Iranian Regime’s Leaders Talk Unity as Markets Panic, Streets Stir

Staff WriterOctober 3, 2025
Iranian Regime’s Leaders Talk Unity as Markets Panic, Streets Stir
A market in Andimeshk city, Khuzestan Province, Southern Iran.

iran-andimeshk-market

A market in Andimeshk city, Khuzestan Province,
Southern Iran.
Written by
Dr. Masumeh Bolurchi

The snapback of UN sanctions has exposed how brittle the clerical dictatorship already is. In a single week—framed by forced appeals for “unity” and open talk of quitting the NPT—the rial slid, gold spiked, fuel-price trial balloons returned, and senior officials recast ordinary grievances as an “enemy plan.” This is less a story of external pressure than of a state losing control of its economic levers, splitting over strategy, and falling back on coercive narratives to mask eroding capacity.

On October 2, 2025, the free-market dollar broke 117,000 tomans, up by more than 1,000 tomans from the previous day. The benchmark “Emami” gold coin climbed to about 118 million tomans. A day earlier—October 1, 2025—the dollar had already cleared 116,000 tomans. These moves—reported by domestic price-tracking sites—spiked immediately after the snapback and restoration of UN sanctions.

Austerity, signaled
Amid the volatility, Parliament Speaker Mohammad-Bagher Ghalibaf primed the public for higher fuel prices on October 1, 2025: “We buy gasoline at 50,000 to 60,000 tomans per liter and sell it at 2,000 to 3,000 tomans… we have to manage this. If we implement efficiency measures, at least five to six billion dollars can be added to our investment capacity.” The message is unmistakable: with external financing channels constricted and the currency under pressure, the state is aiming to plunder the people rather than changing its policies—politically risky in a society already on edge.

The legislative floor on October 1, 2025, read like a study in stress. One MP warned that “overplaying snapback and playing with the public’s psychology pours water into the enemy’s mill,” while insisting on a “sacred unity.” Another urged “full support for the government” and vigilance against a “fifth column,” alleging that “the enemy is using snapback to trigger economic problems and then insecurity.”

The National Security Commission amplified the hard line after a briefing by the Supreme National Security Council: members stressed “the need to confront the West,” “the futility of negotiations,” and the centrality of shaping public opinion and media. Commission members floated treaty brinkmanship. One cleric said “the enemies are trying to bring the system down by implementing snapback,” and that recent talks with Europeans “produced no result.” Several MPs pushed the nuclear-treaty red line: “Remaining in the NPT is no longer in our interest,” “temporary suspension is not deterrent enough,” and “the most important step now is to exit the NPT.” The commission’s spokesman added that “15 drafts for exiting the NPT” had been submitted, with one consolidated—though not yet scheduled for a vote.

Isolation’s feedback loop: toward the NPT exit?
By September 30, 2025, Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi conceded diplomatic dead ends after New York contacts: “Once again it became certain that negotiations with the Americans are a complete dead end. Because of excessive U.S. demands and European alignment, we could not reach a compromise. I am sure calculated decisions will be taken by the Supreme National Security Council.”

The chorus extended beyond parliament. Pro-regime academic Mohammad-Sadegh Koushki argued that “the most logical and lowest-cost step is a complete withdrawal from the NPT,” adding that continued cooperation with the IAEA is “a game whose rules are written only to the West’s benefit.” Each step would deepen isolation—and each narrows economic options and hardens risk premia, dynamics already visible in foreign exchange and gold.

As the economic and diplomatic vise tightens, officials revert to a familiar split message. For domestic audiences, the regime president Masoud Pezeshkian on September 29–30, 2025 dismissed civic discontent as an external script: “Creating expectations so that people protest in these hardships is a plan the enemies are drawing up… they want to sanction us every day because we won’t bow our heads.” He also told interlocutors around the UN that talk of international rights bodies was “all lies.”

For external consumption, officials blame Western “excessive demands” and call for “unity.” Yet isolation is producing the very symptoms the state fears: a weakening currency, subsidy pressures, and a public sphere policed by siege rhetoric. Even regime-aligned media chided faith in compliance signals. A Kayhan Daily editorial asked, “After the war and snapback, what is the justification for revisiting CFT?” and argued that concessions only “embolden enemies and double the pressure.

Instability is the cost of weakness
The strands connect to a single failure of capacity. Snapback didn’t just deepen isolation—it revealed how rotten the system has become from within. Market stress forced austerity signals; austerity plus repression talk became political accelerants. The louder officials threaten an NPT exit, the narrower their economic and diplomatic escape routes become. And the more they brand dissent as an external plot, the less they address the grievances they themselves cite—livelihood, unemployment, inflation, housing.

The regime can decree “unity” and perform defiance, but the week’s facts—a surging dollar, a spiking gold coin, gasoline-price trial balloons, diplomacy declared a “dead end,” and open flirtation with leaving the NPT—point to something plainer: a state running out of tools. In Iran today, instability is not just the price of isolation; it is the symptom of a terrorist dictatorship doomed to fall.

Staff WriterOctober 3, 2025
Arab-Islamic Committee in Defence of Ashraf
Back to top button