Khamenei’s Corrupt Dictatorship Fuels Six Devastating Crises Pushing Iranians To The Brink – OpEd
Poverty in Iran. Photo Credit: PMOI
The corrupt and plundering dictatorship of Iranian regime has plunged Iran into poverty, misery, and anger. Inflation, water and power outages, and meager wages have pushed millions of Iranians to their limits, and the deafening alarms of “dire conditions” and the prospect of “great turmoil” by regime officials are sounding louder than ever within the regime.
A mere glance at six major socio-economic crises reveals the extent of this “dire” situation and the explosive conditions:
Food Inflation:
Food inflation has devastated the people and turned life into a nightmare. The World Bank has reported that food inflation has surpassed 40%, and in the first eight months of regime president Masoud Pezeshkian’s administration, it reached 168%. The price of a single bean has soared to 1,750 rials, and meat and dairy products have become a dream for many. The state-run Khabar Online has warned that “the alarm bells for the return of triple-digit inflation” are ringing, fueling public anger.
Housing Inflation and Homelessness Crisis:
Housing inflation has shattered even the dream of homeownership. The price per square meter of housing in Tehran reached 1.1 billion rials in March 2025, and the waiting period to buy a home has soared to “over 580 years” (according to Asr Iran, a state-affiliated media outlet). The Majlis Research Center, the research arm of the Iranian parliament, has reported the “prevalence of eight models of homelessness: rooftop sleeping, boiler-room sleeping, car sleeping, grave sleeping, cohabitation out of necessity, nomadism, multi-family households, and slum dwelling.” This calamity results from the plundering by the housing mafia under the direct supervision of regime supreme leader Ali Khamenei.
Medicine Inflation and Pharmaceutical Crisis:
The high cost of medicine has taken people’s lives hostage and turned patients’ hope into despair. The price of medications for patients with special conditions has increased by up to 400%, depriving many of treatment. Painful reports cry out that “expensive prescriptions are pushing patients towards death” and “the shock of high medicine prices; sometimes, 3 out of every 10 pharmacy customers decide against purchasing after seeing the price” (according to IRNA, the official state news agency).
Power Outage Crisis:
Power outages have paralyzed people’s lives and pushed social anger to its peak. In May 2025, Pezeshkian’s government increased power outages from 2 hours to 4 hours daily, and reports warn that “in the summer, outages will severely increase.” Simultaneously, public protests over power outages and the destruction of work and livelihoods have exponentially grown, with angry videos from citizens being posted on social media daily. This crisis is fundamentally caused by the extensive electricity plundering by large-scale cryptocurrency mining farms operated by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).
Water Shortage Crisis:
The water crisis has turned people’s lives into hell and ignited social anger. In April 2025, widespread water outages in Tehran and other cities disrupted life, and the Baluch people are resorting to dangerous lagoons for a single glass of water. The catastrophe is so immense that state-affiliated media, such as Tasnim News Agency, are reporting on the “hell of summer 2025.”
Extreme Poverty and Wages Far Below the Poverty Line:
The poverty line has reached “470 to 500 million rials” per month, and “it can be said that 90% of the Iranian people are poor,” and “more than 45 million Iranians with minimum wage are 4 times below the poverty line,” according to Andisheh No, a regime-affiliated publication. The workers’ wage of 100 to 120 million rials is astronomically distant from the poverty line, and the gap between wages and expenses “has turned the wage issue in the country into a national crisis.”
The sum of these crises has turned Iranian society into a powder keg of anger, but each of these calamities alone could be the spark to ignite this keg. Due to structural corruption, Khamenei is not only incapable of mitigating these crises, but his regime’s actions continuously exacerbate them. Therefore, it can be predicted that a massive social explosion is undoubtedly imminent. Especially as the rebellious youth, with their fiery operations and revolutionary practices, channel the anger of this explosive society towards uprising and conflagration, and show this society, which has been pushed to its absolute limit, that: the only path to liberation is the eradication of the mullahs’ regime, this epitome of corruption and plunder.
Sadegh Pashm-Foroush writes for PMOI/MEK
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