MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
Iran is seeing its biggest protest in years. Thousands of people have taken to the streets in several cities across the country to protest the economy.
A MART脥NEZ, HOST:
Inflation in Iran has skyrocketed, and the country's currency has plummeted to a record low. Anger is growing over sanctions on the country's ruling government, and businesses have closed as many students have joined the demonstrations.
MARTIN: NPR's international affairs correspondent Jackie Northam has been following these developments, and she's with us now to tell us more about it. Good morning, Jackie.
JACKIE NORTHAM, BYLINE: Good morning, Michel.
MARTIN: So first, could you just describe these protests and what prompted them?
NORTHAM: What started this round of protests was, as you say, the economy, which is in very bad shape. You know, Iran has struggled under sanctions for more than a decade. And because of that, its oil exports, which are the lifeblood of the country's economy, are sharply curtailed. And so, too, is investment. The local currency, the rial, has plummeted. Inflation is running over 40%. And the government recently published a draft of the budget, which predicted that the real incomes of the salaried middle class will fall by about half. So on top of everything else, that seemed to ignite these protests.
MARTIN: How is the regime reacting to these protests so far?
NORTHAM: We're starting to see the security forces crack down. You know, there are videos on social media showing them firing tear gas into the crowd. Also, the authorities today announced a shutdown of government offices, banks, schools, universities across more than 20 provinces, and they said it was due to cold weather. They didn't mention the protests. The country's moderate president, Masoud Pezeshkian, is urging the regime to listen to what he called the legitimate demands of the protesters. As far as the economy, the head of the central bank resigned, and the bank started throwing U.S. dollars into the market to help prop up the rial, which helped a bit, but, you know, it doesn't have unlimited resources to do that.
I spoke with Djavad Salehi-Isfahani, and he's an economics professor at Virginia Tech specializing in the Iranian economy. And he said another thing is that the 12-day war with Israel this past summer was expensive, and there's a widespread belief now that Israel will start another war, which is smothering investment.
DJAVAD SALEHI-ISFAHANI: That introduces a kind of uncertainty into an economy that's already very uncertain because of sanctions, because of government policies. So you have kind of a perfect storm now reaching over Iran's economy.
NORTHAM: The threat of another war grew larger when President Trump said on Monday that the U.S. would back an Israeli attack if Iran appeared to be building up its nuclear weapons and ballistic missile programs.
MARTIN: And given what's going on in Iran right now, is there a sense that this could threaten the regime?
NORTHAM: The protests haven't reached that point yet, Michel. You know, there was a serious challenge to the regime in 2022 during an uprising after an Iranian woman died in police custody after being arrested for not wearing a headscarf. And those protests lasted for over a month, and more than 500 people were killed, 20,000 people were arrested. You know, we are a long way from that. But there's been anger and frustration for months in Iran over severe water and energy shortages, civil rights abuses and widespread corruption. You add all this on to the protests about the economy, and, you know, there are serious concerns that this could spiral into something much larger.
MARTIN: And before we let you go, President Trump said on Monday that the U.S. would back an Israeli attack if Iran appeared to be building up its nuclear weapons and ballistic missile programs. How has Iran reacted to that?
NORTHAM: Well, they said they would come down hard. They said that they would retaliate in kind to anything that the U.S. can throw at Iran. You know, at the end of the day, the hope is that there can be some negotiations, but neither side are in the position to start those.
MARTIN: That is NPR international affairs correspondent Jackie Northam. Jackie, thank you.
NORTHAM: Thank you. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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