US Imposes Sanctions On Iranian Officials Over 'Soleimani Revenge Plot'

Ehsan Khandouzi, speaking to university students, reluctantly admitted that successive administrations have mishandled the economy, but insisted that US sanctions imposed in 2018, wiped out economic growth and “led to today’s high inflation.”

“The sanctions during the Trump era caused the country's economy to decline, and inflation is now the legacy of the sanctions in recent years. These sanctions have affected the purchasing power of households,” Khandouzi insisted.

No one truly knows the real annual inflation rate, since the government stopped issuing periodic reports in 2019, but occasional figures announced by officials show that inflation is above 50 percent, and food prices have increased much faster.

Khandouzi referred to 2011, when he said the national income had reached an all-time high, but he did not mention that skyrocketing oil prices were the reason why the country had disposable income more than a decade ago. In contrast, currently there is not enough foreign currency to import raw materials for producing medications and people must go from pharmacy to pharmacy to find a can of baby formula.

One student asked the minister if “you want to drag everyone into poverty,” to which the minister gave a condescending answer. “When I was a student like you 25 years ago, I was also a critic, but one expects students to ask more sophisticated and analytical questions,” Khandouzi replied. He then went on to tell the students that the ministry of economy has set up a summer school and they are welcome to attend the courses and learn economics.

Meanwhile, the minister admitted that the Islamic Republic in the past 20 years has completely mishandled its banking sector and now several institutions are on the verge of bankruptcy. He also acknowledged that the government is afraid of protests if banks go under, and depositors demand their money. For this reason, the government prefers to dissolve these institutions into the Central Bank of Iran, a strange arrangement for any country.

However, Khandouzi did not mention that there no true private sector banks in Iran. The so-called non-governmental banks are in fact institutions set up by public entities or by regime insiders who have political influence and therefore have immunity from supervision.

Insider dealings became once again public scandals this week. A company dealing with tea imports misused up to $3.5 billion it received from the government at preferential rate of exchange. Instead of importing tea and machinery as expected, the company sold dollars on the open market at much higher rates. Despite pledges by top officials to investigate and address the fraud, so far, no prominent person has been detained. Some local media outlets say that without the complicity of top officials such a fraud would not have been possible. 

At the same time, members of Tehran’s municipal council are asking about more than $300 in city revenues that has “disappeared”, meaning there is no trace of the money in budget allocations. This is a substantial sum of money in Iran, equaling 170 trillion rials.

The minister of economy did not address the corruption scandals during his meeting with the students. He tried to argue that the economy has improved in the past two years during the reign of hardliners. President Ebrahim Raisi also presented rosy figures to parliament earlier this week. One lawmaker commented after the meeting that “The president seemed to be talking about a different country.”

Admiral Shahram Irani was speaking on Friday as he announced plans for a regional naval coalition and upcoming large-scale naval exercises involving other countries along southern coasts, with additional exercises slated for the Caspian Sea region.

He said his Navy has a strategic plan to be present in the oceans, adding that “maritime security in the region is firmly established under the Islamic Republic system.”

It comes after a number of recent incidents in which shipping in the Red Sea has been targeted by Houthis.

Since the deadly clash between Hamas and Israel on October 7, the Yemen-based rebels have launched multiple drone and missile attacks on US and Israeli targets in the region. Despite accusations against Iran, the Biden administration, having removed the Houthis from the US terrorist list, has not responded to the maritime attacks.

The Houthi attacks followed Iranian leader Ali Khamenei's call to stop oil and food shipments to Israel. Controlling most of Yemen's Red Sea coast, the group had previously targeted Israel with ballistic missiles and armed drones.

While Iran has avoided direct involvement in the Israel-Hamas conflict, it allegedly employs proxy groups like the Houthis and Hezbollah to target Israel and US interests in the region. In response to Iran's actions in the critical maritime route of the Strait of Hormuz, the Pentagon deployed a portion of the Bataan Amphibious Readiness Group accompanied by a Marine expeditionary unit.

Over the past two years, Iran has been implicated in attacks, seizures, or attempted seizures of nearly 20 internationally flagged merchant vessels in the vital global shipping passage of the Strait of Hormuz, according to reports from US Central Command, responsible for overseeing operations in the Middle East region.

The incident comes after a series of attacks in Middle Eastern waters since the eruption of hostilities between Israel and Iran-backed Palestinian militant group Hamas on October 7.

On Friday, the UK Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO) agency said it had “received reports of an entity declaring itself to be the Yemeni authorities, ordering a vessel to alter course in the Southern Red Sea.”

Agency officials added: “Vessels in the vicinity are advised to exercise caution and report any suspicious activity to UKMTO.”

On Sunday, the US military reported three commercial vessels coming under attack in the Southern Red Sea.

Yemen's Iran-backed Houthi group claimed responsibility for drone and missile attacks on two Israeli vessels in the area on Sunday. According to the Houthi group, the attacks were carried out in response to the demands of Yemenis and calls from Muslim countries to stand in solidarity with the Palestinian people.

On Wednesday, the UKMTO was informed of an incident related to a suspected drone over the Red Sea, situated to the west of the Yemeni port of Hodeidah.

Last month, the Houthi group – which controls most of Yemen's Red Sea coast -- also seized a British-owned and Japanese-operated cargo ship.

Their attempt to hijack another vessel was thwarted thanks to the US Navy as it responded to a distress call from an Israeli-managed commercial tanker in the Gulf of Aden after it had been seized by gunmen.

The Houthi attack came after calls by Iran’s leader Ali Khamenei to stop the shipment of oil and food to Israel. The group, which controls most of Yemen's Red Sea coast, had previously fired ballistic missiles and armed drones at Israel and vowed to target more Israeli vessels.

Roohollah Firooznam ran a business for 12 years which provided the equipment to Iran's intelligence services, including the IRGC.

The cameras were used to monitor detainees in prisons where torture was used, and to watch political opponents, the Global News reported.

Senior members of the intelligence ministry were directors of Firooznam’s company, while a former vice-president of Iran was a shareholder. Firooznam's business partner in a separate venture was a high-ranking Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps commander who had previously spent a decade guarding Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.

Despite allegations of involvement with Iran's regime, Firooznam managed to obtain a travel visa from the Canadian embassy in Turkey in 2018, ostensibly for visiting tourist attractions. Upon arriving in Toronto, he engaged the services of an immigration lawyer and applied for refugee status.

Earlier this year, an Ontario judge sanctioned his deportation, citing his complicity in Iran's crimes against humanity.

Firooznam, a former member of the IRGC naval branch turned CEO, claimed ignorance of the regime's abuses until 2017. He claimed that he took action against the regime upon discovering that his cameras were used against anti-government opposition.

However, the Canadian Refugee Board rejected his refugee claim in 2021, asserting his complicity in Iran's crimes against humanity. In response, Firooznam filed a new case in the Federal Court of Appeal in November 2023, seeking expedited processing of his immigration application.

Reuters reported Thursday that deputy national security adviser Jon Finer has said that the Biden administration thinks the IRGC is behind the attacks, helping with planning and action.

"We believe that they are involved in the conduct of these attacks, the planning of them, the execution of them, the authorization of them and ultimately they support them," he told the Aspen Security Forum.

This is the first time the IRGC is directly linked to Houthi operations by a US official.

US National Security spokesman John Kirby took Iran to task on Wednesday for destabilizing the region by providing financial and military assistance to extremist militant groups, such as Yemeni Houthis.

“We know that the Houthis are supported by Iran, not just politically and philosophically but, of course, with weapon systems,” he stressed.

The Biden administration has been trying to avoid conflict with Iran ever since Hamas forces attacked Israel, fearing that the war on Gaza could expand and set the whole region ablaze.

A Politico report Wednesday suggested that senior Biden administration officials were against targeting Houthis for now, despite the marked increase in Houthi activities in the Red sea, which has forced two US warships to engage militarily.

On Wednesday, the USS Mason intercepted and shot down a drone launched from a Houthi-controlled area. Three days earlier, USS Carney shot down three drones after it received distress calls from vessels that had come under attack from Iran-backed Houthis in the Red Sea.

The Houthis say their attacks are in response to the Israeli onslaught on Gaza, which began after Hamas rampaged Israel on 7 October, killing a thousand people.

On Thursday, the US treasury sanctioned 13 people and entities over claims they provided “tens of millions of dollars” in Iran-linked funds to Houthi rebels in Yemen.

“The Houthis continue to receive funding and support from Iran,” the under secretary of the Treasury for terrorism Brian Nelson said. “Treasury will continue to disrupt the financial facilitation and procurement networks that enable these destabilizing activities.”

Iran of course denies involvement in the missile and drone attacks by the Houthis on Israel and vessels in the Red Sea. The official line from the regime spokespersons is that militant groups linked with Tehran act independently.

Earlier in the week, a senior adviser to Ali Khamenei said the same about Hamas – that the group had the means necessary to plan and execute operations, notwithstanding the fact, he suggested, that Iran would help the group militarily if it had access to Gaza Strip.

Asked about the future of the conflict and the hopes for a two state solution between Israel and the Palestinians, Kamal Kharrazi told Aljazeera, “this is their own business, of course. We have our own positions but we’re not going to dictate our positions to others.”

The former foreign minister of the Islamic Republic reiterated, however, that the regime didn’t “believe in” a two state solution. “Israel itself is not supporting this plan… and it’s not practical,” Kharrazi said, “We believe the final solution must be one state, composed of Muslims, Christians and Jews.”

The Islamic Republic has for long maintained this ambiguous, sit-on-the-fence politics, sending mixed messages on their intentions and their actions. In recent years, this has been largely helped by the Biden administration’s leniency, which many in Washington say has emboldened the regime and its proxies in the region.

“It [is] President Biden who refuses to respond to the recent attacks on American troops by Iran in Syria, in Iraq, in the Red Sea,” Senator John Kennedy told Fox News Thursday.

“The sad reality is that our enemies - China, Russia, North Korea, Iran - are not scared of President Biden. And for good reason," he said. “The Biden administration would rather debate whether man can breastfeed than protect the interests of this country.”