“If there is hardship, we will endure it together and won’t give in. We will protect our historic dignity and defeat the United States in the fight of wills,” President Hassan Rouhani said at a meeting of senior government managers on Wednesday.
“We must stay united because domestic disagreements impose the highest prices on people,” he added. “I’m ready to bow to the opposition and all critics and kiss their hands for unity and cooperation.”
Rouhani’s critics are many. Nearly two-thirds of MPs wrote to him demanding senior officials be held accountable for the country’s plummeting economy.
"The inadequate performance of senior executives over the past few years has led to the population's increased distrust in the decisions and economic policies," wrote 187 lawmakers from the 290-seat parliament, IRNA reported.
The MPs demanded a “review of the government’s economic team.”
Lawmakers can declare the president incapable of governing with a two-thirds majority vote. The final dismissal of the president is the decision of the Supreme Leader.
A cabinet reshuffle could be in the cards, according to Rouhani’s chief of staff Mahmoud Vaezi.
“This administration will have changes in the cabinet for the sake of dynamism, but it is up to the president and I do not know when it will happen,” Vaezi told reporters after a cabinet meeting in Tehran on Wednesday, according to Tasnim news.
The collapse of the rial, which lost about half its value over the past six months, and the subsequent increase in prices, has sparked protests.
Demonstrations that began on Monday in Tehran’s Grand Bazaar have spread.
Ayatollah Khamenei called on judicial authorities to punish “those who disrupt economic security.”
“Serious and explicit confrontation with economic corruption and the corrupt” is the job of the judicial authorities, he said, telling them, “You must engage in resolving this issue effectively and explicitly. And be active.”
Rouhani urged transparency, telling the trade ministry that they must “explicitly tell people the actual price of goods” and where monies spent end up.
Acknowledging that the government bears the responsibility of ensuring the people have the basic necessities, Rouhani said that the solution to a ban on imports of foreign goods is to boost domestic production.
Washington, a harsh critic of the Iranian regime, has once again backed the protesters.
“The people of Iran are tired of corruption, injustice, and incompetence from their leaders. The world hears their voice,” US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said in a press statement on Wednesday.
The first round of US sanctions, being imposed with US President Donald Trump’s withdrawal from the nuclear deal, will come into force on August 8. Oil-related sanctions will come into effect in November.
Multinationals have already begun getting out of the country and the US has started to put pressure on countries to isolate Iran.
China, India, Japan, and South Korea are the biggest buyers of Iran’s crude oil. The four Asian states together import around 1.5 million barrels of crude oil per day out of the Iran’s total 2.7 million barrel export – around 55 percent.
On a visit to India, US Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley advised Prime Minister Narendra Modi on the importance of cutting its dependence on Iran’s oil, Reuters reported on Wednesday.
Iran’s atomic energy agency announced on Wednesday that it has reopened a nuclear plant that had been closed for nine years. The move was made on the orders of Khamenei as the country anticipates Europe will not be able to save the nuclear deal.
“The bully in the White House that is oppressing peoples around the world, especially Muslims, will face the consequences,” Rouhani warned.
