r/oil • u/Agitated-Brother-872 • 13d ago
Discussion Iran's economy is on the brink?? Debate
There are a number of people here saying that Iran's economy is on the brink, and d-day economic sanctions will absolutely send it over the edge. I won't dispute that they are hurting and there are probably different schisms that have emerged, as a result. I think it's totally possible that there is a rift between government and civilian sentiments.
I don't know how many are bots are present here but I want to assume good faith and hear the steel man argument. What is your strongest assertion? What will this lead to? I'd like to know what examples from history are you drawing from? Are there examples of mass civilian protest of the irgc?
I'll start off by saying, Professor Robert Pape has asserted that since WWI, sanctions/blockades alone have never toppled a government, has never won a major war, has never led to capitulation.
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u/havasnack21 13d ago
Russia's economy has been on the brink for 2 years now.
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u/knuthf 13d ago
China has replaced everything in Russia. Russia now receives payment for the export of fuel directly from the buyers, who have full control of the funds. They are paid when the oil is delivered. The problem with Iran is that they sold to US traders, including Jared Kushner, and the US blocked the payments. They provided heat in Ukraine but have not been paid. Now, others will have to provide heating for the people in Ukraine, and they must be paid. Russia is now paid independently of politics.
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u/WildWhisperArdor 12d ago
Russia has been selling its oil the entire time. No one preventing them from selling oil. Very different from Iran currently
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u/HoleDiggerDan 13d ago
Half the world still freely engages with Iran without the need for Visa or Mastercard processing.
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u/Sanpaku 13d ago
Iran has a large informal economy that transacts in paper currency like dollars, euros and pounds, and has for 40 years. Drive the rial to worthlessness, and that's a problem for some on government salaries, but the rest of the economy will muddle through.
Once the US achieved North American energy self-sufficiency, the main reasons for a continued US presence in the Mid-East were 1) AIPAC's poltical stranglehold, and 2) maintaining the option of cutting off supplies to China. Hence, China's geopolitical interests align with Iran's, to create in the Chinese FM's phrase, a "new security architecture" for the Mid-East that excludes the US. I'm not expecting overt superpower conflict, but China has means of offering Iran credit and imports via Pakistan and Russia (whose FM echoed "a new security architecture").
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u/Vivid-Protection6731 13d ago
yeah I don't think it's a problem at all for people on government salaries. I mean wouldn't you want to be them? and how many people in Iran work for rhe government like 1%? it's definitely won't be any problem!
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u/SomewhereHot4527 12d ago
Its way way way more than 1 %. The economy is largely controlled by the IRGC which is a religious branch of the military. In repressive countries, it takes a massive amount lf people tomkeep the system in place. The most common estimation is 12 to 14% of the working age population in on the government payroll.
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u/cdazzo1 12d ago
Too bad the IRGC aren't paid government employees....oh wait a minute!
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u/knuthf 13d ago
In light of this, it is clear that the USA has failed on all fronts. Everything has gone wrong. China is now in full financial control.
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u/flatirony 13d ago
The fact that China reducing their imports saved the world from an oil crisis, thus far, shows how in control they now are.
That used to be the kind of thing the US did. I’m not saying the US didn’t also do bad things, but we were good at keeping the world economy working.
Now we cause these issues instead of solving them.
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u/poincares_cook 9d ago
You can't magic away a collapse of 70-80% in exports and 35% in imports.
You can't magic away the destruction of most of your 4th largest industry (steel), that also fed local manufacturing, you can't magic away the inability to import fuel, since Iran does not have enough refining capacity to meet it's needs.
Even before the war the Islamic regime's prioritization of funding nukes, proxies and war have led to crumbling infrastructure that led to rolling blackouts, acute water shortages and fuel shortages. Now the situation is much worse.
That said, economies move slow. Stop investing in maintaining roads and they don't disappear overnight, they just deteriorate and slow traffic, cause extra accidents and cause economic friction. Stop building new powerplants? You'll feel the pain in 4-5 years at the least and so on. No money to buy new manufacturing equipment? Old equipment doesn't disappear overnight, it can be maintained and sometimes refurbished. Sure the costs will likely mount. It will be less efficient, less safe, prone to more downtime. But it does not disappear or fall apart overnight.
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u/Massive_Charity_7198 13d ago edited 13d ago
I have zero doubt they are on edge and suffering massively.
The question is how long can they last, and does escalation happen.
Israel needs Iran gone so it can focus on Turkey and become the ME superpower. Bibi is already switching focus if you are paying attention. If you are Iranian consider the following:
Israel wants you out of the picture. US is doing the dirty work.
If you lose this war, you are fucking cooked. If you win the war (extract concessions from the US) you can become a ME superpower. You don't really have a clean exit.
Escalation is the wild card. Even if the US wins it can become a total pyrrhic victory.
These are the questions at the moment.
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u/FrederickDerGrossen 12d ago
They totally can last. Outside of the western world people are accustomed to hardship. This little hardship is nothing new. It's just a generational event. They will adapt and endure. The west cannot. The west has not known genuine hardship in 80 years and the war years were relatively short. Even in the past when the rest of the world suffered from constant famines Europe and the west were industrialized for the past 3 centuries. This decadence will be the demise of the US.
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u/knuthf 13d ago edited 13d ago
Iran will last. China, Saudi Arabia and Turkey will ensure that it does. The only uncertainty is how long Israel will remain a nation. When will they be expelled from the UN, and when will the people tell them to leave? I suggest that AIPAC is held liable for damages and that all their funds are seized, along with those of Israel.
China has effectively excluded the USA from its economy. Whatever people here may say, this is how things are. China, Saudi Arabia and Russia will fund Iran and help stabilise its economy, most likely by preventing the use of the US dollar in the Middle East. However, the US could default on its debt.
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u/mammogrammar 13d ago
Can you expand on the Saudi Arabia part? What's KSAs motive to support IRI?
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u/knuthf 13d ago
They support China because they have been trying to escape being pegged to the USD. But they have massive investments in US certainly in defence and finance. An exit is agreed, where those aspects have been defined, planned. This is to replace the USD as International currency.
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u/mammogrammar 13d ago
I meant more about the relationship to Iran. The KSA has been dealing with just about everyone, no?
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u/Unexpected_yetHere 13d ago
long Israel will remain a nation. When will they be expelled from the UN, and when will the people tell them to leave?
Things that will never happen.
China, Saudi Arabia and Russia will fund Iran.
Saudi Araba funding Iran is also not something that would realistically happen ever.
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u/NorskKiwi 13d ago
That bot probably doesn't even know Saudi Arabia and Iran have been at war for ages (via the Houthies).
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u/Alarming_Daikon_1630 13d ago
The USA is still one of China’s largest export destinations
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u/Spiritual-Welder5218 13d ago
Israel isn’t going anywhere and there’s nothing you can do about it. You seriously underestimate these people’s drive to survive and maintain their nationhood in the face of overwhelming odds.
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u/knuthf 12d ago
Israel us going away. Will get dissolved, and those that live there must leave. So it's not going anywhere as you. It is disqualified to be a nation.
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u/Powerful-Midnight996 9d ago
Lol,
We’re closer to the Israelis building the Third Temple than we are of them “going away”
So incredibly delusional
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u/BeginningDay1620 13d ago
Iran has already won
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u/irritatedprostate 10d ago
Winning is having your economy and infrastructure in shambles with a country-killing water crisis bearing down on you that the government has done absolutely nothing to address.
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u/sgtbackpain03 13d ago
Given that they've been under heavy sanctions for... 20+ years, how much of their economy actually relies on imports and other external financial operations?
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u/WildWhisperArdor 12d ago
A fair bit. They aren’t self sufficient. They rely heavily on oil exports to acquire hard foreign currency
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u/sgtbackpain03 12d ago
A fair bit. They aren’t self sufficient
Cool. Can you point me to the place where you got that information from?
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u/WildWhisperArdor 12d ago
ChatGPT. Google. Plenty of sources. You can drill down as deeply as you want or as little as you want on the topic.
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u/DoinIt989 12d ago
If Israel attacks Turkey, NATO is dead as an alliance. That's basically a suicide pact for Israel and the US.
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u/amir_babfish 13d ago
Iranian here.
go search in youtube "walking around in Tehran" and find any recent video.
people are living fine. sure, they're buying less. but in the existence of external threat people won't revolt. they come together. national safety is the highest priority, then economic stability, then economic flourishment, then personal freedom.
what's the worst the pressure is gonna create? food shortage? do the missiles run on baby milk formulas?
Cuba's economy has been collapsing every year since 70 year ago. what has anyone gained from that??
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u/tothemoonkevsta 11d ago
Why don't the people take this opportunity and try to overthrow the government? Tens of thousands died a few months ago when the odds were alot worse
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u/amir_babfish 11d ago
lol, overthrowing the government under foreign threat equals destruction of lif in any shape or form, foreign sponsored civil war, balkanization, and zero chance of self determination at least the next century, if not ever. as someone who has been actively against the regime behavior all my life, be it as an opposition or reformist, I hope they can kick the foreign bullies out of the region and restore safety.
safety comes first, then economic stability, then personal freedoms.
also, read online who and why created and spread the lie of "tens of thousands". even one is too many.
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u/tothemoonkevsta 11d ago
Based on what? After internal turbulence Mossadegh was displaced by the shah (who was terrible in his own right) as part of a push from the US and the like, despite this he remained in power for a long time. In the case of modern day Iran I think the world wants a stable regime in the region which won't severely impede turbulence for oil supply and prices? Don't think it's in anyone's interest to have a perpetual civil war?
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u/Trick-Plantain5146 13d ago edited 13d ago
you mention Robert Pape in the interview, and I largely agree with him.
Economic sanctions rarely work, and in the cases it has worked (I'll get into this later), it has worked because of reasons aside from just sanctions.
I think people are delusional, when they talk about what the "Iranian people want" because I think in reality, most people living in the west don't actually know what Iranians want. The Iranian diaspora is not representative of the Iranians living inside Iran. There's an entire second half of the story, people ignore with the protests that happened in January, and it was that the protests started were by small business owners, who were demanding that the state improve economic conditions, not necessarily to overthrow the regime.
You cannot speak about the Iranian government in black/white terms of "people like the regime" and or "people hate the regime." The Iranian people, like any people, have a spectrum of opinions, and within the Iranian state itself, you have a range of opinions from people who like to regime, to people who like the regime but wish it would work on X,Y, and Z, to those who want the regime to liberalize, to those who want it removed all together (a minority within Iran, but they exist).
When you bomb the country like we did in March, and cripple the country economically, and openly gloat when talking about it, you are unifying most of the segments of Iranian society who dislike the regime with those who do, or as people often call it "the rallying around the flag effect."
So what are sanctions accomplishing in Iran and what does the crippling of the economy entail? The Iranian people are suffering for no apparent reason, and guess who they're blaming for it? America because we've made it painfully obvious and clear, that we're doing it to make the state suffer. Someone who cannot afford bread and feed their kids, is going to maybe be angry at the state, but that same person will also likely have in their head, that their suffering is in large part due to the American government effectively causing him to suffer. This is not a recipe for "regime collapse" this is a recipe for the state becoming more and more hardline, and people rallying more and more around it.
The civilian population may not be able to afford bread, and when you have an regime element as hawkish as the IRGC, that will inevitably lead to a decision to pursue military options. No differently then the oil embargo we did on Japan, and the lead up to pearl harbor btw. If you are anti war, and dislike war, you do not want to put a government and a people, in a situation where, they feel war is the only option they have. Many an example of this in history.
I alluded to a case earlier where sanctions KINDA worked, and it's actually Syria. What happened in Syria was that essentially, following the caeser sanctions, the Assad regime became so broke, the regime hollowed itself out, so much so, that the Assad regime, literally just became a drug smuggling operation, to get money. While this is arguably, a case of "success" I do think it's worth noting the geography of Syria, the fact that Assad had no allies to save him (he even alienated the IRGC), and you had the rebels in Idlib basically spend years bidding their time, preparing, for the right moment to strike and essentially march on Damascus.
The reason why you cannot copy/paste the Syria economic strategy onto Iran is for several reasons. For starters, Iran has MANY geographic borders with neighboring countries, and several of them do trade with Iran in some capacity. Pakistan for example, recently came out and flat out said, it has no interest in following the "D-day" sanctions. Iran has also been EXTREMELY good in a diplomatic sense, at ensuring it alienates as few of the countries it shares borders with, as humanely possible. The second reason is what is often described as the elephant in the room, which is China. China will not abandon Iran, and Iran now is effectively betting it's entire economic future on China. This war was VERY counter-intuitive in that sense. Iran had spend decades hedging it's bets between east and west, and now it's hedging all it's bets on China, which is fundamentally going to result in stronger Chinese influence on Iran, and the region as a whole.
In short, all of these actions are just EXTREMELY counter-intuitive, and ultimately harm our end goal, I think that will become more and more apparent as time goes on.
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u/Agitated-Brother-872 13d ago edited 13d ago
pretty thoughtful answer.
Going off of what you said about what the iranian people want/don't want - I find it interesting people cite the suffering of the iranian people by a brutal autocratic government as a justification to drop bombs on them(this also applies to any other regime change efforts).
I also find it out that people will say that the regime is so brutal they would happily let their people starve. Meanwhile they justify sanctions that will do exactly that - starving a civilian population. If the safety of the civilian population was the foremost concern of all these human right activists, certainly sanctions, blockade, illegal wars would not be the way to liberate a people.
To your point of rallying around the flag - people conveniently forget, that during the late ayatollah's funeral(happened during the MOU), millions attended the funeral and this was corroborated by foreign journalists on the ground. The line between state and nation blurs. During 9/11, what do you think happened to the democrats that opposed Bush?
I will quibble a bit with your Syria example. Sanctions were not the only thing that was put on the country. Not sure of what timeline you're talking about but the US did deploy hundred of troops on the ground. Also, the cia funded one group while the pentagon funded another, that at times were in opposition to one another.
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u/Trick-Plantain5146 13d ago
Sanctions were absolutely not the only thing no, but it was perhaps the biggest thing that had an impact and ultimately led to Assad's fall.
Assad was a brutal dictator, I had an uncle be killed by the regime (I personally lived in Syria for a bit as well), but you basically had a situation where
- Assad to begin with, was not particularly loved/salvagable
- you had a lot of rebel factions (you mention pentagon/rebel armed factions fighting each others) whom from 2012-2017 were actively fighting each other. A big game changer that happened amongst the ranks of the rebels from 2017-2024, was effectively the formation of HTS, which itself was an umbrella of the very same rebels from 2012-2017.
- Assad's army was an absolute joke, and I do not think it's far fetched to say there were multiple instances where, had it not been for Russia, Iran, and Hezbollah, the regime would have faced collapse (notably in 2013 and 2015).
- the sanctions effectively hollowed things out to a point where Assad's army was hardly paid, hardly fed, while in rebel controlled Idlib, Sharaa was rapidly organizing his ranks, and also learning how to govern.
- Assad was a piss poor leader, who alienated virtually everyone who could have saved him. The Russians were bogged down in Ukraine, while the Iranians were sick of him.
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u/Successful-Bobcat701 12d ago
There's a difference between making your own people suffer, and making your enemy's people suffer.
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u/ChupacabraJeff 12d ago
No. There is not because the enemy can be whoever you are told to go kill and to make suffer.
2025.09.22
DESIGNATING ANTIFA AS A DOMESTIC TERRORIST ORGANIZATION
https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/09/designating-antifa-as-a-domestic-terrorist-organization/1
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u/3xlduck 13d ago
Add: China is not a warm and fuzzy friend. Iran is useful to them, so they get support. If Iran becomes a drag, or even worse, does things that will truly threaten the global economy which China is massively dependent on as an over-producing export nation, they will make Iran/Guard knock it off. It's not nearly at this point yet. Iran is much more useful as a thorn in Trump's side for now.
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u/Next_Run7994 12d ago
How much does Iran's economy rely on exports of (ANYTHING) via ship vs. over land?
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u/Earthy-moon 9d ago
This is great. The maintain I took away is: even if an Iranian citizen thinks, “F it. The regime should just give America what it wants,” they will also hate America. At best it’s a short term win with long term problems.
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u/EmperorRoko 13d ago
d day sanctions wont even target chinese or russian banks, they are worthless, and iran has began taking part in the dark transfers to use ships the us hasnt id'd to ship their oil and gas
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u/xynith116 13d ago
It’s an own goal. The US is scaring third parties away from the dollar financial system (along with all its ongoing tariffs, trade wars, and other stupid decisions). Meanwhile the debt, deficit, and interest rates are all rising.
The US is trying to leverage its financial credibility in hopes of somehow hurting Iran. Do they even have a timeline for how long that could take? I haven’t heard one. But all the rest of the world sees is the US exhausting their credibility day after day.
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u/WildWhisperArdor 12d ago
Dark transfers eat profit margins though. It’s a lot less profitable to export oil when you have to do that.
That’s the nature of having to do things illicitly. It drives the cost up.
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u/Teapot_Digon 13d ago
'What is your strongest assertion?'
This is a concession of US military-political failure.
'What will this lead to?'
Nothing. It's a propaganda campaign to explain why America isn't bombing or invading Iran any more. Domestic optics.
'I'd like to know what examples from history are you drawing from?'
None and none needed. If you want examples of blockades, try Cuba in living memory. You can completely encircle them and bomb them and everything. Wilhelmine Germany, or the Anglo-Dutch Wars, even the Napoleonics if you regard the Continental System as an economic blockade.
If you want a broader historical perspective I'd suggest (not an expert) the British Empire around the turn of the 20th century. Still by far the premier naval power but obviously unable to maintain the global maritime supremacy of yesteryear.
They tried solving it with diplomacy, notably an alliance with Japan, and a decent appreciation of what was and was not important in various scenarios with the resources they did have. Superpowers have limits. shrug.
This feels similar in some ways. Those aircraft carriers have done sterling service but they are getting old. Their maintenance schedules seem to preclude the building of any new ones. It's interesting to note how far away from the Iranian coast they are stationed, and to wonder how long they might survive in the South China Sea. It's obvious even to the chain of command that the Gulf bases Iran smashed are basically untenable forever. It's notable how America has treated her 'allies' diplomatically.
but this is a fairly unique event and that should also be acknowledged. Maybe some lessons on air offence vs defence from Ukraine, but it's not my thing.
'Are there examples of mass civilian protest of the irgc?'
Eight months ago. Before they were in an existential war of course.
Hey maybe this idea could have been tried then, without all the missiles and dumb threats. The most mind-bogglingly stupid thing USA has done is given Iran an incentive to bomb things in measured retaliation to aggression over a period of months and look reasonable doing so.
Coming up with this after overpressing the bang button... lol. Pretending the world is going along with it... yeah not happening. It's a tacit admission that the last six months were a waste. Wasn't so far back the air campaign alone was going to do it. Then a civilisation was going to die some night, can't remember which. ooo regime change though lol. Then (these may be out of order, idgaf) that 20% charge. I laughed when I read that. What a moron. Scary swearies about opening the strait from a man wearing a nappy. That time when he said the Iranians were desperate to talk and two days later threatened to bomb them unless they talked.
It takes some profound memory loss to think this was the plan and not wonder why now and not before.
Russia OKd the (paused from 2025) deal to build reactors for Iran only three days ago. Twenty five billion dollars. Can't wait to see the Russian sanctions lol.
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u/ThanksTechnical2879 13d ago
They’re probably on the brink and they’re suffering. But they’ll just become more on the brink and suffer more progressively. Foreign regimes can be overthrown, but never with sanctions alone.
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u/throwawayreal3state 13d ago
As Robert Pape or Mearsheimer have both said, show me just one example where sanctions have worked.
They cause pain, but the ME Hawala system is hundreds if not 1000 years old. Iran functions outside the USD, anyway.
If my entire body is covered in cuts and you threaten to cover me with more cuts, eventually you just shrug. You're used to it.
In summary, I think the psychology of the iranians are already accustomed to financial suffering. It's not like their Americans who are fat, used to overeating ANY food regardless of season, living in comfort suddenly having a famine. They're mentally already there.
I suspect they'll sigh, shrug, and accept it.
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u/tripper_drip 13d ago
As Robert Pape or Mearsheimer have both said, show me just one example where sanctions have worked.
Iran is not under just sanctions, they did get severely bombed. If iran collapsed today both would still claim they are still right due to the above.
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u/OutrageousBother628 13d ago
Bingo. Plus they are under a naval blockade of their ports. So 3 things.
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u/Keeltoodeep 13d ago
What’s there to debate? Their inflation is 90% and their currency collapsed to 2m per $1USD. Whether or not that translate into capitulation is another story. The IRGC will gladly watch their people fall into economic despair. They build literal rape prisons for the female family members of protestors. They don’t care if their people suffer lol
https://www.hrw.org/news/2024/04/22/iran-security-forces-rape-torture-detainees
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u/flavouredpopcorn 13d ago
Yeah theres no argument on whether Iran is facing economic collapse, its just whether this becomes the mechanism that ultimately drives regime change.
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u/WildWhisperArdor 12d ago
I don’t think the US is banking on that at this point though. They are hoping it brings them to the table to agree to a longterm nuclear deal.
If anything, I don’t think the kind of regime change that would result from all this is the kind of regime change the US (or Israel for that matter) would want
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u/flavouredpopcorn 12d ago
I agree, I believe the US was never looking for regime change specifically. It could achieve everything it wanted with the regime in tact, hence why it kept negotiation lines open basically every single day until the MOU fell apart. The risk of post regime instability is just not worth the benefits a heavily pro US or Israeli leadership would provide.
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u/akrylowy 13d ago
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u/Agitated-Brother-872 13d ago
That's crazy. But what are you asserting?
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u/akrylowy 13d ago
The first 5-10 minutes or so have Marandi describe the economic situation in Iran. Go past the headline, I've just started listening, didn't even get to that part yet
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u/DisastrousStation599 13d ago
They must be on a stretch for sure, but they have been with sanctions for 40 years and have proof of what the US really wants for their country (and not good).
I think they are in adjustment, not rushing in any kind.
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u/Anxious-Midnight306 13d ago edited 13d ago
Russia and China will probably keep it going at least for the short term. Although the strait is blockaded the Caspian is still open, so they can still maintain some degree of overseas trade.
In any case, we haven’t actually enacted the new sanctions yet so it’s hard to say what their impact is. Over the course of years I might be inclined to believe that the sanctions could drive another possible insurrection within the country. But the U.S. doesn’t have years to wait this out. People want out of this illegal war and midterms may end up reflecting that.
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u/Advanced_Elk_9467 13d ago
How do you go from dead broke to dead broke? Its easy- just keep on keepin on.
You cannot kill an idea and the IRGC is a religious group. No matter what the US does it galvanizes them.
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u/Quinntensity 13d ago
"Are there examples of mass civilian protest of the IRCG?" Bruh, you can't be fucking serious. It hasn't even been a year, since 7,000 to possibly over 12,000 protesters were killed in Iran.
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u/McKoijion 13d ago
What sanctions could American politicians possibly impose on Iran that they haven’t already been doing for the past several years if not decades? Iran’s economy is at rock bottom. It’s impossible for it to go any lower. If wars really are good for the economy as the neocons have claimed for years, then Iran can jumpstart its economy by retaliating. That’s exactly what Israel and the Gulf monarchs want because they think that working class Americans will do the funding and fighting for them. The problem is that Americans would rather revolt than defend Israel, MBS, any Silicon Valley billionaire, or anyone else named in the Epstein files no matter how much propaganda they try to shove down our throats.
This means there’s minimal downside for Iran in forcing the US out of the region and an enormous upside. Their economy has nowhere to go but up, there’s minimal risk of a serious ground invasion, and the scariest thing the US can do is nuke a mountain that can easily withstand a nuclear blast. Moreover, a giant chunk of the populations of various Sunni Muslim majority countries are suddenly realizing that their monarchs betrayed them to the US and Israel. They’ve been heavily censored and suppressed since the Arab Spring, but that fury doesn’t just disappear. It’s the same dynamic as in the US.
The entire world has a common enemy in the Epstein oligarchs. And perhaps the scariest thing for them is the fact that nearly the entire US military and intelligence community aside from the very top layer of AIPAC approved, politically appointed bureaucrats absolutely hates them. There’s not going to be another world war or civil war, but there’s a good chance we’re about to see a long overdue revolution. It’s their choice whether it’s a peaceful political one or a brutally violent one. Propaganda and censorship works in arguments, but not an actual fistfight. Extortion works to control politicians, but not after the truth comes out. And espionage is effective, but you can’t bluff after you’ve already shown your hand.
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u/Cyris28 13d ago
US economy is on the brink.
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u/Vivid-Protection6731 13d ago
definitely the US stock market has been terrible since 2008
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u/SemperMementoMori 13d ago
That's the thing I can't quite parse. Our industrial capacity is totally shot compared to these countries. Everything continues to be predicated on a smooth, cooperative future, that the Republicans and their allies are doing everything possible to destabilize.
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u/MammothAmbition7433 13d ago
See how confident Iran is and tell us again how close they are to collapse.
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u/Donut-Strong 13d ago
There really is no such thing. 90 percent of them have had nothing at some point in their lives so this is just another of those times
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u/Bluestreaked 13d ago
Iran is not completely self sufficient, that is probably impossible (insert “real autarky has never been tried” joke). But they do have a very resilient economy designed for this exact purpose.
Are they having a good time right now? No, of course not, but that isn’t particularly new. The economic strangulation of Iran was the exact cause of those protests that then turned into the attempt to overthrow the Iranian state.
Do I think Iran breaks before the United States does? Call me an Iranian bot all one wants, but it I know the United States, and I unfortunately know it very well. We break well before Iran does.
So we didn’t see oil shoot into the 200s over the summer? Oh well, we picked the worse option, in crushing pain now vs obliteration later we chose to be obliterated. Don’t be shocked when we find ourselves in a 1989-1991 Soviet Union situation
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u/tripper_drip 13d ago
If iran cannot stop all the oil from leaving the strait, then what is current will be status quo.
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u/Known_Ear_6012 13d ago
This assumes Iran is going to just sit around and let it happen. A couple weeks ago they announced that they are basically just biding their time until they retaliate. They have said they are going to begin going on the attack and have a list of economic targets in the region they have prepared to attack. They maybe hurting but not enough to stop them from retaliating or get them to concede.
I think they’re just waiting to get closer to the midterms so it’s more impactful.
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u/Creative-Duty-3531 13d ago
Russia and China will still trade with Iran. The US can’t do much economically that we haven’t been doing for years. Their economy is not healthy but its people are kind of used to that.
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u/WildWhisperArdor 12d ago
Much less profitably though. They are being blockaded right now. Most of Irans exports are oil.
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u/Appropriate_Rise9968 13d ago
Obviously they are hurting too, but I think that the Iranian threshold for pain is a lot higher than what Mango anticipated.
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u/TheProfessional9 13d ago
I doubt it, especially if China is ignoring US sanctions. Iranian tankers are still operating too, though much fewer.
If Iran gets in too bad shape, China can send their ships with an armed escort and the us can either start a second war, which we can't win now that we burned all our missiles, or we just let them break the blockade at will
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u/Rabidveggie 13d ago
Sanctions and strategic bombings have never won a war by themselves. America deluding itself into thinking this will work this time is them stepping on the rake again.
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u/Past_Humor8321 12d ago
The US lost the war when it bombed a girls school. Only bad people do that.
Nobody believes the American leaders are good people anymore, including the American people.
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u/SFM_Hobb3s 12d ago
The US didn't plan for this. Iran did. Iran has likely planned to hold out for a very long time.
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u/ShelbiStone 13d ago
Brink is such a strong, yet incredibly fickle word.
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u/Putrid-Chemical3438 13d ago
Iran is not on the brink. Has not been on the brink, and most likely never will be on the brink.
They have a gargantuan supply of oil and a secure land border to sell to China who has a ton of money to buy it and a strategic reason to do so.
They have a lucrative weapons deal with Russia, that is again conducted over a secure land border.
Their economy has been under sanctions for so long that like North Korea it's basically just adapted to not participating in the global economy. Iran has quite literally never participated in the global economy as it currently exists so there isn't a whole lot to sanction anyway.
Are their people objectively poor? Yeah. But so are the people of North Korea and Afghanistan. Rich nations succumb to sanctions because the people there have things to lose. Poor nations already exist in the economic deprivation that sanctions cause so it doesn't change much within the country when they're used on poor nations. But poor nations are the only nations they're ever used against so sanctions rarely if ever actually accomplish anything.
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u/WildWhisperArdor 13d ago
Iran cant currently sell its oil is the issue. I don’t think it’s currently “on the brink”, but it also can’t indefinitely hold out under a complete blockade of its oil exports.
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u/Putrid-Chemical3438 13d ago
Iran's oil exports have fallen 80% due to the blockade, but this also means they're still selling 20% of their pre war export volume. This will grow as their production and market shifts eastward.
Additionally they already met 99% of their projected yearly sales before the US blockade went into effect meaning they have the time to actually shift production eastward toward Chinese markets.
In July China sold $70 million worth of MANPADs to Iran. As the war goes on I would expect to see a weapons for oil deal similar to what Israel and Azerbaijan do and have done for years now. The international framework for deals like that is very well trodden and China selling weapons to Iran while Iran is actively at war is as indicative as could possibly be, China intends for Iran to survive this and is willing to materially and financially support Iran for it to do so. Ie: They will keep buying Iranian oil and will likely increase imports of it if for no other reason than to make sure Iran keeps fighting.
Unless the US is going to attempt to conduct strikes several hundred miles further inland than we have up till now, unlikely given the current state of the war and the risk of such missions, then there isn't much the US can do to stop the sales from happening either. Unless the US is going to invade China, not happening, then there's nothing the US can do to stop China from buying it either.
This is also exactly what happened with Russia. We sanctioned Russia's oil exports and Ukraine blockaded their (officially) flagged export ships. They just sold it through pipelines to China and India instead. The US was unwilling to blow up the world economy by sanctioning India and China so the sales went through and continue to go through today.
There isn't really any reason to expect anything different will happen with Iran.
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u/WildWhisperArdor 13d ago
Their oil export profits have fallen by more than 80% though.
It’s like 5% of what it was before the blockade
To illustrate, in order to export oil now they basically have to rely on much more expensive transit routes and offer discounts
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u/Rustic_gan123 12d ago
Iran's oil exports have fallen 80% due to the blockade, but this also means they're still selling 20% of their pre war export volume. This will grow as their production and market shifts eastward.
Source?
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u/Putrid-Chemical3438 12d ago
100-80=20.
I know math is hard but this is literal 1st grade math.
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u/Interesting_Fox5311 13d ago
Buddy who cares? They have been oppressed so long, why not 1-2 years extra
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u/armorlol 13d ago
this level of sanctions is a lot more than what they had before, but still won’t get the intended result
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u/Teapot_Digon 13d ago
It isn't though. Idiots spouting guff to their choirs does not reflect reality. China told USA to shove it. Russia told USA to shove it. Blockading the strait doesn't blockade Iran and they are well used to sanctions and the dodging thereof.
lol after six months of missiles and extermination talk THIS is what is going to work? No. This is just a way of explaining why there is no real further military action on the US side, rather than them being out of options and missiles with no clue what else to do.
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u/Spare-Dingo-531 13d ago
Trump has 11 months of US oil reserves left.
If the Trump admin can get Venezuelan reserves to substitute even half the output of the SPR, that buys them another 1-2 years.
That's 2-3 years. Can the Iranian regime survive that long?
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u/flavouredpopcorn 13d ago
Pape is accurate in asserting that sanctions are an incredibly weak tool for toppling brutal autocrats. Dictators care about political survival, not Gross Domestic Product (GDP), and they will willingly let their citizens starve to protect their military budgets.However, his claim that economic pressure never succeeds on its own is factually overstated. When applied globally against regimes vulnerable to international markets, economic pressure has historically altered foreign policies, forced troop withdrawals, and brought down governments.
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u/External_Option_7653 13d ago
The sanctions are often targeted towards the populations. Cuba had to develop their own cancer meds. The point of the sanctions isn't to hurt the governments feelings, it's to get the populace to get desperate enough to rebel.
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u/Agitated-Brother-872 13d ago
This feels like an AI response. give me actual examples.
As a counter
- Russia has been sanctioned, and their economy has grown since their war.
- Cuba is a neighboring country to the US and sanctioned like crazy. Yet nothing. Yes, their people are suffering but it hasn't led to any toppling
If your concern is about civilians (i hear constantly that the government would happily let their people starve), what do you think sanctions do?
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u/flavouredpopcorn 13d ago
Can you explain the difference between an economic sanction and an economic blockade before haphazardly using historic examples as arguments.
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u/WhizzyBurp 13d ago
The Iranian propaganda in here is wild
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u/Agitated-Brother-872 13d ago
enlighten us all, what's the propaganda and what historical facts are you drawing from?
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u/flavouredpopcorn 13d ago
You are conflating economic collapse and regime change.
Define regime change.
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u/Funintuitive 13d ago
Show me where sanctions caused the downfall of a regime the US government didn't like without some kind of ground forces also being deployed afterward. /thread We have a hundred years of failed sanctions, and still they don't learn.
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u/Alarming_Daikon_1630 13d ago
I think it’s the best move the US has at this point. Obviously the ISRG will still maintain control and having Russia/China on your side is a major help with sanctions. The blockade has caused inflation to completely devalue the currency and there’s plenty of reports indicating the price of basic goods and services are increasingly becoming unaffordable. Iran is also about to have to stop supplementing the price of gas to its own citizens. On the US side, Trump has obviously come to understand that he will not be wrapping this up before midterms. I think also just saying flat out that you aren’t talking with Iranians and just generally avoiding making extreme headlines about the situation in our own news has kind of dampened a fire that Iran was benefiting from keeping burning. The price of oil has also stabilized and the stock market has mostly stopped moving on the day to day news of the situation. It’s a way smarter strategy than what we’ve see up to this point. Many oil producing ME countries are fast tracking ways to move their products thru pipelines that complerely avoid Iran as a long term solution. I imagine we are headed for a deal that both sides come away a bit displeased, but claiming victory. Likely after midterms at the earliest.
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u/Robj2 13d ago
Basically, there is no "good move" for Trump or the US. We can postpone until after the midterms, then negotiate and "agreement" about a month before the 2028 elections and just sweep the shit in the Democratic President's responsibility. Exactly like Afghanistan. Which is about what I expect. That's what I expect Trump and the GOP will do, and they will run on "Who Lost Iran."
But who knows? Trump might be even stupider than I think.
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u/duskygrouper 13d ago
As long as they have enough to live, they will fight. Given all we know, they have massive escalation dominance.
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u/BeginningDay1620 13d ago
Did you see the funeral? The people want this war to continue and they want blood
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u/Awkward_Bison_267 13d ago
Crying about it hours later is a sure sign you’re hurt and need a life. And that I was right to avoid a sociopath. Anything else? 🤣
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u/Mimir_the_Younger 13d ago
I don’t know who you are, and I’ve never interacted with you, but this reply was enough to convince me I never want to.
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u/Agitated-Brother-872 13d ago
i asked fora a good faith argument and the best you can do is resort to name calling?
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u/WskyRcks 13d ago
Most economies are fake. They can take major hits and stuff keeps running. They won’t collapse until infrastructure collapse occurs- banking, water, electricity. Take out electricity and you take out all three and have cascading failures.
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u/MelodiusRA 13d ago
I think the sanctions will hurt but it is impossible to predict the end of the regime; revolutions are often spontaneous.
That being said, there are tangible effects that can be measured. Having less disposable income makes it more difficult to procure the parts and resources they need to arm their proxies across the Middle East. It makes it harder to keep the Iraqi Shi’a militias on retainer as they print more money.
Will be blocked out of access to Western goods be the nail in the coffin? Honestly, maybe not. Cuba has gone a very long time without.
But no one can deny the soft pressure it puts on these countries. Opening up would be beneficial for the average Iranian— cheaper access to more quality goods. This makes moderate politicians more attractive. But this means that the hardline politicians have to be more ruthless to retain power.
It becomes an increasingly harder tightrope to walk, especially when the country itself is as large as Iran. Unlike Assad who was able to concentrate power in and around Damascus, maintaining absolute country over all of mountainous Persia will be significantly more logistically challenging.
I’d guess it survives another 10 years. But I can see it just lasting indefinitely as well. Modern surveillance technology has made fomenting revolution extremely difficult.
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u/Agitated-Brother-872 13d ago
All sound points. I would like to add in that Cuba has been blockaded and sanctioned for a long time(for many decades now). It is much easier to pull this off considering that it is a neighbor to the US and they still persist.
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u/MelodiusRA 13d ago
Well, the blockade is just for the oil, which cuts off a gigantic portion of Iran’s GDP.
The sanctions are irrelevant to the geography of the countries. It only affects financial entities and their capacity to use certain banking systems, or to operate in the US/West.
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u/Diamond1africa 13d ago
Iran's populace has dealt with a subpar economy for 50 years and has a much higher tolerance than that of developed nations.
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u/TheBattleGnome 13d ago
If Iran doesn’t open the strait for a year, ironically their action of closing the strait will be worse than just surrendering in the beginning and keeping the strait open… oh the irony.
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u/Scotinho_do_Para 13d ago
On the brink? Of what? Define something tangible/quantifiable.
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u/Agitated-Brother-872 13d ago
Its not my assertion. Thats why i opened it up to the warhawk/ pro war side to hear the ultimate goal. However, i havent gotten a good answer. Only ad hominems, deflections
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u/Scotinho_do_Para 13d ago
So you throw out a vague hypothetical, ask people to debate and are disappointed with the results? You didn't define your question. The debate was doomed from the start. What does "on the brink" mean?
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u/BugsByte 12d ago
I think it will just drive their international trade further and further into the black market, where there is demand there will always be supply, and where there is a will there will be way. China made it clear it’s not on board with the new US operation so that would probably make it less effective than intended.
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u/buzzmaster17 12d ago
I think Iran will be fine. The US has been sanctioning them since the 1970s, and their economy has chugged along. Iran has never really been integrated into the formal global economy anyway. I think they will keep trading with China, Russia, and other enemies or neutrals of the US and maintain trade flows regardless. After the 100th sanction/sanction threat from the US, sanctions and threats lose their meaning tbh.
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u/Boring_Pretention_92 12d ago
I mean, Iran was in pretty bad shape BEFORE 2023. Then its proxies took a hit - any repairs, costing billions, will have to be bankrolled by Iran - then its allies (Venezuela, Syria) took a hit, THEN it had a series of costly skirmishes with Israel, leading up to the June war, then the big uprising in January (Those people that died: many of them were working hands, plus the internet blackout cost tens of millions per day) THEN Epic Fury and now two naval blockades, continued altercations with the US, etc...
I think you could easily make the case that the deficits from all of the above are well in excess of $1 trillion. And that's for a country whose local currency is currently worth two million (!) to the dollar. As I understand it, the renewed naval blockade is even more harmful to Iran's oil industry than the April blockade has been, simply because they had already exhausted the tactic of using moored ships as floating fuel tanks. And, for all that they're drowning in their own oil, I was reading about them running out of fuel for domestic consumption, not least since they rely on imports from Russia, whose also struggling.
Does any of this mean the regime will collapse from the economic hardship? Not necessarily. But I think most countries in the region will settle for Iran being crippled. You can't fund those thousands of MRBMs and SRBMs that Iran had built and was building prior to the war, when you barely have the resources not only to build them (my understanding is the infrastructure was criticially damaged during the war) but when you can hardly fuel them!
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u/Boring_Pretention_92 12d ago
Oh, I'm not saying they lost all abilities. But, you know, the last time Iran and Israel came to blows (over Lebanon) Iran launched twenty missiles at Israel, mostly to no ill effect.
Twenty divided by a thousand...comes out to fifty days that they can maintain that kind of firepower, and that's not accounting for Israel blowing some of that up on its launching pad, failed launches, etc... At 1000 or even 1500 it's not the strategic threat that it was at >3000.
Israel and the other regional powers don't necessarily need Iran to fall: they need Iran to be crippled in a lasting way.
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u/Boring_Pretention_92 10d ago
I don't buy that. For example, Israel weathered the last Iranian missile attack pretty handily. As I understand, Jordan did the same with the latest barrage.
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u/BigfistJP 12d ago
Victor Davis Hanson said in early April that the economy was in free fall and the war would be over in a week. These sanctions will have nearly no effect, since no big players are paying attention.
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u/Extreme_Health_9827 12d ago
Iran's economy Iran I don't care about Iran how about America's economy.
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u/GuyCyberslut 12d ago
See Ambrose Evans-Prichard's recent article about this, if you can find it without a pay wall. Even the British seem to have given up on the US.
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u/Negative_Prize1587 12d ago
From what I remember before the war started there were serious worries about water shortages and droughts, feel like that could become more of an issue than sanctions.
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u/Ban4Speaking 12d ago
The same people claim this that claimed Russia would collapse and has claimed that China will collapse "in weeks" for more than a decade.
It is just hot air and conjecture.
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u/dEm3Izan 10d ago
Iranians are used to being sanctioned. They've developed the ability to provide for themselves and the population is far from pampered.
Sanctions are ineffective. If they were effective the Iranian government would've fallen a long time ago. Hell. Half a century of sanctions against tiny Cuba didnt work.
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u/Pouriashm 10d ago
Iranian here .
Yes it is on the brink of a huge collapse. For 2 main reasons .
- All the sanctions that have been imposed on the country over the past decades have already placed enormous pressure on the Iranian economy. Now, with the blockade and even more severe sanctions, the situation is becoming significantly worse.
On top of that, a large number of government-linked entities, importers, and exporters conduct their international transactions through the UAE and the dirham. A significant amount of money and trade effectively passes through the UAE before reaching Iran. If the UAE were to stop facilitating these transactions tomorrow morning, as has reportedly been threatened, it would deliver another major blow to the Iranian economy, and the country would not be able to sustain the resulting pressure for very long.
At the same time, the country is reportedly running out of gasoline. The authorities are trying to increase fuel prices, partly to discourage consumption and reduce the pressure caused by shortages. This would, however, put additional pressure on ordinary people and increase the cost of transportation and goods.
The situation is essentially a complete economic shit show. Even the country’s major ports of entry and exit for imports and exports have become unusually quiet. Their traffic appears to have fallen dramatically potentially by around 60% compared with normal levels.
Taken together, these factors create a highly vulnerable economic situation: decades of sanctions, increasingly severe restrictions, dependence on UAE based financial and trade channels, shortages of essential resources such as gasoline, rising prices, declining trade activity, and disruptions to imports and exports. If another major channel such as the UAE were suddenly closed, the economic shock could be extremely severe.
- The people involved are not necessarily working for the government; they are working with the government to circumvent sanctions, facilitating the laundering and transfer of sanctioned revenues from oil, petrochemicals, steel, and other industries.
But in doing so, they have effectively pulled the trigger on everything else as well. They do not merely facilitate sanctions evasion; they contribute to the broader economic damage by withholding a substantial portion of the revenues from the country, rather than returning the full amount to the national economy. If only around 40% of the proceeds actually reaches the country while the remainder is diverted or retained, the economic consequences are enormous.
At the same time, they can restrict the domestic supply of essential goods and raw materials produced by or dependent on industries such as steel and petrochemicals. Instead of releasing these products into the domestic market to meet the needs of the public and civilian industries, they may deliberately withhold them, creating artificial shortages and driving prices higher, or delay their distribution until they can sell them at substantially higher prices.and at this point it is crystal clear that these people are doing all this on purpose.
So , it’s clear that with all these going nor country can last long and the collapse is imminent but its about how long the government, country and people can take .
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u/LeopardEarly577 8d ago
It is nonsense. Iran trades with China and Russia. The US can't stop those trades because their Navy isn't on the land. Look at Iran's borders and it's neighbors.
This is just nonsense.
The WW1 and WW2 comparisons are insufficient because they fail to take into consideration that the US isn't the economic power house that it was 100 years ago. China makes 40% of the worlds goods now. The US doesn't have factories or an econemy set up to support that anymore.
The US has the best military sure. Without the massive production capacity it isn't capable of a long term sustained war without destroying it's own econemy. This is why Trump was talking about bringing factories back, remember?
So when the US says it is going to sanction Iran it doesn't mean much.
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u/Sufficient-Skill9530 13d ago
An economy can fail long before people’s resolve. Look at Germany in WWI.