Iran International
As food prices spiral and farms shut down across Iran, even establishment figures are openly questioning how a country capable of producing precision missiles cannot manufacture affordable cars or keep chicken within reach of ordinary families.
Former Industry Minister Mostafa Hashemitaba says the crisis is rooted not only in consumer markets but across the country’s collapsing production chain, from fertilizers to poultry farming.
Writing in Sharq on May 20, Hashemitaba said the price of a 50-kg bag of triple-phosphate fertilizer had jumped within months from three million rials to 70 million rials, a nearly 24-fold increase. Other fertilizers, he added, rose by more than 1,100 percent over the same period.
The result, he argued, has been the shutdown of farms and poultry operations, feeding directly into soaring prices for fruit, vegetables and meat.
A report published by Etemad described growing despair among Iranians struggling with job losses, displacement and rapidly rising living costs after the conflict.
Columnist Nayereh Khademi interviewed a 40-year-old university-educated man who said that after losing his job during the war, he briefly considered living in a cardboard box with his wife.
“What frightened me most was a future in which nothing was certain,” he said.
Another man described the horror of watching missile strikes destroy homes around him. When he realized his own house was still standing, he said he felt guilt rather than relief.
For many who lived through the attacks, the war’s aftermath brought a second shock: rapidly rising prices and shrinking access to basic necessities.
One resident interviewed by Etemad described it as “surreal” to walk past shops selling everyday goods that had suddenly become unaffordable.
Several Tehran newspapers reported last week that a kilogram of poultry meat had reached 1.5 million tomans, roughly one-tenth of an ordinary worker’s monthly salary.
Even some members of parliament, usually focused on rhetoric about national strength and resistance, publicly acknowledged the severity of rising food prices.
Hashemitaba contrasted the economic deterioration with what he described as unrealistic official ambitions elsewhere in the economy.
He recalled that in September 2023, then-President Ebrahim Raisi’s industry minister proudly showed him an electric vehicle and promised that 100,000 units would be produced by March. By spring, he wrote, it became clear that the display model was effectively the factory’s only output.
“How can a country that manufactures precision missiles fail to produce cars?” Hashemitaba wrote.
The worsening economic picture is also reinforcing arguments inside parts of Iran’s political establishment that some form of relief through negotiations with Washington may be unavoidable after months of war and financial turmoil.
While hardliners continue to frame diplomacy as resistance management rather than compromise, even some conservative figures have increasingly acknowledged the scale of economic pressure facing ordinary Iranians.
The strain is now extending beyond households. Cafés and restaurants in Tehran that once offered a temporary escape from political tensions and economic anxiety are also reportedly struggling to survive amid surging supply costs.
Government officials, including President Massoud Pezeshkian, who once tried to downplay the scale of the crisis, have increasingly acknowledged the depth of the country’s economic problems.
But hardline critics on Thursday attacked Pezeshkian simply for publicly recognizing the extent of public hardship—a reaction that underscored how disconnected parts of the political establishment appear from the realities facing many ordinary Iranians.
Tehran’s unveiling of a towering statue depicting the Roman Emperor Valerian kneeling before pre-Islamic Persian King Shapur I has renewed criticism of the Islamic Republic’s appeal to nationalist sentiment following the June war with Israel.
For over forty years, the theocracy purged ancient Persian history from schoolbooks, replacing it with post-Islamic narratives. But after the 12-day conflict with Israel, officials have turned to the distant pre-Islamic past to rally a divided society.
From murals of ancient kings and soldiers to patriotic songs added to Shi’ite mourning ceremonies performed before Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, Tehran now embraces imagery once deemed heretical by its own revolutionary ethos.
'Kneel before Iran' campaign
Tehran’s Revolution (Enghelab) Square was the scene of an unusual spectacle on Friday as officials unveiled a massive bronze statue depicting Roman Emperor Valerian kneeling in submission before Sassanid King Shapur I, commemorating Iran’s victory at the Battle of Edessa (260 AD).
The event was held under the slogan “Kneel before Iran,” part of what authorities describe as a campaign to project “national unity and historical pride” following the June war with Israel.
Tehran Mayor Alireza Zakani, a staunch ultraconservative, said on X: “Enmity with Great Iran can only end in kneeling before this historic nation.”
Municipal official Davood Goodarzi said the installation would be accompanied by visual displays depicting “other victories of Iranians over foreign aggressors,” including the defeat of British forces by local commander Rais-Ali Delvari, Mirza Kuchak Khan’s resistance against Russian troops, and Surena’s triumph over Rome at the Battle of Carrhae in 53 BCE.
The goal, Goodarzi said, is “strengthening concepts such as national dignity, social unity, and Iranian identity.”
The statue, he said, would remain temporarily at Revolution Square before being moved to a city gateway “where it will stand as the first emblem of Iran before diplomats and foreign visitors.”
Unveiled women were allowed to attend the unveiling ceremony—an uncommon scene at events organized by Tehran’s ultra-hardline municipality.
The turn to the pre-Islamic past
The sharp reversal also recalls remarks once made by Khamenei. In a 2011 speech, he asserted that “all the great military victories of this nation came after Islam,” dismissing pre-Islamic accounts as “things that are not documented.”
In 1987, he had said that prophets triumphed over kings such as Cyrus and that “nothing remains of these monarchs in history but names remembered with derision.”
Nevertheless, pro-government social media accounts have now gone so far as to circulate posters equating Khamenei himself with Shapur, showing him standing with a staff as Benjamin Netanyahu and Donald Trump kneel before him. The caption reads: “You will kneel before Iran.”
'Hypocrisy'
Pro-government figures have hailed the move as a patriotic success. Conservative political reporter Hossein Saremi posted: “Today’s grand Iranian gathering showed that people and the state share one essence: Iran itself. Nothing can take our homeland away.”
Others, however, called the spectacle “hypocrisy.” Journalist Gholamhossein Pashaei wrote on X: “Every year you close Pasargadae to stop people from celebrating Cyrus Day, yet you unveil Shapur’s statue in Enghelab Square with drums and fireworks during Fatimiyya (mourning period)!”
Dissident commentator Hamid Asafi called the ceremony “a perfect snapshot of the Islamic Republic’s contradictions.”
On Telegram he wrote: “A week ago they closed Cyrus’s tomb out of fear of the crowds, and now they glorify Shapur in the same breath. The Islamic Republic fears living history but poses for selfies with its corpse.”
He added: “They know people no longer respond to rosaries and sermons. That’s why they’ve brought history back to the stage—in a controlled costume. If they can’t erase the past, they’ll try to own it.”
The irony deepened as UNESCO formally recognized Cyrus’s Charter as one of the earliest human-rights documents.
President Masoud Pezeshkian wrote on X: “Iran, the cradle of dialogue, justice, and coexistence, can still inspire peace today.”
Users swiftly replied, questioning how such pride could coexist with a government that blocks access to Cyrus’s tomb each year to those wishing to visit it on his birthday.