A Government Under Siege — or Its People? S. Rouzbeh 2026-09-03 Pressure on oil, money and sanctions-evasion networks: who ultimately pays the bill? A Government Under Siege — or Its People? Pressure on oil, money and sanctions-evasion networks: who ultimately pays the bill? By S. Rouzbeh Can intensified US economic pressure bring the Islamic Republic to its knees? If the routes for selling oil, transferring money, using cryptocurrency, shadow banking and intermediary companies are closed one after another, will the government be forced to retreat, or will it once again pass the cost on to people's livelihoods? More importantly, when we are dealing with a government that has, on occasion, put its political and ideological considerations even before public health, what guarantee is there that ‘maximum pressure’ will not exhaust Iranian society before it wears down the government? To answer that question, we must first examine precisely where the economic pressure is directed. A significant part of the current pressure targets the Islamic Republic's financial lifelines: oil sales, access to the proceeds, foreign-currency transfers, exchange houses and intermediary banking networks, front companies, the shadow fleet and networks procuring parts and equipment for Iran's military industries. The pressure on the government is therefore real. The Islamic Republic needs money to run its governing apparatus, its military and security forces, and its regional activities. Even where oil can be sold, difficulties in receiving and transferring the proceeds, a growing number of intermediaries and the costs of converting and moving money make sanctions evasion more expensive. But the Islamic Republic has also spent years building a parallel network for precisely such circumstances. Shell companies, exchange houses, foreign accounts, commercial intermediaries and the so-called ‘shadow fleet’ are part of that machinery. Cryptocurrency has also been added to the mix, and the United States has targeted networks and exchanges accused of facilitating money transfers and the evasion of sanctions on Iran. Today's economic war is therefore not just about selling oil; it is about the routes along which money moves. Not every banking problem is America's fault Another point must be considered here. Some of Iran's financial isolation cannot be attributed solely to the United States. Iran continues to face serious problems concerning FATF standards. Being classified as high-risk by FATF is not the same as losing access to SWIFT: SWIFT is the financial messaging network between banks, and restrictions on Iranian banks' access are primarily related to sanctions. But Iran's difficulties with FATF also make it harder and more costly for banks and financial institutions around the world to work with Iran. When transparent banking channels become difficult to use, money does not disappear; it changes course. It moves from banks to exchange houses, from exchange houses to intermediary companies, from one country to another and, in some cases, into cryptocurrency. Each additional link carries a cost, requires an intermediary and creates more opportunities for corruption. The United States is seeking to identify precisely these links, from companies transporting Iranian oil to networks delivering drone and missile parts and other equipment needed by Iran's military industries. But there is an important distinction here. Sanctioning a company that supplies parts to missile industries or the Revolutionary Guards is not the same as imposing a restriction that makes it harder to import medicine, food or raw materials for a civilian factory. The problem is that, in an isolated economy, the boundary between the two does not always remain clear. When a country's banking connections are disrupted, factory owners, medicine importers, students and families wishing to receive or send money also pay a price. To whom does the government hand the bill? The logic of sanctions is clear: reduce the government's resources so that the cost of maintaining its policies rises. But under authoritarian rule, there is an important variable: to some extent, the government can decide who pays for the reduction in resources. People's purchasing power may fall, prices may rise and families may have less on the table, while funding for security, military and political institutions remains a priority. For the Islamic Republic, this is more than a theoretical possibility. There is a very recent historical example: Covid-19. In Dey 1399, Ali Khamenei announced a ban on importing American and British vaccines. A planned donation of 150,000 doses of the Pfizer vaccine through a charitable organisation was subsequently cancelled. Years later, a scientific study of Iran's vaccination programme estimated that around 50,000 deaths could have been prevented had Iran vaccinated at a pace similar to Turkey's. The same study identified the ban on certain foreign vaccines, delays in procurement and reliance on domestic production among the factors that delayed vaccination in Iran. Of course, not all these deaths can be attributed directly to a single decision; many factors affected Covid-19 mortality. But one fact remains: in a crisis directly affecting people's lives, a political and ideological decision was able to influence how quickly society gained access to effective vaccines. Why, then, should we assume that, in an economic war, this same government will necessarily put people's livelihoods before the resources needed to sustain the structure of power? Does that mean economic pressure has no effect? No. Reduced oil revenue, difficulties in transferring billions of dollars, the identification of shadow banking, the freezing of assets linked to the government, higher operating costs for the shadow fleet and the closure of routes used by suppliers of military equipment can all put pressure on the Islamic Republic. No government has unlimited resources. But there is a considerable distance between ‘making the government's survival more costly’ and ‘forcing the government to retreat or fall’. South Africa's experience also illustrates this. Economic pressure and international isolation helped raise the cost of maintaining apartheid, but sanctions alone did not end that system. Domestic struggle, an organised society, political divisions and coordinated international pressure worked together. The right question, then, is not simply ‘sanctions: yes or no?’ The question is: who and what should come under pressure? The more directly pressure targets government revenues, the Revolutionary Guards, hidden financial networks, front companies, the assets of those connected to power, military industries and sanctions-evasion routes, the more precise its aim. And the more that pressure spreads to ordinary trade, civilian production, medicine, food and people's everyday lives, the greater the risk that society will be worn down before the government. ‘Help is on the way’ — but help for whom? If maximum pressure is to be presented as help for the Iranian people, the number of ships stopped, accounts frozen or billions rendered untransferable cannot, on its own, be the measure of success. Closing the account of a Revolutionary Guards front company is one thing; leaving an Iranian family with less to eat is another. Stopping components for missile industries is one thing; making access to medicine and production materials more difficult is another. The United States can restrict the flow of money into the structure of power. But the Islamic Republic also has an important instrument at its disposal: passing part of the bill for this economic war on to the people, then presenting that same external pressure as the cause of every domestic economic failure, instance of corruption and policy failure. The final question therefore remains: If the Islamic Republic is willing to pass the cost of external pressure on to society in order to survive, whom will an economic siege ultimately place under siege: the government or the people of Iran? The answer is probably both. But for a policy accompanied by the promise that ‘help is on the way’, the measure of success must be clear: Is the Islamic Republic's capacity to finance repression, its military machine and the networks that sustain its power declining faster than the Iranian people's capacity to secure bread, medicine and the necessities of everyday life? If the answer is no, we must ask whether what is on its way is really ‘help’, or another bill that the people of Iran will once again be made to pay. Source: https://srouzbeh.com/en/posts/entry-1788453766217-bd351f61 Please credit the author and link to this edition.