The dollar crossed the threshold of 232,000 tomans, and pharmacies are on the verge of bankruptcy

What he says

An English translation of the talk, which is in Persian. It was made with AI from YouTube's automatic captions and may contain errors; the Persian transcript is authoritative. Click a timestamp to jump to that part of the video.

0:00 Hello. It is Wednesday, 18 Shahrivar 1405, September 9, 2026. The news we are hearing is that the Paydari people are holding secret meetings and want to send an official letter to Ghalibaf seeking the impeachment of Pezeshkian, in effect pursuing a vote of political incompetence against him. These reports come despite the official, public remarks recently made by Sadegh Mahsouli, secretary-general of the Paydari Front, that same well-known "billionaire general," who spoke of national unity, consensus and cooperation with the government, and who also announced

0:59 that they had met with Pezeshkian. Meanwhile, the Strategic Network of Supporters of the Islamic Revolution, which goes by the acronym "Shariyan," is the hardline wing of the principlists and includes people like Hamid Rasaei. In the 1402 Majlis elections it fiercely opposed Ghalibaf, his faction, and Haddad-Adel, who was trying to unite the principlists. They too back this move and are aggressively pursuing a plan to bring down Ghalibaf and Pezeshkian.

1:51 The moves by IRIB, the state broadcaster, point the same way. Even though IRIB is overseen by the Leader's office, and under the constitution by the Leader himself, in practice it is busy undermining the more moderate wing of the regime. It even denies government officials the ordinary airtime it gives to everyone else, and under the pretext of "disturbing public opinion" it usually doesn't let officials, especially the government's economic officials, speak. That includes Mr. Hemmati, the governor of the Central Bank. Not only do they

2:46 restrict him; the Ministry of Intelligence has even stopped him from taking part in Clubhouse and won't let him come and speak, again under the pretext of disturbing public opinion. These feuds have intensified, and in the current crisis they are gambling with the country's fate. That raises the question: where is Mojtaba Khamenei? Under the constitution of the Islamic Republic, the Guardian Jurist is the ultimate authority and the central pillar of the Islamic Republic's tent, and it is precisely at moments like this that he should be present and manage these crises.

3:44 Yet not only do we see no trace of him, since he is absent, but even on the occasions when he apparently makes an appearance through a statement or announcement, we see the same policy of playing both sides that Khamenei himself followed. Meanwhile, today the dollar crossed the 232,000 toman mark. Mr. Hadi Ahmadi, spokesman for the Iranian Pharmacists Association, said today that the debt owed to pharmacies by the insurance organizations and the Targeted Subsidies Organization has reached 77,000 billion tomans, and their meager capital has put the pharmacies under

4:39 pressure, so many of them can no longer keep going. There is also the issue of the civil and military pension funds, which are practically unable to pay pensions. These are just some of the country's problems. As for the pension funds, we have about 18 of them in the country, and almost all depend on the general budget. This year we face a shortfall of 978,000 billion tomans that the government has to cover from the general budget so these funds can pay retirees their paltry pensions.

5:35 Even the largest pension funds, such as the Social Security Organization, which covers the most people, depend on government aid to make payments. The standard for pension funds is that for every retiree receiving a pension there should be 7 to 8 insured contributors paying monthly premiums to fund that one retiree's pension. At the Social Security Organization the ratio is now 4 contributors for each pensioner. But at the Civil Servants Pension Fund, which covers government employees, the figure is only half a person. That means for every two

6:28 pensioners, only one person is employed and paying retirement contributions deducted from his pay. The Armed Forces fund has roughly the same ratio, and some funds, like the national steel industry fund, are far worse. This pressure on the general budget, which we also discussed in the previous session, is part of the government's budget imbalances and deficits. These have accelerated the growth of the country's liquidity, which has reached 20,000 thousand billion tomans, and the rial's loss of value has sped up the velocity of money. At the same time, because the government

7:28 can't fund the country's development and construction budgets, and no investment is taking place either, the country's production has fallen. Add dozens of other problems, and GDP is going backward with negative growth. The result is that prices are rising, have already risen, and will go even higher. Meanwhile, in the past 24 hours the war of the ships in the Persian Gulf has intensified. First, Iran attacked an American vessel with two missiles. In retaliation, the US attacked 5 Iranian oil tankers, one of which sank, according to CENTCOM. In turn, the IRGC,

8:27 through its spokesman, said, "We attacked 8 oil tankers and two American vessels." All of this is raising the level of tension. That is why on the world market North Sea Brent crude passed $100 a barrel, entering the $100 range and reaching $101 a barrel. In Yemen, meanwhile, the war is raging. Fighting has escalated sharply between the Saudi-backed southern government and the Iran-backed northern government in Sanaa, meaning the Houthis. Pakistan, which is Saudi Arabia's ally, is in fact busy training the southern forces, and

9:27 there is even talk of its air force entering the war. Its defense minister, Mr. Khawaja Asif, has warned that because of the Mecca pact, Pakistan may enter the war against Yemen's Houthis. There is also talk of drawing Syria into this war, which above all would require Turkey's consent. For their part, the Houthis claim to have set fire to various Saudi oil facilities and to have attacked several cities, while the southern government claims to have taken several cities from the Houthis. In any case, casualties are mounting and the fighting is intense. The Houthis are one of the Islamic Republic's important

10:27 so-called proxy forces. If Yemen's fate becomes like Syria's, the Islamic Republic will lose one of its important arms, the one through which it thinks it can put pressure not only on Saudi Arabia but also on the Bab el-Mandeb, the Red Sea and world trade. Yesterday the US announced that it has sanctioned all 27 of the Islamic Republic's airlines, as well as companies in Malaysia, the UAE, Turkey and Kazakhstan, and foreign flights will soon be cut off. The CEO of the Imam Khomeini Airport Company said that so far they have received nothing in writing from any country about cutting

11:28 foreign flights. But the truth is that Turkey is now Iran's air gateway to the outside world. If Turkish airports, in light of the US sanctions, stop servicing Iranian planes, then this air window, with Iranian airlines flying to Istanbul and taking Iranian passengers out or bringing them back, will also be closed to Iran. Mr. Masoud Nasiri, president of Semnan University, apologized to Iraqi students in a video. The video even had Arabic subtitles, yet there was no mention whatsoever of an apology to the people of Semnan, or

12:25 to the people of Iran. The cause of the clash at Semnan University was the harassment of an Iranian girl by Iraqi Hashd al-Shaabi students. Meanwhile, one of the state broadcaster's bizarre "experts" claimed on TV that the Iranian people hold 500 million tons of gold, that the Central Bank's reserves hold the same amount, and that there are 800 million tons of gold in Iran's mines that will be extracted, and so on. This man has no grasp of numbers at all. The World Gold Council published a report this year stating that in all of human

13:20 history, about 22,000 tons of gold have been mined in total, and all the remaining unmined reserves come to 61,000 tons. In hope of victory for Iran and Iranians.