Iran’s economy in crisis as US launches new sanctions campaign

A bazaar in Tehran in June. Iranians’ buying power is being decimated by runaway food and fuel inflation and currency depreciation. Photograph: Abedin Taherkenareh/EPA

For many Iranians, the new US sanctions campaign, called Operation Economic Outcast, seems superfluous given the grim economic situation in their country.

Iranians are facing runaway food inflation, closed petrol stations and a seemingly never-ending depreciation of the nation’s currency caused by a lack of foreign exchange reserves.