By Solomon "Customs" Bridges
Iran's government has told its citizens to cut back on fuel, rolling out a new pricing scheme this week that doubles the cost of gasoline for anyone burning through more than 110 liters a month, according to Al Jazeera. Above that threshold, the price jumps to 100,000 rials per liter.
It is a small number that carries a large political weight. Iran has one of the most heavily subsidized fuel markets in the world, a legacy of decades of oil-wealth politics and a social bargain that has helped governments keep the peace with ordinary Iranians even as sanctions and inflation have battered the broader economy. Tinkering with gas prices in Iran has historically been dangerous business — fuel-price protests in 2019 turned into some of the deadliest unrest of the Islamic Republic's recent history.
The new structure is a tiered one rather than a blanket price hike, aimed specifically at the heaviest users rather than every driver at the pump. That is likely deliberate: a narrower target is a smaller political target. Whether it will be enough to avoid the kind of backlash past fuel hikes have triggered is not yet clear from the reporting available. This account rests on a single source (Al Jazeera); further confirmation of public reaction inside Iran should be sought before drawing conclusions about how the policy is landing.
What is clear is the pressure behind the move. A government does not touch its gasoline subsidy, the most politically sensitive lever it has, unless the budget math has stopped working. For ordinary Iranians already navigating a currency that has lost much of its value, the new pricing is one more recalculation at the pump — and a reminder that the country's economic isolation has a cost that gets passed, liter by liter, to the people filling the tank.
Nothing happens "over there" anymore.
— Compiled from reporting by Al Jazeera.
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