Tehran shopkeepers extend strikes into second day
Iran InternationalDEC 2025
Tehran Bazaar Strikes Enter Day Two Amid Rial Collapse
Are U.S. sanctions strangling Iran's economy, or is regime corruption and warmongering destroying the nation from within?
Above: A man who runs a mobile currency exchange office counting money in Tehran, Iran on Oct. 6, 2025. Image credit: Fatemeh Bahrami/Anadolu/Getty Images
The Spin
Establishment-critical narrative
Economic sanctions are bleeding the Iranian rial with major consequences. Trump's maximum pressure sanctions have strangled oil exports and collapsed the Iranian currency by 50% since September, driving prices up 100% as medicine shortages worsen. Learning from previous experience, the U.S. has plugged loopholes to make the sanctions more thorough. Additionally, non-oil exports are also targeted now.
Right narrative
The rial's catastrophic collapse represents systematic plunder by Khamenei's inner circle through unrestrained money printing and resource theft. Regime corruption and warmongering policies — not sanctions alone — have destroyed 99.9% of the currency's value over 45 years. Inflation is a hidden tax funneling national wealth to military elites and while the middle class slides into poverty.