👋 Welcome to the fourth issue of Iranophilia - I appreciate all the responses to the subscriber poll in the previous issue. If you have any questions or suggestions feel free to reply to the email newsletter at anytime

CURRENT EVENTS

🔥 The Administration Feels Political Heat - The two crises of electricity shortages and currency devaluation continue to haunt the Pezeshkian administration.

Electricity shortages are reaching their peak as temperatures continue to go down throughout most the country, driving increased consumption of natural gas. Almost every week the government is announcing several shutdown days across multiple provinces to save electricity.

At the same time, the value of the Iranian toman is continuing to plummet. It has currently stabilized at between 92,000 to 93,000 toman per 1 US dollar (over 60% devaluation in the 7 months since Pezeshkian took office). This devaluation pushes inflation up and brings up the price of imported goods.

Now, after months of crisis, Majles (Iran’s Parliament) is targeting several members of President Pezeshkian’s team.

Who is Being Targeted?

The primary target is Abdolnaser Hemmati, an economist who is currently the Minister of Economic Affairs and Finances. Until now, 91 out of 290 MPs have signed a motion to impeach him.

Iran’s constitution allows for impeachment of ministers if at least 10 MPs sign a motion to impeach. If fully pursued, Hemmati will have to defend himself at Majles. The president will also have a chance to defend his minister. Then a no confidence vote will be held.

Hemmati previously served as the Governor of the Central Bank of Iran under the Rouhani administration from 2018 to 2021. He also ran for president in 2021 as the sole representative of the “moderate” faction but placed in third, with only 9.8% of the vote.

Pezeshkian has defended Hemmati, saying there is no magical solution in removing one person and that this impeachment would only make instability even higher. He believes the source of current economic woes are market expectations of the US increasing sanctions enforcement and that the current situation is not Hemmati’s fault.

In addition to Hemmati, there is pressure on Pezeshkian to dismiss Alireza Farzin, the current Governor of the Central Bank and some discussion of potentially impeaching Abbas Aliabadi, the Minister of Energy.

The political situation around Farzin and Aliabadi is different. They were both officials that also served in President Raisi’s cabinet and were appointed as compromise figures by Pezeshkian - something that his reformist base was not very happy about. Getting rid of those two might be something that many of Pezeshkian’s supporters don’t mind.

What Are the Larger Implications?

Up to this point, President Pezeshkian has successfully kept off pressure from right wing MPs by making an alliance with Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, the powerful Speaker of Majles. This was despite them being from different political camps and having faced each other as rivals during the 2024 elections.

Pezeshkian included several conservative Ghalibaf allies in his cabinet and in return, Ghalibaf was able to keep anti-Pezeshkian MP’s at bay. It is unclear if Ghalibaf will be successful in protecting Hemmati from impeachment.

There are many right wing MPs who are not happy with Ghalibaf’s leadership and want to decrease his power. If they are able to convince enough representatives to join them, then there may be other future moves against Pezeshkian, such as taking legal moves agaisnt him for not enforcing a draconian Hijab enforcement bill.

The lobbying campaign against Hemmati hasn’t only been behind the scenes. There has been multiple debates held on Iranian television in the past week between MPs in favor of and against Hemmati’s impeachment.

✈ Important Visits - There were two major foreign leaders that traveled to Iran in the past two weeks.

First, on February 19th, Qatar’s Emir visited Tehran, holding meetings with both the Iranian President and Supreme Leader. Notably, the Supreme Leader called Qatar a brotherly country, but criticized the issue of 6 billion dollars being still frozen in Qatari banks.

This money was money from Iranian oil sales that was unfrozen from South Korea as a part of a prisoner exchange with the US. Previously some Iranian officials had denied it was frozen again in Qatar.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov visited Tehran on February 25 and met with Iranian officials.

There was much speculation about these visits and rumors that both carried messages from the United States (I don’t think this is true). In both cases we do know that regional issues, including Syria’s new government, were discussed.

MORE HEADLINES

• Hassan Salarieh, the head of the Iranian Space Program, visited the Chabahar Spaceport site last Monday. This will be Iran’s 3rd Spaceport, after Imam Khomeini Spaceport near the city of Semnan (where Iran’s civilian space rockets is based) and Shahroud Spaceport (where Iran’s military space program is based). Chabahar Spaceport will have the ability to launch far bigger rockets. It is about 80% complete. The first launches of solid fuel rockets will be in mid-1404 (the coming Iranian year) & for liquid fuel rockets in 1407.

• Construction has resumed for the Karoon Nuclear Power Plant in Iran’s Khuzestan province. This plant, along with two additional planned units at the existing Bushehr Nuclear Power Plant, are part of a long term plan to triple Iran’s nuclear power production. Nuclear power currently makes up less than 1% of Iran’s electricity production.

• A group of Iranians outside the country filed a $225 million lawsuit against Parviz Sabeti, the former director of SAVAK’s counterterrorism division who is accused of institutionalizing torture against the Shah’s opponents. Sabeti had largely lived away from the public eye, but showed himself in a protest in 2023. The lawsuit has divided opponents of the Islamic Republic.

CULTURE

New Record -The comedy “Haftad Si” (Seventy Thirty) broke the all time record of the highest grossing Iranian box office movie, making over 330 billion toman in theaters. If inflation is taken into account, it would be in third place.

These type of slapstick comedies tend to do quite well among general audiences in Iran, though they are very unpopular with critics and rarely make it to festivals outside the country.

Taasian Blocked - In the previous issue, I had written about how a legal complaint was made against the film Taasian, which was being broadcast on the streaming application FIlimo.

This week the judiciary formally ordered Filimo to stop uploading new episodes of the series (it had been broadcast up to episode 3). The series was about a romantic relationship between a woman and her interrogator from SAVAK in the months right before the 1979 revolution. It included scenes showing mixed dancing which outraged some conservatives.

Salman the Persian - The “Salman the Persian” series, about an Iranian companion of the Prophet of Islam, is almost done filming its scenes in Iran. The series will take place in three different locations, representing Sassanid Iran, the Byzantine Empire, and the Hejaz. It is expected to be released in late 2026.

Parvin - A new trailer was released for the movie “Parvin” which is currently in theaters:

SPORTS

Lost in Translation - In a dramatic series of events, it was discovered that Persepolis Coach Ismail Kartal’s translator was a big fan of rival team Esteghlal and was likely sabotaging him. A new translator was introduced for Kartal by the Turkish embassy.

Tehran Derby - Persepolis beat Esteghlal 2-1 in the Tehran derby. With that win & nine matches left of the season, Persepolis is third place in the PGPL with 41 points, behind Sepahan (44 points) and Tractor Sazi (45 points).

However Persepolis was eliminated from the AFC Champions League Elite competition after a 0-0 draw in their last game. In contrast Esteghlal made it to the next stage.

Upcoming Games - Esteghlal faces Saudi’s Al-Nassr in Tehran on Monday March 3rd for the AFC Champions League Elite Round of 16 (Cristiano Ronaldo will be coming, unlike when Persepolis played them). They then will travel to Riyadh for the return match on Monday March 10th.

Meanwhile Tractor Sazi face Saudi’s Al-Taawoun in Tabriz on Tuesday March 4th and will travel to Saudi for the return leg on Tuesday March 11th.

ACROSS THE WEB

• Internet Usage Survey: The Majles Research Center recently conducted a survey on Iranian’s internet habits. Among other things they found that 49.4% of Iranians use free VPNs to get around Iran’s internet filtering. An additional 30.3% said they use paid VPNs. Only 18.9% said they don’t use VPNs at all. The full survey can be seen here (Persian language) - note that the personal consumption statistics were in Section 5.

• Time Magazine Covers (Persian language): The channel Bplus podcast made a fascinating video looking at every single issue of Time Magazine that had a cover relating to Iran in the 20th century. This included multiple issues on Reza Shah, Mohammad Reza Shah, Ayatollah Khomeini, and others. He analyzes how the perception of Iran was during these periods by American media.

• An Irish Visitor: Louis Brady, a young Irish Instagram and TikTok star who loves Iranian culture, particularly the team Persepolis, claims he got an Iranian visa and will be coming soon.

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