Gholam Ali Haddad Adel, senior advisor to Iran’s supreme leader and
former Majlis speaker, accused “enemies” of Iran for their “conspiracy” against
the country’s national currency, the rial. Haddad Adel, whose daughter is
married to Mojtaba Khamenei, the leader’s son, said the plunge in rial’s value
is part of a “psychological war” waged by the enemies to undermine the Islamic
Republic.
“Iran
is overcoming the psychological war and conspiracy that the enemy has brought
to the currency and gold market and this war is constantly fluctuating,” Haddad
Adel said. “The arrogant powers (the U.S. and the EU), in their crude way,
think that the nation of Iran is ready to let go of the Islamic revolution
through economic pressure but we are establishing Iran's economic strength,” he
added. (Fars News Agency, 5 October)
This week, the merchants of Tehran Grand Bazaar, the heartbeat of the
city’s economy and indeed the heartbeat of the Islamic Republic, closed shops
in protest over the plummeting value of the rial and the skyrocketing prices. There
were sporadic street demonstrations against he government over its policies
leading to the currency’s collapse that had lost a third of its value within a
week. The security forces were deployed throughout Tehran to quash the protests
and 16 people were arrested for “disturbing” the national currency.
Haddad Adel is trying to deflect criticism from the government over the
currency fiasco and blame the problems solely on "foreign conspiracies," presumably for instituting toughest sanctions against the country’s banking and
financial sector. He did not say if the government’s policies were responsible
for those sanctions. Nor did he elaborate on government’s own inflationary
policies, like distributing billions of dollars in cash to the population as
part of its subsidy reform program, which caused serious inflationary
pressure on the currency.
Photo credit: Gholam Ali Haddad Adel (file photo: IRNA)
