policy is expected to require printing new notes, destroying old ones and modifying banking and accounting systems.
Critics argue that without wider reforms the move is mainly cosmetic, citing Argentina, Zimbabwe, Romania and the former Yugoslavia, where redenominations did little to restrain prices.
“This policy is largely cosmetic,” economist Ahmad Alavi told Iran International in August. “Without tackling the roots of inflation – from liquidity growth to systemic inefficiencies – removing zeros will not restore the rial’s value.”
Debate over deleting zeros began in the late 1990s and circulated through multiple administrations. Parliament first passed the plan in 2020, but the Guardian Council sent it back for revisions. The current version – retaining the name “rial” and introducing “gheran” – won final approval in October and has now entered execution with Pezeshkian’s signature.
Long path to implementation
Officials say the overhaul aims to simplify calculations, improve the legibility of Iran’s currency and prepare the ground for broader fiscal measures.
The abundance of zeros in the national currency had caused accounting and operational difficulties, Shamseddin Hosseini, head of parliament’s Economic Committee, said last month, adding that similar redenominations had been undertaken by countries such as Turkey in 2003 and 2005.
The reform comes amid persistent inflation of about 40%, a more than 90% loss in the rial’s value since US sanctions were reimposed in 2018, and widespread economic hardship.
With the formal order issued, the central bank begins one of the Islamic Republic’s most extensive monetary reforms, whose outcome still hinges on the government’s broader effort to control inflation.
Tehran’s unveiling of a towering statue depicting the Roman Emperor Valerian kneeling before pre-Islamic Persian King Shapur I has renewed criticism of the Islamic Republic’s appeal to nationalist sentiment following the June war with Israel.
For over forty years, the theocracy purged ancient Persian history from schoolbooks, replacing it with post-Islamic narratives. But after the 12-day conflict with Israel, officials have turned to the distant pre-Islamic past to rally a divided society.
From murals of ancient kings and soldiers to patriotic songs added to Shi’ite mourning ceremonies performed before Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, Tehran now embraces imagery once deemed heretical by its own revolutionary ethos.
'Kneel before Iran' campaign
Tehran’s Revolution (Enghelab) Square was the scene of an unusual spectacle on Friday as officials unveiled a massive bronze statue depicting Roman Emperor Valerian kneeling in submission before Sassanid King Shapur I, commemorating Iran’s victory at the Battle of Edessa (260 AD).
The event was held under the slogan “Kneel before Iran,” part of what authorities describe as a campaign to project “national unity and historical pride” following the June war with Israel.
Tehran Mayor Alireza Zakani, a staunch ultraconservative, said on X: “Enmity with Great Iran can only end in kneeling before this historic nation.”
Municipal official Davood Goodarzi said the installation would be accompanied by visual displays depicting “other victories of Iranians over foreign aggressors,” including the defeat of British forces by local commander Rais-Ali Delvari, Mirza Kuchak Khan’s resistance against Russian troops, and Surena’s triumph over Rome at the Battle of Carrhae in 53 BCE.
The goal, Goodarzi said, is “strengthening concepts such as national dignity, social unity, and Iranian identity.”
The statue, he said, would remain temporarily at Revolution Square before being moved to a city gateway “where it will stand as the first emblem of Iran before diplomats and foreign visitors.”
Unveiled women were allowed to attend the unveiling ceremony—an uncommon scene at events organized by Tehran’s ultra-hardline municipality.
The turn to the pre-Islamic past
The sharp reversal also recalls remarks once made by Khamenei. In a 2011 speech, he asserted that “all the great military victories of this nation came after Islam,” dismissing pre-Islamic accounts as “things that are not documented.”
In 1987, he had said that prophets triumphed over kings such as Cyrus and that “nothing remains of these monarchs in history but names remembered with derision.”
Nevertheless, pro-government social media accounts have now gone so far as to circulate posters equating Khamenei himself with Shapur, showing him standing with a staff as Benjamin Netanyahu and Donald Trump kneel before him. The caption reads: “You will kneel before Iran.”
'Hypocrisy'
Pro-government figures have hailed the move as a patriotic success. Conservative political reporter Hossein Saremi posted: “Today’s grand Iranian gathering showed that people and the state share one essence: Iran itself. Nothing can take our homeland away.”
Others, however, called the spectacle “hypocrisy.” Journalist Gholamhossein Pashaei wrote on X: “Every year you close Pasargadae to stop people from celebrating Cyrus Day, yet you unveil Shapur’s statue in Enghelab Square with drums and fireworks during Fatimiyya (mourning period)!”
Dissident commentator Hamid Asafi called the ceremony “a perfect snapshot of the Islamic Republic’s contradictions.”
On Telegram he wrote: “A week ago they closed Cyrus’s tomb out of fear of the crowds, and now they glorify Shapur in the same breath. The Islamic Republic fears living history but poses for selfies with its corpse.”
He added: “They know people no longer respond to rosaries and sermons. That’s why they’ve brought history back to the stage—in a controlled costume. If they can’t erase the past, they’ll try to own it.”
The irony deepened as UNESCO formally recognized Cyrus’s Charter as one of the earliest human-rights documents.
President Masoud Pezeshkian wrote on X: “Iran, the cradle of dialogue, justice, and coexistence, can still inspire peace today.”
Users swiftly replied, questioning how such pride could coexist with a government that blocks access to Cyrus’s tomb each year to those wishing to visit it on his birthday.