Enemies at the Gate

Tariq Marzbaan, Nora Hoppe 

Source: Al Mayadeen English

The domino effect is no longer a metaphor: if Iran falls, we all fall.

Since the publication of our essay "Iran: Guardian at the Gate of Sovereign Nations" by Al Mayadeen English on 7 February, 2026, events have surpassed even the darkest predictions. On 28 February, the United States and "Israel" launched a coordinated war against Iran, assassinating the people’s beloved Leader Ayatollah Sayyed Ali Khamenei and members of his family in their home. The assault did not spare other innocents: a triple-tap bombing at the Minab Elementary School, a double missile strike on the Lamerd Sports Hall, and systematic attacks on homes, hospitals, bridges, streets, fishing boats, and workplaces have killed thousands.

An impracticable MoU was signed on 17 June… and, predictably, broken repeatedly by the United States. (The Iranian mission to the UN has documented 42 significant US violations.) On 8 July, American military attacks resumed, slaughtering 50 people and wounding over 500, including women and children, in just days. The attacks not only targeted military objectives but have systematically struck hospitals, schools, transportation infrastructure, and even an environmental station with the family of a ranger on duty. On 16 July, the bombing of the Shahid Baghaei Medical Centre in Ahvaz forced 211 children undergoing chemotherapy to evacuate. These are not acts of war under any civilised code (i.e. under so-called "international law" of the so-called “United Nations”) – they are war crimes.

The people's response: A unity beyond comprehension

The assassination produced a response that shattered Western assumptions. Approximately 43 million people attended the week-long funeral ceremonies for Ayatollah Khamenei and his family. The sea of red flags, raised fists, and banners declaring "We must rise" were not mere grief; they were a testament to an unbreakable national will. External aggression does not fracture a nation with a civilisational soul; it forges it.

The late Leader's political testament: "Someone like me does not pledge allegiance to Yazid”, invoking Imam Hussein's refusal to submit to the tyrant Yazid, has become the roadmap for the Islamic Republic's future. The message to the West is unequivocal: Iran's civilisational will cannot be broken by military force.

The gate, the trigger and the domino effect

Iran is not merely defending itself. It stands as the Guardian at the Gate of Sovereign Nations, a bulwark against imperial homogenisation. Iran has made good on its threat to control the Strait of Hormuz and block alternative routes. The US has reimposed a naval blockade of Iranian ports and sunk an oil tanker en route to Kharg Island – the first use of force against a civilian vessel since the blockade began. Oil prices have surpassed $86 per barrel. The Ansar Allah movement in Yemen stands ready to close the Bab el-Mandeb Strait in coordination with Iran, a move that could send oil prices to $200 and trigger global economic collapse.

Yet even if the straits remain open, the fall of Iran would be devastating. The Hegemon would plunder Iran's resources, seize control of the entire Axis of Resistance- Lebanon, Syria, Yemen, Palestine - and secure the straits. Emboldened, it would proceed to appropriate further territories and resources. This is a domino game leading to the domination of much of the world.

Major General Mohsen Rezaei, the Leader's top military adviser, has warned that if US attacks continue, Iran will shift from defence to an "offensive and full annihilation phase," striking US bases both within and beyond the conflict zone. Iran has thus far exercised restraint to prevent wider war, but the US has miscalculated this. Rezaei has called on the peoples of regional countries – Kuwait, Jordan, the UAE, Qatar – to help prevent further escalation. The US is not merely waging war on Iran; it is pulling the trigger on a global firestorm. The domino effect is no longer a metaphor: if Iran falls, we all fall.

The paralysis of the global majority

And yet the world watches. The Global Majority – nations and peoples who would be the next dominoes – remain frozen in diplomatic paralysis. The UN and other international organisations are moribund; no effort has been made to create new bodies to uphold international law or justice. China and Russia have provided valuable but undisclosed assistance to Iran. Most governments, even those not aligned with the Western "Axis of Barbarism," are stuck in their functions, speaking, if at all, through a defunct UN.

Their peoples are either ignorant, indifferent, or deliberately ignoring the crisis. They feel no responsibility for their governments. Silence is no longer paralysis – it is active complicity in a war that is expanding into a world war. Major General Rezaei's call must be heard worldwide.

The obstacle: The system

The great obstacle to action is the System – neoliberal capitalism, which holds the world hostage and paralysed. This is not a superficial observation. The crises converging upon us – economic, social, political, ecological – are not new. They are the chronic symptoms of a global system that has been poisoning the Global South for decades. This polycrisis is the organic crisis of neoliberalism itself – and of the imperial modernity that gave it life. What we are witnessing is not a crisis within the system that can be overcome; it is the system itself in its terminal phase.

Neoliberalism, with its emphasis on privatisation, liberalisation, and deregulation, has atomised societies, stripping away communal bonds, denigrating reciprocity, and reducing citizens to passive consumers. In the West, this has bred complacency; globally, it has bred poverty and despair. And fatalism. And in certain parts of the Global South, a sense of fatalism prevails amongst the masses, rendering people incapable of resistance and prone to resignation. This fatalism is rooted in religion, worldview, philosophy, and other ancient traditions and cultural characteristics, and intensifies significantly in times of crisis. The élites, even those not aligned with the Hegemon, preserve their positions and wealth within the system that sustains them (their conduct is determined by class affiliation). The masses, deprived of class consciousness and historical memory, are either indifferent or crushed by a sense of powerlessness. All seem comatose, watching the herculean efforts of one heavily sanctioned nation – Iran and the Axis of Resistance – stand alone against the System.

What can we learn from Iran?

The sea of red flags at the funeral procession for Ayatollah Sayyed Ali Khamenei teaches a vital lesson: a heterogeneous people, subjected to decades of sanctions and war, can transcend internal divisions when united by a common destiny. Each individual, in that collective, sensed a scope larger than themselves; each life acquired profound meaning. What unites the Axis of Resistance is not a homogenising creed but a converging quest – analysis of oppression, identification of the oppressor, a course of resistance, and the goal of sovereignty and dignity. This template is not limited to Iran; it is available to any people seeking to reclaim their agency.

What is to be done – Now

Iran does not need our material help. It has always fended for itself. But our world needs collective action before we all go down together. Solidarity with Iran as the Gatekeeper must be fought for within our own countries. The first step is to see reality clearly: to name the enemy – the neoliberal-capitalist system – and understand its harms. Then we must begin dismantling it through concrete action: cultivating class consciousness, rebuilding communities, and acting collectively.

The Iranian people have shown that the people are more powerful than they think. The question is whether the rest of the world will learn this lesson before it is too late.

The time for diplomatic appeals is over. The time for practical action is now. 

1. Sound the alarm – not as a request, but as a siren. World War III is no longer "on the brink"; it has begun. The question is not whether it will come, but how far it will spread before the world awakens.
2. Force governments to take a stand – every neutral silence is a vote for the aggressor. The UN is incapacitated. We need new, alternative institutions of justice and international law – immediately.
3. Mobilise people worldwide – the 43 million at the funeral ceremonies were not just mourning; they were a demonstration of power. This power must be organised globally.

Iran remains standing as the Guardian at the Gate. The Gate will not fall – not as long as the peoples of the world understand that this Gate is their own.

The Gate is under siege. The abyss is before us. There is no one else to save us.

We are the ones we have been waiting for.

Why you are being lied to about Yemen and the implications of its liberation

Robert Inlakesh 

Source: Al Mayadeen English

A strong and united Yemen, with access to its resources and the ability to continue developing its military capabilities, will without a doubt be the biggest threat to US-Israeli hegemony in the Arab world.

The Yemeni Armed Forces’ campaign to liberate their nation and end the Saudi-led blockade could be one of the most important events for the Arab world in decades. Not only will it have major implications for the ongoing regional war, but it also has the potential to dramatically reshape the region.

In July, the collapse of the Yemen-Saudi ceasefire agreement, which had been in place since 2022, was triggered by a strategic mistake committed by Riyadh. While Iran sought to break the inhuman blockade on Yemen through landing civilian airliners in the nation's capital, Saudi Arabia’s air force rushed to bombard Sanaa International Airport. The Saudis may not have known it, but their irrational actions strung them up in a strategically placed trap.

Not only had the Sanaa government been coordinating a general mobilization, but its Armed Forces decided to directly retaliate by striking vital Saudi oil infrastructure and imposing a counter-blockade on their opponents to the north. The Yemeni Armed Forces then decided to take it a step further, committing round-the-clock ballistic missile and drone strikes that inflicted hundreds of casualties on Saudi-proxy forces inside Yemen and even advanced to liberate more of their nation's territory.

Saudi Arabia is now unable to transit the Bab al-Mandab Strait, and its ability to export oil has been severed, representing a serious economic blow. Riyadh is now facing an unprecedented predicament, as Ansar Allah imposes an equation whereby Saudi violations of Yemeni airspace are met with direct strikes on oil infrastructure.

The reason why this all matters so much is that since 2015, the so-called "International Community” has rallied behind Saudi Arabia and its GCC allies. The global media have also participated in the facade, pretending as if some rebel group that they call “the Houthis” were fighting against an “internationally recognized government." Why they kept up their lies is simple: without full control over their nation and its resources, the Sanaa government was simply not as valuable a partner as the Arab Gulf States, so everyone played along.

Nobody cared to point out that “the Houthis” is not an accurate name for Ansar Allah, that they aren’t simply a group of “rebels” but run a government that rules over the largest portion of the Yemeni population, or that two-thirds of the nation's Armed Forces sided with them. Neither will they tell you that the so-called “Yemen Presidential Leadership Council” was created in the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Riyadh and that its undemocratically selected leader lives in Saudi Arabia.

In fact, the idea that the Saudi-proxy forces in Yemen are the legitimate representatives of the nation and are somehow a sovereign government is even more outlandish than when most of the Western world randomly decided that Juan Guaidó was the “internationally recognised” President of Venezuela.

But none of this will even end up mattering if Ansar Allah succeeds in uniting Yemen and reaching an agreement to liberate its territory from its US-Israeli-backed aggressors. The reason why the Arab regimes, alongside the US-UK-EU-Israeli alliance, have fought against the government in Sanaa is that they all fear the consequences of their success.

Yemen will be the only Arab nation that will not only oppose US imperialism and support the regional resistance, but will also actively fight the Israelis and work to combat the “Greater Israel Project." The only Arab government that dared to open fire on the Israelis or impose a blockade on them, in support of Gaza, was the Sanaa government in Yemen. All the others that fought for Gaza were non-state actors. 

A strong and united Yemen, with access to its resources and the ability to continue developing its military capabilities, will without a doubt be the biggest threat to US-Israeli hegemony in the Arab World. Yet, it will also spell another equation: it could well serve as an example to populations throughout the region, as to what is possible if the people fight for their liberation. No prospect frightens the Arab regimes more than this.

The impact Yemen can have on global trade, oil markets, regional power equations and ultimately the Palestinian cause for national liberation, all have the Zionist allied powers shaking in their boots. For so long, the Yemeni issue has been ignored, but that could soon dramatically change.

America Wants Economic War; Iran Will Make It a Wider War

Crescent International

It is becoming increasingly evident that, having failed to achieve their military or political objectives against Islamic Iran, the US and Israel are placing greater emphasis on economic warfare as their principal strategy for weakening the Islamic Republic.

Economic warfare has always been the primary US weapon against Iran since 1979.

The major difference is that Donald Trump is foolish enough to say it out loud.

Nevertheless, this raises an important question: can economic pressure succeed where military and political coercion have failed?

Based on the Syria experience, the answer is yes: economic warfare can work, particularly when it is combined with other forms of political, military, and diplomatic pressure.

However, Iran is not Syria.

The Syrian analogy does not apply to Iran’s case on many levels.

There are important limits to the Syrian case.

Syria entered its prolonged conflict with a much smaller economy, weaker industrial and military base, limited strategic depth, and much greater dependence on external assistance.

Most importantly, Iran’s Islamic system possesses far greater internal support, along with strategic depth and a network of regional partnerships and asymmetric capabilities through which it can impose costs on its adversaries.

While even proponents of US imperialism acknowledge serious limitations in the strategy of economic warfare against Islamic Iran, Tehran is unlikely to underestimate the threat or take the intensification of economic pressure lightly.

The central question, therefore, is: what will Tehran’s strategy be?

One thing is increasingly clear: since the onset of open US and Israeli aggression against Iran in February 2026, Tehran has recalibrated its policies toward a more offensive posture, including in the economic sphere.

This means that Iran is unlikely to respond to economic warfare with economic measures alone.

Instead, Tehran is likely to seek to impose significant costs on western economies and the GCC states through the use of hard power.

As the global economic situation continues to deteriorate, this strategy is becoming increasingly evident.

Time, however, is also a factor working against all sides, but more against the US and Israel.

For Tehran, the challenge is, therefore, to synchronize its economic policies in a way that minimize the burden on the Iranian population.

Iran cannot afford to drift into a prolonged state of limbo, as Syria did.

Instead, its strategy will likely be designed around a simple principle: deny the enemy what it wants and force it to confront what it seeks to avoid.

If Washington and Tel Aviv are counting on economic pressure to weaken Iran while avoiding the costs of a wider confrontation, Tehran’s response will ensure that the economic warfare itself generates precisely those costs—through sustained disruption, heightened risks, and pressure on the economic, political and military interests of the US, Israel, and their regional vassals.

A key element of Tehran’s strategy will be to recognize that the economic and military dimensions of the conflict are now inseparable.

If the US and Israel expect Iran to avoid military confrontation simply because the primary battlefield has shifted toward economic warfare, they are likely to get a rude shock.

From Tehran’s perspective, economic pressure depends heavily on the logistical and military infrastructure that sustains US and Israeli power in the region.

Consequently, Iran will seek to impose costs on the broader regional architecture rather than confining its response to the economic sphere.

The central objective would, therefore, be to demonstrate that a strategy of economic siege cannot be pursued without consequences in the military arena.

Any attempt to squeeze Iran economically is likely to trigger sustained pressure against the infrastructure supporting US and Israeli military operations in the region.

In this sense, the economic battlefield and the military battlefield become tightly intertwined, making it far more difficult for Washington to impose an economic siege while insulating its regional military presence from retaliation.

This dynamic would ensure that the costs of the strategy are not borne by Iran alone.

IranBlockade of HormuzEconomicsStrait of HormuzRamadan War

MAULID AND THE FORGOTTEN IMPERATIVE OF MUSLIM UNITY

By Professor Abdullahi Danladi

As Muslims across the world celebrate the Maulid of the Holy Prophet Muhammad, the occasion provides us with far more than an opportunity to recount the circumstances of his blessed birth, praise his noble character or narrate the remarkable events of his life. It provides, above all, an opportunity for self-reflection. We should ask ourselves a difficult but necessary question: What has become of the unity that the Prophet of Mercy came to establish among those who believe in the same God, follow the same Prophet, read the same Qur'an, perform the same five daily prayers and turn towards the same Qiblah?

There is perhaps no better moment than Maulid to confront this question. If we genuinely love the Prophet Muhammad, then his life must become more than a subject of celebration; it must become a standard by which we examine our own conduct. His mission was not to create a community perpetually consumed by suspicion, mutual condemnation and sectarian hostility. He came to transform a fragmented society into an Ummah bound together by faith, moral responsibility, justice, compassion and brotherhood. The Qur'an captures this transformation when it reminds believers: "And hold firmly to the rope of Allah all together and do not become divided." (Qur'an 3:103).

The irony of our contemporary condition is difficult to ignore. We profess belief in one Allah. We testify to the same Prophethood of Muhammad. We accept the Qur'an as the revealed word of God. We perform five daily prayers. We fast in Ramadan. We face the same Ka'bah in Makkah. We recognize the same basic pillars of Islam. Yet, despite these enormous areas of agreement, we sometimes allow relatively minor differences in interpretation and practice to become reasons for suspicion, hostility and even the denial of one another's Islamic identity.

This raises a fundamental question: What exactly do we mean when we speak of Muslim unity?

Unity does not mean that every Muslim must think identically. It does not mean that every school of jurisprudence must disappear, that every theological question must have only one interpretation, or that Muslims must surrender the intellectual traditions within which they understand their faith. Such a demand would neither be realistic nor consistent with the complexity of human understanding. Human beings naturally differ in their capacities, experiences, methods of reasoning and interpretation. Differences of understanding, therefore, are not in themselves evidence of disobedience to Allah.

The real danger begins when disagreement is transformed into hostility, and when an intellectual difference becomes a moral judgment about the person who holds it. It is one thing to say, "I disagree with your interpretation." It is quite another to say, "Because you disagree with me, you are misguided, impious or no longer one of us." The first is an expression of intellectual difference; the second is the beginning of sectarianism.

There is an important distinction that Muslims must recover: unity is not uniformity. A united Ummah can contain different schools of thought, different jurisprudential methodologies and different interpretations of secondary questions while remaining one religious community. Indeed, the history of Islamic scholarship demonstrates that disagreement existed among learned Muslims on numerous questions. What preserved the integrity of the Ummah was not the elimination of all differences, but the cultivation of scholarly discipline, mutual respect and recognition of the boundaries of legitimate disagreement.

Unfortunately, we have sometimes elevated our interpretations to the status of revelation itself. We defend our understanding with such absolute certainty that we begin to behave as though Allah has personally appointed us guardians of His truth. We forget that there is a profound difference between the truth revealed by Allah and our human understanding of that truth. Revelation may be perfect; our understanding of revelation is not necessarily so.

This should teach us humility.

When another Muslim professes the Kalimatush-Shahadah, we should begin from the presumption that he is a Muslim. We may disagree with some of his practices. We may consider some of his interpretations incorrect. We may even believe that his position is demonstrably weaker than ours. But intellectual disagreement does not automatically cancel religious fraternity. At the very least, we should have the maturity to acknowledge that he may have reasons, evidence and a theological framework within which he understands what he does.

We should also remember a principle that ought to govern our conduct in matters where sincere believers disagree: ultimate judgment belongs to Allah. We are responsible for seeking truth, defending what we believe to be correct and engaging in principled dialogue. We are not the final judges of the hearts of other people. Allah knows who is sincere, who is mistaken, who is ignorant, who is struggling to understand and who has deliberately rejected the truth. Our knowledge is limited; His knowledge is absolute.

This does not mean that Muslims should abandon scholarship or pretend that all opinions are equally correct. Unity must never be confused with intellectual indifference. There are questions on which Muslims must search for truth with seriousness and conviction. There are practices that can and should be debated. There are interpretations that can be examined, challenged and rejected. But the existence of disagreement should never become an excuse for the destruction of brotherhood.

The Qur'an does not instruct Muslims to stop thinking. It instructs them to hold firmly together. The Prophet did not establish unity by abolishing every difference among his followers. He established it by teaching them how to live together despite their differences, by cultivating mercy, justice and mutual responsibility, and by making their common faith more important than their secondary disagreements.

This is where the Prophet of Mercy becomes our most important model.

His greatness was not demonstrated only in his worship, his courage or his profound knowledge. It was also demonstrated in the manner in which he dealt with human beings. He knew how to correct without humiliating, disagree without hatred, forgive without weakness and exercise authority without arrogance. He understood that people could be brought closer to truth through wisdom and compassion, whereas contempt and humiliation often drive them further away.

If we celebrate the Maulid while remaining incapable of tolerating another Muslim who prays differently from us, interprets a secondary issue differently from us, follows another school of jurisprudence or belongs to a different Muslim tradition, then perhaps we have celebrated the birth of the Prophet without adequately absorbing the meaning of his mission.

The question, therefore, is not simply whether we love the Prophet. Virtually every Muslim will answer that question affirmatively. The deeper question is: Does our behaviour towards other Muslims demonstrate the values of the Prophet whom we claim to love?

What would happen if Muslims began to give one another the benefit of the doubt? What if, before condemning another Muslim, we first tried to understand why he believes what he believes? What if our mosques, schools, Islamic organizations and public platforms became places of intellectual engagement rather than arenas for mutual denunciation? What if our scholars taught Muslims not only how to defend their own positions but also how to disagree with dignity?

We might then begin to rediscover the meaning of Ummah.

The challenges confronting Muslims today are far greater than the differences that frequently divide us. Poverty, ignorance, injustice, political instability, economic dependency, technological backwardness, moral crises, Islamophobia and the suffering of Muslims in different parts of the world demand intellectual cooperation and collective responsibility. Yet we sometimes expend enormous energy fighting one another over issues that could be discussed peacefully, while remaining strangely passive before problems that threaten the dignity and future of the entire Ummah.

There is something profoundly tragic about this.

The enemies of Islam do not always need to defeat Muslims from outside when Muslims are prepared to weaken themselves from within. A community divided against itself becomes vulnerable—not because diversity is inherently weakness, but because hatred converts diversity into fragmentation.

We must therefore distinguish between difference and division. Difference can enrich intellectual life. Division destroys communal strength. Difference invites dialogue. Division breeds hatred. Difference can produce scholarship. Division produces suspicion. The problem is not that Muslims disagree; the problem is that we have increasingly forgotten how to disagree as brothers.

This Maulid should therefore become an occasion for a different kind of celebration: a celebration that leads to introspection. Let us celebrate the Prophet by rediscovering his ethic of mercy. Let us honour him by refusing to turn our mosques into battlegrounds of sectarian contempt. Let us remember him by speaking about those with whom we disagree with fairness. Let us demonstrate our love for him by treating the dignity of another believer as something sacred.

To those who misunderstand Muslim unity, or deliberately refuse to understand it, our message should be simple: unity does not require you to abandon your school of thought. It does not demand that you surrender your intellectual convictions. It does not require you to pretend that all disagreements are meaningless. It asks only that you recognize the humanity and Muslim identity of those who share the fundamental testimony of faith with you, and that you disagree with them without hatred.

You may believe that another Muslim is mistaken. Argue your case. Present your evidence. Engage the scholarship. But do so with intellectual maturity. Do not turn disagreement into contempt. Do not convert jurisprudence into tribalism. Do not make your interpretation a substitute for revelation. And do not appoint yourself judge over the hearts of people.

The truth belongs to Allah. Our obligation is to pursue it sincerely.

Perhaps this is one of the most important lessons we can draw from the Maulid of the Prophet Muhammad. The greatest tribute we can offer him is not merely to decorate our streets, organize gatherings, recite poetry or speak eloquently about his virtues. Those things may have their place. But the more profound tribute is to allow his character to change ours.

If he was the Prophet of Mercy, let mercy characterize our disagreements. If he was the Messenger who united hearts, let us refuse to become agents of division. If he taught brotherhood, let us not make secondary differences greater than the faith that unites us. If he taught humility, let us recognize the limitations of our own understanding.

The Ummah does not need Muslims who agree on everything. It needs Muslims who know how to disagree without destroying one another.

That is the unity we need. That is the maturity we need. And perhaps, more than all the outward celebrations of Maulid, that is the gift we should offer to the Prophet of Mercy on the occasion of his blessed birth.

May Allah unite the hearts of Muslims, deepen our understanding of one another, protect us from the arrogance that turns disagreement into hatred, and enable us to rediscover the brotherhood that the Prophet Muhammad came to establish among believers.

Allahumma salli 'ala Muhammad wa ali Muhammad.

Sanctions against Iran: Curse or blessing?

Tariq Marzbaan 

Source: Al Mayadeen English

How decades of US-led sanctions reshaped Iran’s economy, politics, and society, fostering self-sufficiency, technological innovation, and national resilience while challenging the effectiveness of economic coercion as a tool of Western power.

The Imperial Logic of Containment

"The most effective way to destroy a fleet is to not allow it to be built in the first place."

This saying, often attributed to British naval officers of the First World War, reveals the perennial logic of colonialism. If we translate "fleet" into national sovereignty – economic, military, and technological strength – the essence of imperial strategy becomes clear: to subjugate, occupy, and plunder a nation, one must first ensure that it never develops the capacity to resist. To this end, colonial powers devised overt and covert methods to hinder advancement. When these methods fail, the bombs and armies follow.

After World War II, the United States refined these colonial practices through a web of multilateral institutions: the United Nations, Bretton Woods, the World Bank, the IMF, the WEF, NGOs, the ICJ, and even cultural vehicles like Hollywood. These became the new instruments of hegemonic control – promoting neoliberal ideology under the guise of "development" and "reform."

Historical context: Iran and the global financial order

Following the Islamic Revolution of 1979 and the subsequent hostage crisis – during which it emerged that many of the US diplomats involved had close links to the intelligence services – the United States imposed comprehensive sanctions on Iran. These measures have steadily intensified over the decades, causing immense harm to Iran's economy and inflicting widespread suffering on its population.

Prior to 1979, Iran was an active partner of Western financial institutions. As a founding member of the World Bank and the IMF (since 1944), Iran received approximately $1.2 billion in combined loans from 1975 to 1979 for infrastructure projects. However, the revolution fundamentally altered this relationship. Throughout the 1980s, World Bank loans were suspended, and the IMF effectively withdrew its activities in Iran. It was only in 1991, under President Rafsanjani's reconstruction programme, that loans slowly and partially resumed.

Notably, institutional ties were never entirely severed. Iranian representatives continued to attend the annual meetings of the World Bank and IMF – most famously in 1987. For Iran, these meetings offered little direct financial benefit but served as a diplomatic platform to push for sanctions relief. For the West, however, they provided a channel to cultivate pro-Western financial elites within Iran – figures who would later become known as "reformists," implicitly carrying the torch of neoliberal ideology.

These activities led to the JCPOA in 2015–2018 and, as a result, to the partial lifting of sanctions, which in turn led to a reduction in the production of domestic goods. Following Trump’s withdrawal from the JCPOA, Iran was thrust into a state of agitation. Iranian negotiators such as Foreign Minister Javad Zarif and President Hassan Rouhani were humiliated and lost credibility, even though it was Trump who had withdrawn from the JCPOA.

Their critics felt vindicated. In February 2025, Ayatollah Seyyed Khamenei criticised the JCPOA, stating that the Iranian team had been too generous and that the US had failed to honour its commitments and had ultimately withdrawn from the agreement. This temporary return to dependence actually proved his point: sanctions forced innovation; relief measures fostered dependence.

Social fractures: Class, ideology, and the revolutionary ethos

The sanctions did not affect all Iranians equally, and this created a profound social divide.

Many wealthy Iranians – members of the oligarchic upper class, alongside significant segments of the Western-leaning middle class – blamed their own government for the sanctions. They argued that the Islamic Republic's anti-Western rhetoric had provoked US hostility and prevented the lifting of economic pressure. Their mindset remained trapped within the neoliberal framework: they longed for privatisation, deregulation, and integration into "free markets," viewing the clerical leadership as the primary obstacle to their personal prosperity.

The middle class, in particular, inherited this pro-Western orientation from the Shah era, consciously or unconsciously embracing neoliberal values out of pure self-interest.

Yet both classes were largely blind to the deeper reality: the enmity of the United States toward the Islamic Republic was never merely about nuclear enrichment or human rights. It was, and remains, a neo-colonial agenda – an insistence that Iran submit to US-dictated economic and political norms. The West would accept no outcome short of a compliant, neoliberal client state.

The revolutionary compass: Justice over submission

What the upper and middle classes failed to comprehend was Ayatollah Khomeini's foundational concept of justice – the protection of the mustazafin (the downtrodden) and solidarity with Palestine. This principle, later pursued with equal vigour by Ayatollah Khamenei, represented a complete rejection of Western hegemony.

Left-leaning political groups within Iran often focused narrowly on economic redistribution but overlooked this anti-colonial vigilance. Ayatollahs Khomeini and Khamenei understood that any leadership yielding to external pressure would, like so many post-Soviet states, eventually open its doors to neoliberal predation, allowing the global financial and technological oligarchy to dismantle national sovereignty from within. The Iranian leadership chose a different path.

 The paradox of pressure: Deprivation as a catalyst

The sanctions have undoubtedly caused horrific inflation, massive currency devaluation, crippling unemployment (with 39% of university graduates unable to find work, and shortages of critical medications. Daily life has become a relentless struggle.

And yet – this is the paradox – sanctions have made Iran stronger, more self-sufficient, and more resilient. They have forced the state to innovate, strengthened domestic capacities, and, contrary to Western expectations, inspired a profound sense of national unity. As scholars have noted, external pressure often "inadvertently produce[s] resistance economies by strengthening domestic potentials and inspiring national unity."

The 'resistance economy': Institutionalising self-sufficiency

Iran institutionalised this response through the doctrine of the "Resistance Economy" – a strategy first articulated after the 1979 Revolution. Its core principle is to rely on domestic resources, reduce dependence on external systems, and maximise internal capacities. This has translated into a policy of import substitution, evolving into what analysts now call a "sophisticated survival mechanism" that has outlasted all international predictions.

The sectors that have flourished under this doctrine are not marginal; they are strategically vital:

• Pharmaceuticals & Medical Biotech: Iran has achieved 97–99% self-sufficiency in pharmaceutical production. Because radiopharmaceuticals have half-lives of mere hours or days, importation was impossible – so Iran mastered their production domestically. Today, it produces over 70 types of radiopharmaceuticals, with 56 countries applying to purchase its nuclear medical equipment. Iranian medicines cost one-fifth to one-tenth of global prices.

• Military & Defence: Sanctions and wartime pressures accelerated defence R&D. Iran now produces advanced missiles, UAVs (drones), and naval assets entirely indigenously. Its drone capabilities have drawn global attention, and production of short-range missiles is fully self-sufficient.

• Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) & Nanotechnology: Iran ranks top 10 globally in stem cell research and first in the Middle East in nanotechnology. It ranks first among Islamic nations in cognitive sciences and stands among the top global producers of scientific publications in advanced materials and AI.

• Space Technology: Iran is now one of only nine nations worldwide capable of independently manufacturing and launching satellites – a clear demonstration of technological sovereignty.

• Agriculture & Food Security: Iran has achieved 85% self-sufficiency in food and approximately 96% in essential staples. Wheat production rose from 4 million to 13 million tons; poultry meat from 165,000 to nearly 3 million tonnes.

• Energy Independence: By investing in domestic refineries, Iran eliminated its reliance on imported fuel – a critical vulnerability that had been a point of external pressure.

• Industrial Manufacturing: Petrochemicals, automotive parts, and even the wood/paper industry have undergone localisation and reverse-engineering, with several sectors doubling production since the 1990s.

The unifying force of collective hardship

Perhaps the most remarkable benefit lies in the social and psychological realm. When sanctions are perceived as collective punishment of an entire nation – rather than targeted measures against officials – deprivation becomes a shared national experience. The state repositions itself as the protector against external hostility.

Empirical research bears this out. A study analysing nearly 2 million tweets from over 1,000 Iranian influencers during the Trump administration's "maximum pressure" campaign found that sweeping sanctions generally improved public sentiment toward the Iranian government – even among moderate opposition figures. The "Rally-Around-the-Flag" effect, observed during periods of intensified sanctions (2005–2020), showed heightened nationalist sentiment and increased solidarity behind non-civilian state institutions.

The daily struggle to survive – queueing for subsidised goods, navigating currency collapses, finding black-market medicines – has, paradoxically, forged a collective identity. Alongside other positive developments, external pressure has led to better-organised state institutions and a governing structure that has proved remarkably durable.

The hubris of the hegemon and the triumph of sovereignty

The human cost of sanctions cannot be dismissed. Inflation, unemployment, and shortages have broken countless lives. However, when weighed against the historical arc of national sovereignty, the qualitative gains are undeniable.

The recent wars waged by the United States and its regional allies against Iran have demonstrated the ultimate failure of the sanctions strategy. Iran did not buckle. It deployed superior strategy, superior indigenous technology, and a population whose resilience had been forged in decades of hardship. It has shown that a nation fighting for its dignity – armed with principles of justice and anti-colonial solidarity - can outlast a superpower trapped in its own hubris.

The sanctions were an expression of US pathological self-importance: the illusory conviction that the world cannot function without American approval. Iran has proven the contrary. It has become a role model for the Global Majority – nations seeking not just sovereignty, but deserved dignity. The curse of sanctions, through sheer Iranian ingenuity and collective will, has transmuted into a paradoxical blessing: a self-reliant, technologically capable, and ideologically steadfast nation that no external power can bend.