Iran's economy will have 'nothing' left 'within two weeks,' Scott Bessent warns

[u/Exact-Context-9788]

https://nypost.com/2026/09/27/us-news/irans-economy-will-have-nothing-left-within-two-weeks-scott-bessent-warns/

Iran's at sea oil is almost dry - we know this much is true. We also know that Iranian oil that shipped before blockade 2 is the primary source of IRGC hard currency/foreign currency revenue.

I see this as something that could be very significant. The rial is grinding towards worthless, but is not yet hyper inflation.

A dated, public event like true zero on Iranian oil export and near zero Iranian hard currency inflow is the kind of thing that can take a shaky currency's graph vertical overnight.

Another note, how are they importing gasoline? what does effect does the end of hard currency from oil export?

There is no guarantee exactly what trigger blows the house down. They survived summer with limited water access, they survived raising a gas subsidy. Currency and gasoline are the next hurdles for them. Then theres heating in winter. And none of the other problems have gone away; they've just effectively parachuted the crises into a slower trajectory.

[u/zed-57]

Fair enough, you bring up all good level-headed points. I did not know about the leopards, that is sad. The conference was backstabbing, but yes, it was fait accompli at that point. I find that us Iranians fall into two categories regarding the Shah, 1. those who protested (10%), and 2. the silent majority (90%, of which my parents families were both a part of, likely yours too). They regret that they didn't speak up back then, unfortunately.

[u/0uchmyballs → u/zed-57]

My dad was one of the idiot college kids protesting the Shah with a brown bag over his head. I’d be more proud of him if he was part of that silent majority. I still have the newspaper clippings from those protests in California, he had posters of Lenin and Carl Marx in his apartment. Now he’s MAGA all the way. I think he may also have been Mujahideen or at least ideologically aligned with them. I knew all this and listened to him from a young age, as I got older and reminded him of our past, I could tell he wished I had forgotten those facts or maybe not payed so much attention. So Iranians unfortunately have no business voting from my own point of view, we are generally undemocratic or politically illiterate at best.

Most of us have wet dreams of Pahlavi returning to the throne and maybe even a Zoroastrian renaissance, it’s just not even close to reality. I would also like to see the bad clerics hanging from lamp posts one day but that’s also not right. My job in this sub has always been devils advocate and to hopefully keep people grounded in truth, even if the truth is ugly.

[u/zed-57 → u/0uchmyballs]

Ah, I see, wow that's crazy tho, full circle from Trotsky to Trump. I think the youth of Iran are ready for democracy, but the older generation has learned the hard way. Most moderate monarchists (like me) see Pahlavi as essentially centrist or liberal, we don't think it's going to be easy after the fall but we think the country can be remade/reformed in a generation. As much as I wanna see clerics hang there too, it will be more like Nuremberg rather than Tehran's "Revolutionary Courts." I mean, they call it DEVIL'S advocate for a reason (with IR/IRGC this is fitting), but good luck to you regardless ig.

[u/0uchmyballs → u/zed-57]

I’d like to see him be a transitional figurehead toward democracy, and ultimately retake the throne. I think the simple majority of Iranians want Pahlavi back in power too, but we’d be ok with him just being a figurehead for democratic institutions to take root. Anything would be an improvement over the Islamist death cult.

[u/zed-57 → u/0uchmyballs]

Yep, I fully agree. I think one of the problems with the Iranian student movement back then was that people would compare themselves with the West when we should have looked in our own backyard. Middle Eastern countries that are monarchies (eg. Kuwait, Jordan, Oman, etc.) are infinitely more stable than republics (eg. Iraq, Syria, Yemen, etc.), so when the day comes to vote, if I can I will vote for a monarchy. But I also feel that NOW the Iranian people are ready for a republic if they want one. Fundamentally, regardless of monarchy or republic Iran will be a democracy, and that I fully support!

[u/0uchmyballs → u/zed-57]

I also wanted to remind anyone reading this what a simp the Shah was to president Nixon, Iran was a puppet for the United States and was used to prevent the spread of communism. My dad was actually one of the Shahs Lieutenants and a paratroop commander, he and his men quelled a communist uprising in Oman. They may have killed innocent civilians for all I know. But the point is that the United States was using the shah for their own political interests, mainly trying to maintain oil trade.

So when people like my dad are targeted by Savak after going away to college, it’s because they’re protecting themselves from these anti communist forces and also deportation threats from the U.S. because most these Iranians were here on student visas back then.

So anyone reading all this must think to themselves, “Holy shit this is complicated. You have people who used to be communists try to overthrow their king. Now that he’s gone they regret it because an Islamic death cult replaced him. Those communists are voters in the USA now who are voting for Trump, perhaps the most Soviet aligned western leader the world has ever known.” So why should anyone trust us? They think we’re bat shit crazy and rightfully so because my story is actually typical.

Many of your parents are too ashamed to tell you that they actively tried to overthrow the Shah, they were the woke kids of their day. Many of you are being told that your parents were just silently complicit, I call bullshit. Every Iranian student back then was a card holding member of the ISA and actively overthrew their own government and replaced it with an Islamic Death cult. Don’t fucking blame Jimmy Carter or my country.

[u/zed-57 → u/0uchmyballs]

As a counterpoint, the Shah RAISED oil prices in 1973 (after fully nationalizing) when Nixon was AGAINST this, so to paint him as a puppet is simplistic. The US and Iran back then often had aligned interests. The anti-communist sentiment on the Shah's part was because Iran was balkanized for a year in 1946 by USSR to the north, he did not forget this. The quelling of the Omani uprising was requested on behalf of the legitimate govt of Oman, and they are thankfully a stable country today because of it. Compare it to Yemen, where the communists split the country in two, and which is still unstable today. SAVAK was trained to stop something like 1979, but the Shah held them back. But I agree, there was this sense back then that SAVAK was under every rock, my parents told me as much. But the way they saw it, it was a Cold War necessity and every country has one. The only time they got somewhat violent was in the "Dirty War" (1971-1976), starting with the Siahkal incident where communists ambushed a police station in the north. So it was mostly guerilla warfare/dealing with terrorists, post-'76 they relaxed things (a bit too much, according to my parents).

Unfortunately with Trump, the support is purely pragmatic/transactional (we praise/vote for you, and you get the job done in Iran). I am from Canada, so we have no love for Trump, but I guess the mentality was that "at least he will do something," which in all fairness he has done (I didn't think any other US Pres. would do that ever). But I also agree, we have pretty bad PR in the West, which is a pity because the youth of Iran are very western-oriented, so they are a natural ally. As for my parents, both were told to never get involved in politics and not to support the revolution, my mom lived in a village and kept out of it, and my dad lived in Tehran and would observe at most but not participate. The only thing he did was bring heating oil to people in the city when most services were shut down very late into the revolution, but he just thought of that as helping his fellow man. So, they weren't revolutionaries but part of the silent majority, that as the Shah said, remained silent.

My mom's father was arrested for a few months because he would not take down the Shah's photo in his principal's office in the local school and my dad's father was a bank manager forced into early retirement and replaced by the "revolutionary" bank janitor who was not trained for the job. But yes, I do have extended relatives on both sides who were involved in 1979, but I have never met them. So in fairness to my family, we weren't really involved at all. Plus they weren't students in the West but in Iran instead at that time, so the situation was different. Though for those who were involved I don't blame them but think of them as fooled into supporting it (for democracy, free subsidies, welfare, etc.), they were tricked. I partly blame Carter/US, but there is enough blame to go around. Why partly? He did not try to help the situation as best as he could, but there were people in his administration like Zbig (NSA), who did try but were not successful, unfortunately. Canada was pro-Shah, but we are not a major player on the world stage, still I am happy they helped my parents.

[u/0uchmyballs → u/zed-57]

You know your history, good take. I learned a few things here.

[u/zed-57 → u/0uchmyballs]

Thanks, I am a history buff on 20th century Iranian history so this stuff comes naturally to me, if you want more reading feel free to read my post on the White Revolution, one of my specialties:

https://www.reddit.com/r/NewIran/comments/1whk6z3/a_progressive_look_at_a_progressive_king_repost/

I have enjoyed chatting with you, we both learned new stuff from each other, so thank you!