Massoud Nili, who served as an economic minister in several Iranian governments, said in an interview on Iranian television that the Islamic Republic's economy has become dangerously dependent on a very limited number of production facilities and oil and gas extraction zones in southern Iran. In particular, he pointed to the country's growing reliance in recent years on crude oil production from the South Pars field in the Persian Gulf, Iran's primary energy hub.
Nili warned that 85% of Iran's energy resources are concentrated in a very small geographic area. Such centralization, he said, would make it easier for US forces or any adversary seeking to attack Iran to focus on those facilities. A successful strike on those sites could entirely cripple the regime's income streams.
Despite its vast reserves, he added, Iran exports almost no natural gas. Nearly all the gas it produces is consumed domestically. Meanwhile, the Arash gas field in the Persian Gulf, which is shared between Iran and Qatar, has effectively been left to Doha. Qatar continues extracting gas from the joint field, he said, while Iran neither acts nor protests what he described as the "theft of Iran's resources."
According to Nili, the same pattern of concentration exists in other key sectors. Iran's automobile and steel industries, considered major revenue generators for the regime and similarly controlled by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, are also concentrated in only a handful of facilities. These include the Iran Khodro car manufacturing plants and the Mobarakeh Steel Company near Isfahan.
If adversaries were to target these factories, he argued, doing so would be relatively easy and the resulting damage would be severe, potentially even more significant than past strikes on nuclear facilities. These plants, he said, effectively sustain the Iranian economy, and damaging them could paralyze the regime.
Other commentators have recently pointed to Kharg Island in the Persian Gulf, which serves as Iran's primary oil export terminal. They have warned that if the island's facilities were struck or seized, Iran would be unable to export oil at all or receive payment from buyers, whether China or other countries.
Nili and others are effectively highlighting what they see as a structural weakness in the Iranian regime and its economy: reliance on a small number of clearly identifiable economic hubs that could become targets in a future war against Iran. In other words, they are openly identifying potential military objectives for anyone contemplating short- or long-term action against the Islamic Republic.
The concentration of economic resources is not new. It reflects a longstanding policy of the regime, which favors channeling lucrative sectors into the hands of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps rather than dispersing investment to protect it. As a result, other traditional sectors of the Iranian economy, such as saffron cultivation and carpet weaving, have declined sharply in recent years. Profitability for traders in these industries has fallen to the point of becoming economically unviable.
In doing so, critics argue, the regime has effectively dismantled many of the sectors that once formed the backbone of Iranian society, much as the Soviet Union did to various industries in Russia and territories under its control. Iran has increasingly become dependent on massive imports of food, clothing and more advanced goods, particularly in electronics.
Due to corruption and the authoritarian control of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps over key export industries including oil, automobiles and steel, product quality has deteriorated significantly. Iran has also lost many of its customers over the years. Whereas some 25 years ago it traded with 47 countries, today it trades with only seven, and many of those reportedly avoid paying for Iranian goods because of the severe sanctions imposed on Tehran.
Should tensions between the West and Iran escalate once again into open war, potential attackers would have clear and convenient targets capable of rendering the regime and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps ineffective. In such a scenario, this could even encourage defections among elements loyal to the regime. If their economic interests were damaged and their ties to the regime no longer served them, they might join broader public protests, potentially paving the way for far-reaching change, including the downfall of the regime itself.
