Live updates: Follow the latest news on Iran war
A buzzword on self-help YouTube channels is “future self”: sketching out career goals, saving for retirement, planning for what comes next.
But for many Iranians, living in a state of neither war nor peace, envisioning their “future selves” in this way is not possible.
“Now we can’t make any sort of predictions. Worst of all, we're all living our present with hopes for the future, but our whole future itself is up in the air,” a woman from a city in central Iran told The National.
Like many other interviewees, she spoke on condition of anonymity for security reasons.
Two months into the Iran war, an indefinite ceasefire has brought an end to US and Israeli air strikes that killed more than 3,000 people and damaged or destroyed thousands of buildings, including homes and hospitals. But it has not brought an agreement to end the conflict.
“For a significant portion of the population, this situation truly feels like a limbo – not in the sense that it is entirely paralysing, but because it clouds the future,” said Abdolreza Davari, who was an adviser to Iran’s former president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. He also personally knows Iran's new supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, who was injured in the strikes that killed his father and has de facto delegated current decision-making to a group of commanders from the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
One round of negotiations with the US for an agreement to end the war, held in Pakistan days after the ceasefire began on April 8, yielded no results. A second round has not materialised. Senior Iranian officials are speaking with other countries, including Russia and Oman, to determine which issues might form part of any further talks, and which mediating countries would handle them.
“This sense of limbo is more debilitating than the economic pressure itself,” said Mr Davari. “In such circumstances, people turn to short-term, cautious behaviours instead of making long-term decisions.”
Financial pressures continue to mount for Iranians and a continuing state-imposed internet blackout is hitting small businesses hard.
A lack of clarity about when the communications blackout might end adds to the uncertainty ordinary Iranians feel about their lives.
One resident of Tehran said that despite the ceasefire, it felt like there had been no end to the fighting in some ways because of the continued restrictions on internet access.
“For the past few days, the government has been selling a series of SIM cards as 'Pro SIM' cards to company CEOs, doctors, at higher prices than before,” he told The National. He had zero work projects lined up in his online advertising business because of multiple internet shutdowns this year, including during a crackdown on widespread anti-government demonstrations in January.
Responding to criticism of selective internet access, government spokeswoman Fatimeh Mohajerani said on Wednesday that it was “completely opposed to communication injustice” and that authorities introduced the “Internet Pro” system to “maintain business connectivity in times of crisis”.
Overall, though, relentless economic strife means that many people do not trust government reassurances.
A dual blockade of the Strait of Hormuz by both the US and Iran is driving up prices of goods imported into Iran and global energy costs. The International Monetary Fund projects Iran’s annual inflation for this year at 70 per cent, and says its economy will contract by 6.1 per cent by the end of the year. The price of a kilo of basic rice – a staple for Iranians – has gone up to 600,000 tomans, about $3.90. The minimum monthly wage in Iran is about $110.
“The inflation in Iran is shocking; prices change from day to day, meanwhile, costs are rising and incomes have been cut off,” a woman in Tehran told The National. “Inflation has caused people to become much poorer and the middle class to disappear.”
Tehran’s view
The Islamic Republic’s leadership sees the current situation less as an impasse and more as an “active management of tension”, Mr Davari said.
And for some Iranians, this is a period they are prepared for and willing to endure, and even turn into an opportunity by expanding diplomatic and trade ties with countries such as Russia and China. In their view, the US is losing more than Iran in the current stalemate.
“I don't see this situation as a limbo – I see it as steadfastness in ambiguity,” Mahdi Arab Sadegh, a Tehran-based analyst, told The National.
After years of international sanctions on Iran, its people are used to uncertainty, Mr Arab Sadegh said.
“Contrary to what westerners might imagine, the people of Iran do not see uncertainty as a threat, but as a reality. Not that they enjoy it – but they live with it,” he added.
Iranians are planning for their future selves in “an Iranian way”, he believes.
“They are putting their capital into property, and thinking about survival. This style of planning is different from the European model – but don't ignore it, because it works, because Iran is still standing.”
Parts of society, including industrialists and traders, are looking at the new reality and seeking to take advantage of potentially even closer ties with eastern countries, as relations with the West remain in stalemate without a lasting agreement.
“They view this situation not merely as a limbo but as a transitional period that could lead to the consolidation of a different economic model,” Mr Davari added.
For him, a key factor in whether the Islamic Republic can weather this phase is the government’s ability to manage public disquiet, especially over the economy, and to create a sense that people’s lives are gradually improving.
If it can do this – even slowly – a state of “mental limbo transforms into strategic patience,” Mr Davari said. “But if these signs are weak, the sense of limbo and hopelessness is reinforced.”
Some Iranians are not confident in their leaders’ abilities to weather the storm.
“Prices are going up every day, and if they can’t manage the prices, the regime will lose its own supporters,” another man who works in the tech industry said.
The woman in Tehran said that many people are still processing their anger over the crackdown on protests in January, in which thousands of people were killed. That comes on top of dealing with the damage from the war and rampant rises in living costs.
“I don't think the Islamic Republic can get out of this jam,” she said.
