Iran Democracy Monitor: No. 124

PLUMMETING RIAL GENERATES PUBLIC UNREST...
The Iranian government has moved decisively to quash public expressions of discontent over the collapse of the national currency. On October 3rd, authorities deployed riot police to confront protestors demonstrating in Tehran against the rapid devaluation of the rial, resulting in skirmishes between civilians and security forces.

Regime officials have also announced a plan to target speculators and black market money changers in an effort to discourage a run on the rial. As part of this effort, Tehran’s Prosecutor, Abbas Jafari Dowlatabadi, has announced the arrest of some thirty “main players” in the country’s currency crisis. These suspects—believed to be illegal currency traders—were found in possession of large amounts of foreign currency and gold, and will be brought to trial expeditiously as a public example, Dowlatabadi has said. (Reuters, October 3, 2012; IRNA, October 6, 2012)

...AS EUROPE SEEKS TO PRESS ITS ADVANTAGE
Western powers, meanwhile, are working to capitalize upon Iran’s increasingly precarious economic state. Britain, France and Germany are now said to be pushing forward with plans for new European Union sanctions that would generate additional economic pressure on the Islamic Republic. Relevant officials reportedly are hoping to have the new measures ready by the next meeting of the EU Foreign Affairs Council, which will take place on October 15th.

It’s unclear if they will succeed in making that deadline, but nevertheless “will certainly have it before the end of the year,” a British diplomat has confirmed. What’s also apparent is that the EU is thinking big—and measures implemented may include a total ban on trade with the Islamic Republic for member states. "There is a debate about a trade embargo," according to one EU diplomat. "Many countries are not eager to impose a general embargo. But the debate exists." (Financial Times, October 1, 2012; Reuters, October 5, 2012)

IRAN, IAEA ON THE OUTS
Iran's historically fraught relationship with the International Atomic Energy Agency has gone from bad to worse in recent weeks. In mid-September, Fereydoun Abbasi, the head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, publicly charged that the UN watchdog has been infiltrated by “terrorists and saboteurs,” who may be using the agency’s auspices to plot against Iran’s nuclear program. Since then, other Iranian officials have echoed Abbasi’s charges, claiming that the IAEA was directly involved in two separate incidents of recent sabotage aimed at Iran’s nuclear facilities. (Tehran MEHR, September 17, 2012; Washington Post, October 8, 2012)

[Editor’s Note: These tensions also have caused Iranian officials to hint that they might be contemplating a wholesale exit from the 1968 Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty - a step many experts fear could make Iran's nuclear program completely opaque, and signal a sprint toward bomb capability on the part of the Iranian regime.]