The supreme leaders and mad mullahs of Iran have spent more than $100 billion on their nuclear project. Many of the nuclear facilities , especially those at Natanz, Fordow, and especially Isfahan, have been destroyed or severely damaged. Iran has also spent tens of billions of dollars manufacturing thousands of ballistic missiles; Iran began the last war with 3,000 missiles, and is now believed to be down to 1,000. Iranian ballistic missiles range in price from $100,000 each for Shahed missiles to over $8 million for long-range missiles capable of reaching Israel. Iran has spent more than $15 billion on its missile program; most of that money has now gone up in smoke, with the missiles destroyed on launching pads, or in warehouses, or used up in attacks that are intercepted in the air, or land harmlessly in an open field. Very few do manage to hit an intended target; the Gulf Arab states, and not Israel, have been the chief victims of Iran’s missiles.

Iran has also spent tens of billions of dollars — in money and weaponry — over the last few decades, supporting Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas in Gaza, the Houthis, the Kata’ib Hezbollah in Iraq, and the Assad regime in Syria.

Finally, Iran’s leaders have stolen many billions of dollars from the state treasury. Just one man, the late Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, reportedly controlled a business empire worth $95 billion. Who knows how much of that wealth was squirreled away in Swiss bank accounts, cryptocurrency, real estate in London, Paris, and the Riviera, never to be returned to Iran?

And in addition to that misallocation of Iran’s financial resources to weapons acquisition during the past 47 years, there is the cost of the present war with the U.S. and Israel. The sanctions on Iran that Obama lifted have again been put on by Trump; most countries are as a result afraid to buy Iranian oil for fear of secondary sanctions. The U.S. threatens to cut off any foreign financial institution from the U.S. financial system if they knowingly process “significant” transactions for Iranian petroleum or petrochemical products. Consequently, Iran must sell its oil to China, its best customer, at a steep discount from the world market price.

And now Iran, after the U.S. and Israel have thoroughly battered its military and much of its civilian infrastructure, has a new economic woe. The Americans have put a blockade on all of Iran’s ports, meaning that no imports can enter Iran by sea, and no exports can be sent out. That blockade is costing Iran an estimated $47 million each day.

More on Iran’s economic collapse can be found here: “Behind Tehran’s calm, Iran faces deepening economic collapse,” by Amichai Stein, Jerusalem Post, April 29, 2026:

On the surface, the streets of Tehran appear to have returned to normal.

Cafés are open, and traffic jams in the capital have resumed their usual pace. However, beneath this routine lies a nation on the brink of financial collapse, one that even the most brutal crackdowns may not contain.

While the streets are full of people, their pockets are empty. The Iranian rial has become a liability that citizens are desperate to offload.

“There is simply crazy inflation in the market because nobody wants to hold the Iranian currency,” explains Prof. Amos Nadan, head of the Dayan Center at Tel Aviv University, adding, “This currency is fundamentally unstable.”

“Unstable” is putting it mildly. Consider that in 1978, during the last year of the Shah’s reign, one dollar could buy 70 rials. Today, one dollar can buy 1,316,000 rials. Keep that staggering fact of runaway inflation in mind.

Even before the recent military escalations, Iran was grappling with an inflation rate of approximately 70% – the highest since World War II.

Today, the numbers tell the story of a struggling middle class. The new monthly minimum wage stands at over 160 million rials, a figure that sounds astronomical until it is converted to its actual value: just over $100….

Iran’s economic woes were not caused by the war; they were merely accelerated by it. Long before the first shots were fired, the country suffered from a chronic energy crisis, forced rolling blackouts, and a persistent drought that dried up the nation’s reservoirs….

Indeed, the nationwide historic drought has led to many of Iran’s hydroelectric dams ceasing to operate. Furthermore, there is simply not enough water for people to drink in some cities. Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian has now suggested that, given how many reservoirs have been drying up, it might be best if all of the 9.8 million residents of Tehran moved elsewhere, to places that still have enough water to meet their needs.

AUTHOR

Hugh Fitzgerald

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