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Reuters reported that Iran would step up efforts to tackle problems created by U.S. sanctions crippling its economy while a senior official warned of a painful response to any further attack. Parliament Speaker Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf said the U.S. should understand that the rules of the game have changed before it is too late following recent military exchanges. Those exchanges included U.S. strikes on three Iranian vessels after the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps fired ballistic missiles at two U.S. Navy ships.
Qalibaf said in a speech published on his Telegram channel that from now on any attack against Iran’s interests and security will receive a faster, heavier and more painful response. The speaker added that alongside the military front Iran’s main battle was now over production and people’s livelihoods. He cited sharp currency fluctuations, inflation, unemployment and market management as major challenges according to the news agency.
Qalibaf stated that Iranians could tolerate hardship but not mismanagement or inaction and that they expected the government to act quickly, Reuters reported. Iran’s Statistical Centre placed annual inflation at 66 percent in July with consumer prices 87.9 percent higher than a year earlier. Food prices rose 128 percent year on year according to the centre’s figures.
Iran’s Economy Minister Ali Madanizadeh said Tehran planned to respond to U.S. economic pressure with reforms and rejected the notion that sanctions would cause it to change course according to state media. “They speak of economic pressure and isolation, of breaking off financial ties and they think that by pressuring the economy of a country they can change the decisions of its people,” Madanizadeh said. “I have to clarify one point: the responsibility of reforming Iran’s economy is with its government and people, not with the U.S. Treasury,” he added.
The Economy Ministry established an Economic War Headquarters to address problems caused by the war, the semi-official Tasnim news agency reported. Economy Ministry Deputy Morteza Zamanian said the headquarters was intensifying its work to resolve those issues according to Reuters. Three senior Iranian sources told the news agency that the U.S. campaign to throttle Iran’s economy by blockading oil exports and stopping sanctions evasion is growing increasingly difficult to withstand.
President Masoud Pezeshkian told state media that foreign trade had shrunk by nearly 35 percent because of sanctions and a naval blockade of Iranian ports. Iran had nevertheless managed to sell about 90 million barrels of oil during a short-lived memorandum of understanding signed with Washington in June when oil sales were briefly permitted, Pezeshkian said. The Islamic Republic News Agency carried the president’s assessment of the economic conditions.
