The past year has not been easy for the Iranians. First on the economic front: if the American sanctions against Iran were reinstated in November 2018, it was in 2019 that the effects were felt, and at all levels of Iranian society. Inflation has reached 40% and the country is in recession.
"The American sanctions have devastated the Iranian economy, already in bad shape, plunging the country into the worst economic crisis it has known since the 1979 Revolution," analyzes Thierry Coville, researcher at Iris [Institute of International Relations and strategic] and Iran specialist, contacted by France 24.
2019 was marked by the EU's inability to save the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran. "The Europeans have not put up enough resistance to the United States, which has been able to apply the sanctions as strictly as possible and with all their might," said Thierry Coville. "As for the barter mechanism that the EU launched in February 2019 to circumvent the sanctions, it is a failure, it only exists on paper."
The petroleum sector was undoubtedly the most affected by the American embargo, specifies the economist. "Iran rose in early 2018 from 2.2 million barrels exported to only 500,000 in 2019. However, oil represents 40% of the revenue of the Iranian state, which has almost no currency left," says Thierry Coville.
Most violent repression since the Revolution
It was with the rise in oil prices for the Iranians that mass uprisings erupted on the whole territory on November 15. For several days, hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets. An uprising that Tehran suppressed in blood, shooting live ammunition at the protesters.
According to an Amnesty International report, the crackdown left at least 304 people dead in four days. Figures that would make it the deadliest repressive episode since the 1979 Revolution. The Iranian state was left on a balance sheet of 10 dead.
"These popular uprisings were predictable," said the researcher at Iris, who says he is even surprised that they did not emerge earlier. A challenge sought by Washington: since the reinstatement of sanctions in late 2018, the administration of Donald Trump has claimed "maximum pressure" on Iran in order to destabilize power.
Legislatives lost in advance for the moderates of Rohani
"The end of President Rohani's mandate promises to be complicated", underlines Thierry Coville. In domestic policy, the year 2019 devoted the rise of the ultra-conservatives. "The moderates, close to Hassan Rohani, built their victory in the last legislative and presidential elections on the promise of reviving the economy. The worsening of the economic crisis in 2019 discredits them among their electorate," notes the researcher.
However, the Iranians must elect their deputies in 2020. Parliament could therefore switch to the side of the conservatives, who are used to applying harsh social policies, particularly in the area of customs, culture, and towards Iranian women.
Contested authority in Lebanon and Iraq
Abroad, 2019 was also a year of anger against Iranian influence in Lebanon and Iraq. In these two countries, Tehran plays a key role in internal political life, through Hezbollah in Lebanon and several Shiite parties and militias in Iraq.
In popular protests demanding the departure of the leaders of these two states, anti-Iranian slogans emerged. In Iraq, an Iranian consulate building in Kerbala was attacked and posters of Supreme Guide Ali Khamenei were burned ... all of these unpublished scenes that marked the end of 2019.
Will this wind of revolt against Iranian interests continue to blow in 2020? "In light of the disputes, Iran will take care to make its influence less visible in Iraq and Lebanon," replies Thierry Coville. "But Tehran will do everything to preserve its presence in these two countries, because it is fundamental to ensuring its security in the region."
Security all the more important since tensions have never been stronger between Iran and the United States since the 1979 Revolution. Tehran bordered on war with Washington in 2019. Attack on an oil complex by drones in Saudi Arabia, destruction of an American drone in the Strait of Hormuz and immobilization of a British tanker, incidents involving Iran in the Gulf have followed one another throughout the year, raising fears of an armed conflict .
A return to calm has been observed since October, but the American presidential election of November 2020 could rekindle tensions, if Donald Trump used the possibility of a war against Iran during his campaign. In addition, a re-election of the American president would strengthen the Iranian conservative camp, bellicose and fiercely anti-American.
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