America’s Economic War against the People of Iran

America’s Economic War against the People of Iran: 

Obama Signs Executive Order Targeting Iran’s Currency and Auto Industry

By Timothy Alexander Guzman

The Nobel Peace Prize President recently signed another executive order targeting Iran’s currency, the ‘rial’ due to its nuclear program. It is intended to make the Iranian people angry at the government for high food prices and an economy that is continuing to stagnate due to numerous sanctions imposed by the West, particularly the United States. The Associated Press reported this past Monday that

“The new sanctions marked the first time Iran’s currency, the rial, has been targeted directly with sanctions, the White House said. The sanctions apply to foreign financial institutions that purchase or sell significant amounts of the rial, and to those who hold significant amounts of the rial in accounts outside Iran.”

The Obama administration’s new sanctions not only targets Iran’s government, it targets the Iranian people. It affects their everyday lives and their basic living essentials that include food and medicine. Targeting Iran’s currency adds pressure to food prices such as chicken, meat and cooking oil that already have increased to more than 60 percent in the last several months. Sanctions imposed in the past include oil and banking embargos that have led to shortages of foreign currencies leading to the decline of the Islamic Republic’s needed income, at the same time contributing to high inflation rates while weakening the buying power of the Iranian people. The Associated Press also reported that the ‘rial’ would not be able to be used outside of Iran for trade or other financial transactions:

Senior administration officials said the sanctions were designed to make the rial essentially unusable outside of Iran. The hope is that banks and businesses holding Iranian currency will dump the funds, making the rial weaker. The value of the rial has dropped by half since the start of 2012, the White House said.

In a report conducted by Reuters back in April said that

“Iran has suffered double-digit inflation for most of the past decade. Inflation began rising sharply at the end of 2010 when the government slashed food and fuel subsidies; since then the sanctions, imposed over Iran’s disputed nuclear programme, have pushed down its currency, adding to pressure on prices.”

The Obama administration is conducting economic warfare against the Iranian people because the latest sanctions target basic living essentials, especially food. When food prices are out of reach for the average consumer, it creates anger and disappointment among the population that unfortunately reflects the Iranian government’s actions and policies on the economic front right before the presidential elections scheduled on June 14th. The Iranian government is under numerous sanctions which make it difficult to operate in the best interests of the people. The leadership of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and his government has planned a strategy to counter economic sanctions with 3 months worth of food supplies. The question is would it be enough until the Iranian government finds a way around the economic sanctions imposed by the West?

The Obama administration hopes to start a propaganda campaign by painting the Iranian government as an oppressive regime who is working against the best interests of their own people. According to the Associated Press report,

“To that end, the U.S. last week eased restrictions on exports of advanced communications equipment to Iranian civilians, aiming to help Iranians interact with the outside world and shed light on what U.S. officials described as the regime’s oppressive attempts to stifle dissent.”

The US and its Western counterparts would be satisfied if the sanctions would result in another Arab Spring of 2011 right before or during the Iranian elections where public discontent is visible to the eyes of the world. But that is unlikely. It is intended to create a vision of Iranian society that its government is not working in the best interest of the people. The Obama administration’s idea is for the Iranian people to “Shed Light” on the Iranian government’s actions if they decided to stage angry protests on the streets. If it turns violent then the Iranian government would be seen as a repressive regime against the people.

The Iranian population is angry and frustrated with their country’s economic uncertainty, but they know who and what is the cause of their difficult situation. They understand that the West is responsible for their difficult living conditions.

They remember that the US and British governments installed the dictator Mohammad Rezā Shāh Pahlavī known as the Shah of Iran back in 1953 when Mohammad Mosaddegh was overthrown by the covert actions of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the British MI6. The Western plan is to systematically build a vision of the Iranian government as the true enemy against the Iranian people.

The Obama administration hopes that the Iranian government would crack down on angry protesters if they were to take place during the June 14th elections. That is the response the US and its allies would hope to achieve. It gives more ammunition to the US, UK and Israel to justify its planned attack in the future because the Iranian government is an oppressive regime that mistreats its people. But we all know who is pulling the strings behind the scenes and it is not the Iranian government.