Iran’s $1.5 Trillion Swindle: Plundering Prosperity
khamenei irgc commanders (1)
Written by
Mansoureh Galestan
On August 16, 2023, the state-run Roydad24 published a damning acknowledgment of Ali Saadvandi, a state-affiliated economist. “In the last 20 years, we had roughly $1.5 trillion worth of foreign exchange resources, but we wasted them. This was indeed a vast amount, and had we invested it in infrastructures, our country could have progressed like countries such as Japan,” he said.
He explicitly acknowledges that $1.5 trillion of people’s wealth has been squandered.
As we scrutinize this staggering number through the lens of Iran’s family units, conservatively estimated at 24 million, an alarming revelation emerges: a per-family misappropriation equivalent to an astounding $62,500, surpassing the threshold of 30 billion rials. This heart-wrenching calculation unveils a sinister reality—each Iranian household has been mercilessly plundered, robbed of resources that could have resolved profound societal ills such as housing shortages, crippling unemployment, and soaring prices.
The consequences of this monumental larceny reverberate with the agonizing tales of destitution, where graveyards become shelters, children toil in place of education, the cities’ outskirts beckon as the only refuge, and the unthinkable act of selling one’s organs stands as a desperate choice. In the event of this ill-gotten wealth being rightfully restored to its rightful owners, headlines would not be plagued by the specter of people renting bread or desperate mothers contemplating the unthinkable sale of their children.
On May 9, the regime’s supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, blatantly claimed he has been warning about “the hydra of corruption for the last 20 years.” This hydra of corruption, which resembles Khamenei and his financial institutions and his Revolutionary Guards, dominates Iran’s economy and squanders the national wealth on terrorism and other malign activities such as developing a nuclear bomb to ensure their survival.
When the voracious “corruption hydra” engulfs wealth and national capital, its devastating repercussions don’t remain localized; they swiftly propagate, trailing a dangerous path of deterioration. Comparing Iran’s GDP per capita [based on purchasing power] with Turkey, Azerbaijan, Jordan, and Iraq from 2000 to 2022, the state-affiliated Farhikhtegan newspaper declared on August 29, “The head of the National Development Fund issued a stark warning, implying that we could descend into dependence on neighboring nations for gas, wheat, medical services, logistics, and more, leaving our people anxious about becoming mere vassals to our neighbors.”
#IRGC's Terror Designation by US Could Hurt #Iran Regime's Economyhttps://t.co/mVuGEckZgl#BlackListIRGC pic.twitter.com/Dmp3MWXwLz
— NCRI-FAC (@iran_policy) April 8, 2019
In response to the revelation of cash shipments to Syria and Lebanon, purportedly aimed at addressing the housing crisis for 200,000 Lebanese families, the state-run Resalat daily on December 30, 2020, scornfully retorted: “Is this news truly novel? We’ve heard resounding affirmations from the nation’s highest authorities. The Supreme Leader declared our obligation to support the resistance axis, unequivocally proclaiming, ‘We help, and we’re unapologetic about it.’
Seyyed Hasan Nasrallah, head of the terrorist Lebanese Hezbollah, stated boldly: ‘We speak candidly! Hezbollah’s sustenance, armament, and missiles flow from the Islamic Republic, without reservation.’”
Yet, as Hassan Nasrallah avers, those funds were not allocated for “nourishment” and “housing”; they were funneled into the destruction of Lebanon. This once-prosperous nation in the region now stands reduced to desolation, a dire consequence of the regime’s meddling and its puppet Hezbollah.
Furthermore, evidence obtained by the “Ghiyam ta Sarnegouni” group from within the regime lays bare the regime’s staggering contribution of over $50 billion to Syria. The fortune that Khamenei expended to prop up Syria’s ruthless dictator has come at the gruesome cost of over 500,000 Syrian lives and the displacement of millions.
Hence, linking the remedy for Iran’s economic catastrophe to the ousting of the oppressive regime isn’t a feeble or hyperbolic reaction. The ruling theocracy has spawned and exacerbated the prevailing financial cataclysm.