Iranian protesters gather around a burning car during a demonstration against an increase in petrol prices in the capital Tehran on November 16 2019. Picture: AFP
In Washington and Tehran, officials view the protests through the prism of tensions over Iran’s growing influence in the Shiite populated nations of the Middle East. Those frictions have picked up since President Donald Trump pulled the US out of the 2015 nuclear deal, a pact which had traded limits on Iran’s nuclear fuel programme for a relaxation of international sanctions.
That was because the regime feels under siege from US sanctions, as well as protests which are challenging Iranian interests in Iraq and Lebanon. Leaders in Tehran fear the US and its allies in the region would interpret any sign of Iranian compromise as weakness, according to Vaez. But there is little doubt that Trump’s “maximum pressure’’ strategy has hurt the Iranian economy. The crude oil exports on which Iran relies for much of its hard currency earnings have fallen to about 250,000 barrels a day, from a peak of 2.5- million barrels a day in April last year. That has made unaffordable the $69bn that, according to the Paris-based International Energy Agency, Iran spent on energy subsidies in 2018.
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