You can read it in Arabic here, and check out MBN’s flagship Arabic-language Alhurra news platform (English version here).
This week’s edition of the briefing is a joint effort by our new Iran reporter Tara Rad, who is writing under a pseudonym, and me.
Here’s what you need to know. The last U.S. troops have left their bases in Iraq, and Tehran welcomes their departure. A month’s pay now covers fewer than 10 days of an Iranian worker’s living costs, and consumer prices are almost 90% higher than a year earlier. An Iranian newspaper asks whether a new prisoner transfer agreement with South Korea includes two athletes convicted of rape there. Families are cutting back on school supplies as prices for pens and notebooks have more than doubled. Cinemas sold about 7.6 million fewer tickets in the first half of the year than a year earlier. And Iran’s bodybuilding federation has been suspended by the sport’s international body over election irregularities.
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QUOTE OF THE WEEK
The Islamic Republic of Iran welcomes the withdrawal of American troops from Iraq and definitely supports it.
—Amir Hayat Moqaddam, deputy chairman of the National Security and Foreign Policy Commission of Iran’s parliament
TOP OF THE NEWS
The U.S. Leaves Iraq
As the last U.S. troops left their bases in Iraq on Wednesday — an occasion marked by Baghdad with a multi-day public holiday it calls Sovereignty Days — Iraq’s neighbor Iran has expressed its own opinion about the end of a presence next door that began with the 2003 U.S. invasion.
Amir Hayat Moqaddam, deputy chairman of the National Security and Foreign Policy Commission of Iran’s parliament, welcomed the U.S. departure, declaring that “everyone knows that Daesh [Islamic State] in Iraq was armed and equipped by the terrorist government of America” and that “the political differences in Iraq are… rooted in America’s interference in the political affairs of this country.”
One Iranian analysis said that “[w]ith the withdrawal of American forces, although the amount of direct pressure levers decreases… [t]he United States’ financial dominance will continue after the withdrawal of military forces from Iraqi soil, because the income from the sale of Iraqi oil is dependent on the international dollar system.”
Another piece summarized the new situation thus: “Washington’s insistence on applying unbearable pressure on Iran could backfire and make it impossible for the Iraqi government to play the middleman between Iran and the United States. Iraq cannot play the role of an ally of the United States in the region while Washington pursues a policy of destroying Tehran, and must choose between Iran and the United States.”
Baghdad has postponed militia disarmament to June 2027. The Iran-backed militias Kataib Hezbollah and Harakat al-Nujaba, U.S.-designated terrorist organizations, say they will not disarm until foreign troops leave. Whether they will follow through remains to be seen.
Iran’s stake in Iraq’s security dates to the Iran-Iraq war, which dragged on for eight bloody years from 1980 to 1988. With at least half a million dead on both sides in one of the most brutal conflicts of the late 20th century, and tens of thousands of Iranians still suffering from the effects of chemical weapons used by Saddam Hussein’s military, the war remains deeply embedded in the Iranian national psyche.
The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), a U.S. designated terrorist organization, founded in 1979, grew into a formidable force during the Iran-Iraq war. The Islamic Republic has just concluded the observance of its annual “Sacred Defense Week,” which is pegged to the beginning of the Iran-Iraq war on Sept. 22, 1980, when Iraq invaded western Iran.
After 2003, the IRGC’s Quds Force, under Qassem Soleimani, trained and armed Shiite militias in Iraq, building on the Badr Brigade, an Iranian-sponsored paramilitary group of Iraqi Shiites that Iran had formed in 1982, and stepped up that support after the first U.S. withdrawal in 2011. When Mosul fell to ISIS in June 2014, a fatwa from Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani (Iraq’s most influential Shiite religious leader) led to the creation of the Popular Mobilization Forces, an umbrella group of 50 to 70 militias largely backed by Tehran. A bill to make the force a permanent institution with its own budget, approved by Iraq’s government last year, has since stalled amid U.S. opposition and Iraqi concerns that it would tighten Iran’s grip.
People walking in a local market in Tehran this week. Photo: Reuters.
A Month’s Pay, 10 Days of Living
According to one senior labor representative, a month’s salary for an Iranian worker lasts fewer than 10 days.
Hassan Sadeghi, head of the Union of Veteran Workers’ Associations, said that when this year’s wage increase took effect, workers’ pay covered about 23 days of living expenses. Six months later, he said, it covers fewer than 10. His figures are an estimate from a labor representative rather than an official measure of purchasing power, but they highlight the pressure on ordinary people.
Iran substantially raised the minimum wage at the beginning of the current Iranian year. The minimum daily wage was set at about 5.5 million rials (approx. $2 at current free-market exchange rates), equivalent to roughly 166 million rials (approx. $65 at current free-market exchange rates) for 30 days, an increase of around 60% from the previous year.
Meanwhile, prices have continued to climb. According to Iran’s Statistical Center, consumer prices in August were 89% higher than in the same month a year earlier. Food and beverage prices rose even faster, by about 127.5%. That matters particularly for lower-income households, which spend a larger share of their income on basic necessities.
The result is a debate over whether workers’ wages should be adjusted again before the next annual wage-setting round. Iran’s Supreme Labor Council, which is made up of representatives of the government, employers and workers, normally sets wages for the new Iranian year, which starts in late March. It has now begun examining whether wages need to be revised before then.
The Convicted Athletes and the Prisoner Transfer Deal
Iran and South Korea have signed a prisoner transfer agreement. But one Iranian newspaper has a very specific question about who might benefit from it.
“Will the track and field athletes accused of rape be exchanged?” Shargh asked in its headline. Then something curious happens: the athletes are not mentioned in the article at all.
The article, based on a report by Tasnim news agency, says Iran and South Korea have signed an agreement allowing prisoners to be transferred between the two countries. An Iranian Justice Ministry official said there are South Korean prisoners in Iran and Iranian prisoners in South Korea, and that the agreement would create a legal framework for transferring them.
There is no reference in the report to Iran’s national athletics team, however, and nothing saying that the agreement was negotiated with two particular prisoners in mind.
Shargh appears to be making that connection itself.
The two athletes presumably behind the headline are Masoud Kamran, a 110-meter hurdler, and Hossein Rasouli, a discus thrower and Asian Games gold medalist. They were part of Iran’s delegation to the 2025 Asian Athletics Championships in Gumi, South Korea.
Four members of the Iranian delegation were prosecuted after a South Korean woman in her 20s reported being sexually assaulted. Kamran and Rasouli were convicted of jointly raping her and sentenced to four years in prison. Two other defendants were acquitted. A South Korean appeals court upheld the two convictions in June.
Teachers welcome children on the first day of school in Tehran this week. Photo: AFP.
School Supplies Become a Luxury
Iranian families are cutting back on notebooks, pens and other school supplies as another school year begins. Stationery sellers say they can see the change at the cash register.
In Shiraz, the vice president of the local stationery and booksellers’ union told the ILNA news agency that customer demand was running at only about 40% of the level normally expected this time of year. September and October have traditionally been among the busiest months for the trade.
Part of the slowdown, he said, may reflect uncertainty among some families over whether classes will remain fully in person. But prices are also changing what parents put in their shopping baskets.
The price of pens and notebooks has more than doubled since last year, and the union official estimated that a normal set of school supplies for a primary school pupil can now cost at least 100 million to 150 million rials (approx. $40 to $60 at current free-market exchange rates), even without choosing expensive or luxury products.
Families are responding by buying less. According to the union, a parent who might previously have bought eight notebooks may now buy four or five. Other items are being removed from school lists or postponed.
The union says a number of stationery businesses have sought to cancel their business licenses this year. Smaller stores are struggling with weaker sales and higher rents.
Iran’s Mehdi Zatparvar, killed by regime forces in January’s protests. Photo: AFP.
Iran’s Bodybuilding Federation Suspended
Iran’s bodybuilding federation has been suspended by the International Federation of Fitness and Bodybuilding (IFBB), less than two months after electing a new president.
The IFBB says it does not recognize Mojtaba Maleki’s election, citing “significant irregularities.” The dispute largely concerns his predecessor, Abdolmahdi Nasirzadeh, who was prevented from running again. The IFBB says Nasirzadeh and another Iranian official, Sadegh Hashemi, were wrongly denied voting rights during the election.
Iranian bodybuilders themselves are not suspended. They can still compete internationally, although their registrations and participation in IFBB events must go through Nasirzadeh and Hashemi.
The suspension follows a separate controversy a month ago. At a bodybuilding competition in Isfahan, athletes and spectators paid tribute to Mehdi Zatparvar, a champion bodybuilder shot dead in Rasht during the January protests. Federation President Maleki condemned the tribute, describing Zatparvar as a rioter, and apologized for the memorial to the families of security forces killed in the protests.
Bodybuilding matters in Iran more than an outsider might assume. Iran has produced some of the biggest names in the sport. The sport has been a source of national pride since Hadi Choopan became the first Iranian to win Mr. Olympia in December 2022, returning to a hero’s welcome; he was later honored with a 10-foot statue by local artists. He dedicated his win, which came in the middle of the Woman, Life, Freedom protests, to the women and people of Iran.
Iranians Are Going to the Cinema Less
In the first six months of the current Iranian year, cinemas sold about 5.2 million tickets. During the same period last year, they sold about 12.8 million. That’s a drop of about 7.6 million admissions. Cinemas took in about 6.64 trillion rials (approx. $2.6 million at current free-market exchange rates) during the first half of this year, compared with more than 10.2 trillion rials (approx. $4 million at current free-market exchange rates) during the same period last year.
There are several reasons. This year’s war disrupted screenings, while cinema owners say the films available have also played a role. Another problem is how much families can afford to spend on entertainment.
A standard ticket at a modern cinema can now cost 1.8 million rials (approx. $0.70 at current free-market exchange rates). Earlier this year, cinema authorities introduced a flexible pricing system, including half-price tickets on Sundays and Tuesdays. One official involved in the plan said the aim was to prevent cinema from disappearing from the spending basket of middle-class families.
Cinema owners face the opposite problem. One Tehran cinema manager said that operating costs are rising and argued that even the current ticket price is too low to cover the industry’s expenses.
