With the Mullahs at the Helm, There Can Be No Solution to Widespread Poverty in Iran

Iranian authorities periodically launch campaigns to round up child workers and beggars roaming the streets. But can such campaigns be successful in a nosediving economy?

Officials sidestep this issue, as is clear in remarks made by the Iranian Deputy for Social Affairs, who claimed that the reason the issue is not being resolved is that there are too many organizations trying to tackle it, and not enough coordination among them. Similar assertions were made in a state TV program on the topic earlier this month.

Anyone versed in the topic, however, knows that the real culprit is the nationwide poverty caused by the atrocious economic policies imposed by the mullah-led regime. People who are not hungry do not send their children into the streets to beg or look for work, when they should be in school and enjoying the precious years of their youth.

“Rounding up drug addicts, homeless people living in the streets, runaway girls, beggars and many others that have ended up in such situations as a result of poverty and the class gap in our society have ended in failure as a result of hasty measures carried out by authorities,” its report reads.

Other reports indicate the middle class in Iran has nearly vanished altogether.

“One of the simplest methods thought about by each official after they come to office is to round up such individuals. There was hope to resolve this issue from our society, yet due to known reasons these individuals have only been seen fleeing and returning to the streets. In the past 12 months, there have been many different plans and efforts launched by the municipality and the police, most leading to nothing but failures,” the website added.

Many Iranian officials, too, have admitted that the practice of rounding up people and holding them in special centers is not a strategic solution to the problem. They now acknowledge that the real solution would be to improve the public’s living conditions through major economic reforms.

Of course, the mullahs — whose plundering has left nothing for the people and who hae wasted billions in the nuclear program and global terrorism — will have nothing to do with such suggestions, and therefore any expectation from Tehran in this regard is an illusion.

Indeed, as long as they remain at the helm, no end to these woes will be in sight.