The Primary Victim of Iran’s Strategic Choices Is the Iranian People

As regional tensions escalate, one reality is becoming increasingly clear: the primary victim of the Iranian leadership’s strategic choices remains the Iranian people themselves. Behind the ideological rhetoric and geopolitical posturing, a profound crisis — economic, social, and moral — is taking root in Iran. This is not an observation from the outside. It is what Iranians themselves — inside the country and in the diaspora — are saying with growing urgency.

For several years, Iranian authorities have prioritized a policy of regional expansion and confrontation, to the detriment of national priorities. The country’s resources have been largely mobilized to finance influence networks and foreign interventions — in Lebanon, Syria, Yemen, Gaza, and beyond — even as the national economy spirals into devaluation, inflation, and massive unemployment. The arithmetic is straightforward: every dollar spent on Hezbollah’s tunnel network, on Houthi missiles, on proxy militias across the region, is a dollar not spent on an Iranian hospital, an Iranian school, or an Iranian family.

Collapse Visible Every Day: Purchasing Power, Poverty, and a Vanishing Middle Class

The consequences of these political choices are visible every day in the lives of ordinary Iranians. Household purchasing power is collapsing — the rial has lost the vast majority of its value over the past decade, making imported goods, medicine, and essential products unaffordable for millions. The middle class that once made Iran one of the most educated and culturally rich societies in the region is gradually disappearing, eroded by inflation, unemployment, and the flight of human capital abroad.

A large portion of the population now lives below the poverty line — a structural reality, not a temporary condition. Access to essential services — healthcare, education, housing — is deteriorating not at the margins but at the center of people’s daily experience. Public hospitals are under-resourced. Universities are underfunded. Housing costs in major cities have spiralled beyond the reach of young families.

Not Solely Sanctions: The Internal Political Choices That Have Made This Crisis

Iranian authorities regularly cite external pressures and international sanctions as the primary explanation for the country’s economic difficulties. These pressures are real and they do have consequences. But they are not sufficient to explain the depth and breadth of the crisis — nor the speed of its deterioration. The crisis is also, and above all, the product of internal political choices that have proven catastrophic for ordinary Iranians.

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  Systemic mismanagement: Decades of economic decision-making driven by ideological considerations rather than competence have produced an economy structurally incapable of delivering prosperity — even with significant natural resource wealth.
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  Lack of transparency and accountability: Without independent judiciary, free press, or political accountability mechanisms, there is no effective check on misallocation of resources, no consequence for failure, and no institutional pressure to improve governance.
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  Systemic corruption: Institutions controlled by the Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) — which operates as an economic empire as well as a military and political force — capture large portions of the national economy without transparency or accountability to the public.
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  Prioritization of ideology over citizens’ welfare: Successive administrations have treated ideological and geopolitical objectives as non-negotiable, allocating resources to them before the basic needs of the population are met. This is a political choice — and it has a price paid by ordinary Iranians every day.

The Constant Threat of Conflict: Militarization, Fear, and the Death of Individual Freedom

War — or the constant threat of conflict — further exacerbates all of these vulnerabilities. It justifies increased militarization of the state and the economy. It diverts more public resources away from civilian needs. It reinforces a climate of fear and control that suppresses exactly the kind of civic energy and entrepreneurial spirit that economic recovery requires. And it provides the authorities with the perpetual justification for emergency measures, restricted freedoms, and the postponement of accountability.

Here again, it is ordinary Iranians who pay the price. Not the revolutionary guards who profit from the war economy. Not the clergy whose institutions are insulated from the collapse. Not the regime’s international partners who receive subsidized support regardless of Iran’s domestic conditions. The person who pays is the family in Tehran whose savings have been wiped out by inflation. The young engineer in Isfahan who cannot afford to get married. The nurse in Shiraz who cannot access the medication her patients need.

A Society Yearning for Dignity, Justice, and Real Economic Prospects

More and more voices — both inside Iran and within the diaspora — are denouncing the profound disconnect between the legitimate aspirations of the Iranian people and the policies being pursued in their name. Recent protest movements, culminating in the “Woman, Life, Freedom” uprising sparked by the death of Mahsa Jina Amini in 2022, have revealed a society that is not passive and not content — a society yearning for dignity, justice, and real economic prospects, and willing to take extraordinary personal risks to demand them.

It is crucial to remember — and to say clearly — that Iran is not defined solely by its leaders. It is a country rich in history, culture, and human achievement. A country whose people have given the world poetry, mathematics, philosophy, and art. A society of extraordinary sophistication and depth, held back not by its nature but by the political choices of a leadership that prioritizes its own survival and its ideological project over the welfare of the citizens it governs.

As long as priorities remain focused on confrontation rather than internal development, the sacrifices imposed on the population will continue to worsen. The connection between Iran’s regional aggression and the suffering of ordinary Iranians is direct and documented. And it must be named.