With the chill hitting Iran’s bones in December, that cold has done much more than close schools and government services. It has also revealed the fragility of an Iranian regime that is currently finding itself in its most desperate crisis since the Iranian Revolution in 1979. The Iranian Rial, which is currently 1.42 million to 1 US Dollar, symbolises more than Iran’s economic downturn. The remnants of Iran’s complex sanctions-evasion networks, which it developed over many decades, are disintegrating. The Iranian Rial depreciated by 46 per cent in the last year, making it officially the least valuable currency in the world.

The ironies are stark: a country sitting on the world’s second-largest natural gas reserves, unable to warm its capital. Energy Minister Abbas Aliabadi acknowledged that 13 power plants are out of commission due to fuel shortages. The government has resorted to burning the toxic mazut, which accounts for 15 per cent of all deaths in Tehran, according to Deputy Health Minister Alireza Raisi.

The closure of schools, which left millions of students engaging in online learning, indicates a system that has not maintained control over its fundamentals. When Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian called on his........

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