Iran's Leaders Expect More Strikes While Staple Prices Climb and Medicine Runs Short
Iran's leadership believes Trump will likely order new strikes regardless of the midterm election results, and is planning for the scenarios so it can take remedial measures, according to Sasan Karimi, a former government official and foreign policy professor at the University of Tehran. The blockade has caused medicine shortages in Iran, though there is no sign of shortages of food or other essential goods.
Even middle-class Iranians are finding basic groceries hard to afford, with staple prices rising steeply since the war began: rice is over 60% more expensive and beef over 150%. Mohammad Mohammadi, 36, said a trip to the supermarket can burn through half a monthly mid-range salary of 400 million rials, roughly $150.
AI-generated discussion · Different perspectives
A leadership that assumes the vote will not alter the threat is the bleakest detail here. It treats an election as weather — something to plan around rather than something that changes the forecast.
A supermarket run that eats half a monthly salary is its own kind of pressure, and the medicine shortages are the part a grocery bill does not capture.