The Laboring Iranian Regime Had Another Rough Week

Duane Patterson 9:20 AM | September 08, 2026
AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin

My family and I spent Labor Day weekend at HersheyPark in Hershey, Pennsylvania, home to a lot of chocolate, but also over a dozen roller coasters, some of them quite intense. 

I ignored the advice of my family, one of them very much a connoisseur of thrill rides and theme parks, as well as the advice of the park, which was to empty my pockets of anything valuable and store it in a locker. I figured since I am a man of size and circumstances, my weight would easily keep my cellphone in my back pocket where it belongs, especially since Sky Rush is a sit-down ride. 

After jettisoning the station and going straight up 200 feet at accelerating speed, reaching the hairpin curve at the top of the lift hill and immediately hurtling back to Earth straight down 200 feet, negative gravity and my body were at odds with each other. By the time I made it back to the station and thankfully off the ride, my cellphone was long gone. To make matters worse, much of the ride took a frenetic tour above a lake, so the prospects of finding it were grim. 

Assuming all was lost, my wife turned her Find Friends feature on to see where "I" was, presuming it would show me in the drink, if I showed up at all. To my great surprise, the phone did show up on dry land, and it was quite a distance from the ride. 

I eventually recovered what's left of the phone, and the OtterBox that contained it, a shield that died a hero, at the park's Lost and Found office. It seems a park employee was walking to begin her shift at Lost and Found when an iPhone crashed on the asphalt in front of her like a meteorite. She looked up, calculated the trajectory, and figured Sky Rush had catapulted yet another device several hundred feet across the lake. She scooped up what was left and took it with her to where she was already headed, and I happened to show up minutes later. 

After catching up on the week's events in and around the Straight of Hormuz and Middle East, I am here to proclaim that HersheyPark's premiere ride has better range, targeting, and potential lethality than anything the Iranian regime has to offer these days. 

If you'll recall, the regime failed in their attempt to launch strikes at ships in the Strait, along with rebuilding their radar system to have eyes on commercial traffic once again, President Trump ordered a strike on Larak Island, kicking off a few days of feckless Iranian missile counterstrikes, followed by death and destruction unleashed by United States Naval forces. After the volley described in last week's column, it has been reported who some of the IRGC killed were, and how many, which prompted Iran's need to respond, however futile their response turned out to be. 

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Several of these new line-holders for Paradise's 72 virgins are what remained of the Iranian Air Force. They were drone pilots. Their video screen now reads "Game Over" in Farsi. 

Meanwhile, Israel stepped up their game in Southern Lebanon, literally and figuratively taking over the high ground Hezbollah, along with great participation over the years from Iran directly, held at Ali al-Taher. This was an above and below ground complex of living quarters, munitions storage, and fortress overlooking Israel for the past two decades, and Israel said they were coming to destroy it once and for all. 

The regime blustered, saying any action by the Israelis on that site would result in an all-out assault by Iranian forces. Some supposed regime head honcho named Mohsen Rezaei, claiming to be the Secretary of the Supreme National Security, went Biblical, promising Noah’s Ark if anyone tried to take that hill. 

Israel came, destroyed, and now controls what's left of the compound. Iran's response? Crickets. Even hardliners in the IRGC are freaking out that the regime cannot or will not respond. They know how strategically important this location was as a forward base to threaten Israel and the rest of the region. 

And it wasn't just one series of blasts, either. Some reports indicate there were as many as a hundred IRGC trapped in addition to Hezbollah, and they were picked off one at a time as they surfaced. 

After capturing Ali al-Taher, the IDF moved on to the next Hezbollah hot spot. 

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The Houthis did launch a few missiles in the direction of Saudi Arabia, and within hours, this is what they were facing in response. 

They, like Hezbollah, are realizing no IRGC money or manpower is coming, and the host country's government that once looked the other way has had enough. Yemen is done with the Houthis and is right in the thick of the fight to pull the Houthis out root and branch. 

In the Strait over the weekend, Iran tried unsuccessfully to strike two U.S. war ships. In response, three of their tankers, full of Kharg Island oil that cannot move because of the blockade, are now part of the reef lattice at the bottom of the Strait along with the rest of the Iranian Navy. 

Again, Iran just lost six million barrels of oil, and the tankers, and what do they have to show for it? Nothing. My airborne iPhone at Hersheypark at least came within proximity of hitting another human being. 

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent from the G20 last week said there was only 30 million barrels of Iranian oil afloat outside of the blockade, but due to Operation Economic Outcast, there aren't many buyers for it. 

Most of the Iranian oil is sitting off of Sri Lanka, unable to sell, unable to transfer to another ship, and unable to return to Iran for safe harbor. Even if they were able to find a buyer for their oil, Miad Maleki of the Foundation of Defense of Democracies runs the math, and at best, it's a billion and a half for the regime, or around three days of what they're losing due to the blockade. 

Skeptics of President Trump and Secretary Bessent's Operation Economic Outcast said the plan sounded good, but the proof in the pudding would be if the United Arab Emirates, Turkey, and China would cooperate with the upgraded sanction regime. On the China front, after initially sending out CCP spokespeople saying they would continue dealing with Iran as usual, a funny thing happened. Xi Jinping set demands that have to be met before meeting with Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf. 

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Reopen the Strait of Hormuz, stop charging vessels transit tolls, ending disputes with Saudi Arabia, and ending disputes with the United States don't sound like Iran's biggest customer is too happy with management of the Iranian oil store, especially when there's a bunch of nearby competitors that aren't flaming crazy. 

On the U.A.E. side of the ledger, the country that has in the recent past given Iran the most backdoor access to the international financial system, they are toeing the line. 

First, they're no longer cooperating in moving goods back and forth with Iran like they were until very recently. 

A country that says, 'Sure, we'll always partner with you, wink-wink, nod-nod,' but in actuality is building its own pipeline away from the regime so U.A.E oil flows out of harm's way isn't one that's planning a rosy future with their neighbors. 

And as for Turkey, here's the lay of the land vis-a-vis the trajectories of trade with the United States and with Iran. 

But just to make sure they get the message, Secretary Bessent sanctioned one of their banks that was dealing dirty. 

Okay, the critics will say, but what about Pakistan? They said they'd continue to stand by Iran, right? 

Not really. As we're learning with the Iranian regime, actions very often don't match words. Here's the border between Pakistan and Iran. 

Even the Europeans have gotten the memo. 

I reported last week that Secretary Bessent's sanctions were targeting regime members first rather than taking steps that would hurt Iranian civilians up front. Cardboard Mojtaba's backup habitat in England has fallen on hard times, it appears. 

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Now for a look at what eight weeks of zero imports or exports, along with economic sanctions and kinetic activity that wrecked much of Iran's industrial complex, has done to the country. First, their currency, the rial, finds a new floor each week in relation to the dollar. Before Operation Epic Fury was launched, the trading rate was around 1.35 million rials to the dollar. Today? 

Now when there are that many zeroes of anything to the dollar, it gets difficult to wrap one's mind around what that looks like. Here's a handy video to show you. It's not so much anymore how many rials to the dollar, it's how many feet of rials to the dollar. 

For one Iranian woman, she's not terribly impressed at regime management of the economy. 

She's one of the brave ones. She's not happy, is on video saying she's not happy, which in Iran, is an executable offense. 

Others suffering the same economic collapse have chosen to report on the crumbling society around them in a way that technically avoids the death penalty. Use the Bobby McFerrin approach — Don't worry, be happy. 

Yes, everything sucks and we're slowly dying, but if we complain, they will execute me, so I'm happy. What a world. 

The rial is of such low value, people naturally move to a barter system instead. And in Iran right now, the emergent currency seems to be...eggs. 

Of course, everything in the Iranian economy revolves around the price and availability of gasoline, something increasingly in short supply. Iran has not imported a drop for two months, and cannot come close to meeting demand with their own refineries, and up to now has been unwilling to drop the insane subsidies in order to keep the masses happy. Subsidies on a product in scarcity only creates more scarcity. Gasoline can be priced at free, but if you can't get it after spending half the day in line, being free doesn't mean anything, and isn't helping the national mood much. 

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After weeks of speculation that the regime would be forced to lift the subsidy, a move that has resulted in public protests every single time in the regime's history, this warning came from the Pahlavi supporters. 

Even regime officials took to Iranian airwaves to entice the population to embrace other forms of energy. 

In advance of the inevitable — lifting the subsidies, the regime said they were going to go after Iranian ex-pat dissidents all over the world. 

Of course, thanks to Donald Trump, the United States military, and the Israeli Defense Forces, Iran can no longer project that kind of terror like they once did. Why do I say this? This is what the IRGC is doing for recruitment to fill the ranks of those killed or deserted due to lack of pay. 

To add insult to injury, a transport truck carrying refined gasoline blew up in the western part of the country. An official investigation is underway to determine why that happened at such a critical time when gas is in such short supply. 

The inevitable was announced on Iranian television. They are phasing out the subsidies and hitting those that need gasoline the most if they exceed their daily quota via a tiered pricing system. 

As of Midnight last night, Tehran time, at pumps all over the country, this was the big reset. 

If you hit that third tier, the price of gasoline literally doubled overnight. At some stations with older pumps, the price is now so high, there aren't enough digits to display the cost per liter. 

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If all else were equal, this shockwave at the pump would be enough to cause unrest. But very little else in Iranian society is equal right now. 

Teachers aren't happy and are protesting. 

Iranian offshore oil workers with nothing to do anymore because of the success of the blockade are not happy about being unpaid for two months. 

 Young people are being passed over for jobs, and they aren't happy about it. 

With so much of a downturn in business all over Iran, there's not as much need for couriers as there once was before the war, which means a lot of out-of-work and disgruntled couriers taking to the streets, on their motorcycles, burning gasoline. 

Stores are empty, and even markets that are open cannot count on sustained electricity to keep refrigerated cases running. That means a lot of spoiled meat and produce. 

And speaking of refrigerators, they do break from time to time. Sometimes, you can fix them. Other times, you have to replace them. If you're in Iran, you do not have the money to do either, so this is what happens. 

The more conditions deteriorate inside of Iran, the less of a need there is to 'bomb them into the Stone Age'. They're already well on their way. The New York Port reported a few days ago that Iran was down to a two-month supply of gasoline before their daily shortfall would overtake the country and everyone would be forced to walk. No energy, no money, no income, increasingly fewer food choices, and pretty soon, Iran gets real primitive.  

In spite of almost losing my iPhone over the weekend, I had a blast in Pennsylvania at Hersheypark. The collection of attractions they feature are quite thrilling. There's nothing thrilling taking place in Iran right now, either amongst the civilian population or within the regime. This is a military junta that is laboring every day just to breathe, let alone dominate the region in a way they once envisioned. The natives are getting restless, the financial shell game they've been running or decades is no longer working, and there is no end in sight to the misery. 

That's why President Trump cannot take his foot off the regime's neck now. The time for deals has long passed. The only acceptable deal now is the white flag of surrender. 

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DONALD TRUMP HEZBOLLAH HOUTHIS IRAN ISRAEL SAUDI ARABIA

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