https://www.jpost.com/middle-east/article-892105
The richest country – the poorest people
Interviewed by Alan Rosenbaum
A country rich in natural resources becomes a place where its citizens collapse into poverty, while a small ruling circle of clerics and professional murderers enjoys an immense fortune. A country that once was the great Persian Empire is today ruled by a gang that invests its great wealth to build an extensive terror network that, at its peak, spanned across Syria, Lebanon, Gaza, Egypt, the Sahel region, Sudan, Yemen, and more. The United Nations has developed a counterterrorism strategy to be executed by the big powers and the enlightened nations. Not one of the Iranian-led terror victims has yet been finally free.
This, according to Shraga Biran, is the tragic story of the Iranian people and the victims of terror, including the Jews worldwide.
In a wide-ranging interview with the Jerusalem Post, Biran, a distinguished lawyer who founded one of Israel’s leading law firms and serves as the founder of the Institute of Structural Reforms, says that the Ayatollahs and the Revolutionary Guards have not only oppressed the people of Iran but have stripped them of their opportunity to live with dignity, while terror networks across the region continue to celebrate and thrive.
“This is a story of a mechanism that robs the Iranian people to fund terrorism across the Middle East, Africa, and beyond. The poverty in Iran and global terrorism are two sides of the same coin.”
In Biran’s view, the end of international terrorism—whose primary victims are Arabs and impoverished populations—requires the dismantling of Iran’s murderous networks. Liberation, he says, will not come through internal reforms, international agreements, or toothless sanctions, but only through decisive external intervention that removes the Ayatollahs and the Revolutionary Guards.
The following interview has been edited for length and clarity. [Much more in the source article - AA]
“What became of the promises to the Iranian people, and why did they end in disillusionment?”
The promises of the monarchy, the great powers, and the Islamic Revolution that were made to Iran’s citizens in recent history were all trampled, leading them into deep disillusionment.
Iran’s Constitutional Revolution of 1905–1911 was an attempt to impose a constitution and a parliament on the ruling monarchy, but it was suppressed. This was the first uprising of its kind in the Middle East—a revolution aimed at establishing a constitution, a parliament, and limits on the ruler’s authority.
The leaders of the "Islamic Republic" who seized power in 1979 faced a choice: to transform a country with a rich cultural heritage and a capable population into a prosperous, democratic, liberal, and well-functioning state, and to form an elected government, as they had promised. But they seized the nation’s wealth, confined the population within walls of poverty through religious fundamentalism, and expanded their control through global terrorism—subjugating local populations by every available means of repression under a regime of terror.
The ayatollahs chose the latter. They plundered Iran’s wealth, impoverished its people, and used the Iranian nation’s resources to finance a global network of terrorism headquartered in Tehran.
The Islamic Republic – a web of control and deprivation
Iran today is controlled by a two-headed monster: on one side, the military-economic arm of the Revolutionary Guards, which has built a system of control, repression, and persecution. On the other side is the religious-ideological arm, controlled by the Supreme Leader, which has taken over the country’s economic, religious, and governing institutions by creating a sophisticated system controlling the country's centers of power.
The monster, operating under the banner of the “Islamic Republic,” has taken control of Iran’s structure of governance and its immense wealth by appropriating state assets, revenue sources, and the mechanisms of governance and control.
The tragedy of the Iranian people is twofold. Beyond the oppression of its people and the plunder of its natural resources, the Islamic regime has effectively advanced terrorism across the Middle East and the world—an enterprise that requires vast financial resources. For 47 years, the regime in Tehran has taken the national wealth of its people and turned it into an infrastructure of destruction.
Iran’s total financial commitment to terrorism is estimated to be more than $700 million per year to Hezbollah, up to $350 million annually to Hamas, hundreds of millions of dollars provided to Iraqi militias and the Houthis respectively, and $50 billion into Syria — all while its own population faces chronic food insecurity, slum housing, unemployment, and poverty.
Apart from the suffering inflicted upon the Iranian people, most victims of the terrorism and wars fueled by the Iranian regime are Arabs and Muslims, particularly the most vulnerable among them. Here, too, the regime’s true nature is revealed: it speaks in the language of resistance, but in practice produces cycles of destruction, poverty, and dependence.
How does the regime plunder Iran’s wealth—and to whose benefit?
Iran’s economy is dominated by two largely opaque power centers that have emptied the wealth of the country and expropriated it for themselves, allocating it between the Ayatollahs and the IRGC.
The first is a network of foundations and endowments tied to the Supreme Leader. These include institutions such as the Execution of Imam Khomeini’s Order (EIKO), Astan Quds Razavi, and Bonyad Mostazafan, which together control between 50% and 60% of the country’s GDP. Though often presented as charitable or religious bodies, they function as sprawling conglomerates with interests in real estate, energy, telecommunications, finance, construction, mining, manufacturing, and logistics. Originally built from confiscated assets or religious endowments, they have evolved into powerful holding groups with privileged legal status, major landholdings, and limited fiscal oversight.
The second is the economic empire of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). Beyond its military role, the IRGC has built a vast commercial presence in infrastructure, energy, logistics, and industry. At the center of this system is Khatam al-Anbiya, the largest contractor in Iran, which is involved in engineering, construction, oil and gas, pipelines, petrochemicals, transport, dams, ports, and telecom infrastructure. Around it sits a broader ecosystem of cooperatives, pension-linked funds, and investment bodies that channel capital into real estate, banking, insurance, and strategic industries.
They operate through holding-company pyramids, front companies, joint ventures, contract capture, and privileged access to assets and state resources. The result is a political economy in which the lines between the state, the military, religion, and private property are deliberately blurred.
Other entities exercise more overt control over the populace. The IRGC itself is the primary protector of the regime, while the Basij, a massive paramilitary volunteer militia, provides domestic surveillance. The Quds Force is the external operations arm responsible for regional proxies (Hezbollah, Houthis, etc.), ensuring the Supreme Leader’s influence extends beyond Iran's borders. Radio and television are state-controlled, and private broadcasting is prohibited.
How did Iran build and entrench its web of terror across the Arab world?
The Iranian regime reached its peak when it took control of Syria, turning it into a de facto extension of its rule under a level of brutality without precedent. Iran simultaneously developed Hezbollah—the central arm through which it exerts control—positioned as a terrorist force directed both against the United States and against Israel.
At the same time, Hamas has achieved complete control over a sovereign territory through its own militant networks. Although this reflects a divide between a Persian-Shiite system and an Arab-Sunni one, this sectarian gap has not prevented Iran from using Hamas as another arm in its web of international terrorism.
The height of Iranian terror resides in the Middle East: the Houthis in their war against Saudi Arabia; the Hamas terror; terrorist activity in the Sahel, a semi-arid belt in Africa that includes Senegal, Mauritania, Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger, Nigeria, Chad, Sudan, and Eritrea; and the immense bloodshed in Syria.
The Iranian clique succeeded in imposing its authority over the local terror gangs—their leadership, their ideology, their propaganda, their training, and their weapons, including cutting-edge military technology—so that the entire system became one of state terror, rather than separate groups supposedly brought to the leader’s table.
How does Iran weaponize antisemitism and terror against the Jews to tighten its grip over the Arab world?
Antisemitism plays a central role within the Iranian system. The Iranian regime and its affiliates position Jews and the State of Israel as primary targets in propaganda, recruitment, and the construction of legitimacy for their actions. Antisemitism is not merely ideological hatred—it is a tool of governance. It serves to whitewash internal repression, redirect public anger, and sustain a permanent state of emergency.
Antisemitism is a foundational pillar of the Iranian state. Supreme Leader Khamenei hosted convicted Holocaust denier Roger Garaudy, called the murder of six million Jews “an unprovable and mythical claim,” and the regime held three state-sponsored Holocaust cartoon contests in 2006, 2016, and 2020 that drew over a thousand submissions promoting blood libels, Jewish conspiracy theories, spreading Mein Kampf and portraits of Hitler across the streets of Teheran and calls for Israel's destruction.
In 2020, Khamenei's official channels published a poster calling for “the final solution” against Israel — a deliberate invocation of Nazi terminology. This ideological DNA runs through every proxy Iran built. Hamas’s founding charter cites the Protocols of the Elders of Zion as fact and proclaims that “the Day of Judgment will not come about until Muslims fight the Jews and kill them.”
Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah declared that “if we searched the entire world for a person more cowardly, despicable, weak and feeble in psyche, mind, ideology and religion, we would not find anyone like the Jew — notice, I do not say the Israeli”; the Houthi flag reads “God is great, Death to America, Death to Israel, Curse on the Jews, Victory to Islam,” with its founder citing Khomeini's call that the Islamic world could only be safe from Jews “by eradicating them.”
The use of Nazi-style antisemitism by Muslim terror is not intended solely to fulfill impulses of looting, murder, rape, and torture within the system of international terror. Rather, it follows the formula: “Strike the Jews in order to control the Arabs.” What do the inhabitants of the Sahel, the destitute people of Darfur, or the millions who were displaced from their homes in Sudan have to do with the State of Israel—other than to create envy, hatred, and a shared purpose for sustaining an empire of terror? What connection do the Houthis and distant Yemen have, despite everything, that leads them to write in their Sarkha: “Death to Israel, a curse upon the Jews”?
But there is also another despicable objective behind the creation of antisemitic terror worldwide and the persecution of Jews everywhere—the attempt to revive, especially in Europe (parts of which collaborated during Hitler’s time), hatred toward Jews.
How vast is Iran’s wealth, who controls it—and what is left for the dispossessed?
Iran is one of the most resource-rich countries in the world. It holds 209 billion barrels of oil and 34 trillion cubic meters of gas, and sits on the Strait of Hormuz, through which 21% of global oil flows. Its diverse mineral reserves include dozens of strategic resources, estimated at $27.3 trillion. Iran spans 1.6 million square kilometers of diverse land, a third of which is arable, and includes 29 UNESCO World Heritage Sites. With 93 million people, high literacy, and a strong STEM base of engineers and scientists, Iran possesses all the foundations of a major economic power.
Yet the gap between potential and reality is stark.
Saudi Arabia, with only modestly larger oil reserves (267 billion barrels vs. 209 billion barrels), produces nearly three times as much oil — 9.5 million barrels per day compared to Iran’s 3.3 million. This has translated into a $1.24 trillion Saudi economy, compared to roughly $400 billion in Iran, with per-capita income seven times higher. In gas, the contrast is even sharper. Iran shares the world’s largest gas field with Qatar, yet extracts barely 2 billion cubic feet per day, compared to Qatar’s 18.5 billion. Qatar turned this into 20% of global LNG exports and a per-capita GDP of $76,700. Iran exports virtually no LNG, consumes most of its gas inefficiently, and has even faced supply shortages. The pattern repeats across regions and economic sectors. The UAE built a $552 billion economy with 77.5% non-oil output and per-capita income near $50,000 — nearly ten times Iran’s. Even Oman outperforms Iran on a per-capita basis. Looking globally, in 1977, Iran’s economy was larger than those of Turkey and South Korea. Since then, Iran’s GDP has grown just 190%, compared to 2,370% in South Korea and 872% in Turkey.
There are two clear reasons for this: the export of terror and the rulers’ personal gains.
Firstly, the Islamic Republic was designed not as a conventional nation-state, but as a vehicle for exporting terror. Its institutions — from the Revolutionary Guards to the Quds Force — are structured to project power abroad, not to build prosperity at home. Its economic system, controlling up to half of GDP, generates the off-book revenues that sustain this mission.
Secondly, the concentration of economic and political power in the hands of the Ayatollahs and the IRGC has enabled the systematic extraction of national wealth for private benefit. Control over major industries, state assets, and financial networks allows those in power to operate beyond transparency or accountability, turning key sectors of the economy into instruments of enrichment. This structure does not merely produce inefficiency — it institutionalizes corruption, prioritizing regime survival and personal gain over national development, while the broader population bears the cost.
The cost is measurable. Since 2011, Iran has spent approximately $100 billion to export terror. The broader economic damage — from sanctions, lost investment, and isolation — exceeds this by an order of magnitude. For every $1 spent externally, the population has lost about $10 in economic output.
The tireless exportation of terror, with the corruption and personal abuse of wealth by the regime’s heads, creates deep poverty in Iran. The transformation of the country's wealth into prosperity would not require new resources — only the end of their extraction.
https://www.jpost.com/middle-east/article-892105
