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Investigative journalist Seymour Hersh has recently uncovered new details about a covert U.S. economic campaign targeting Iran, revealing that its actual focus differs sharply from the official public narrative. In new reporting shared as context for an analysis from Asia Times, Hersh notes that the U.S. Treasury’s Operation Economic Outcast, framed as a measure targeting Iran’s ruling ayatollahs when announced by Secretary Scott Bessent, is instead designed to pressure ordinary rank-and-file members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).

The IRGC, one of Iran’s most powerful institutional actors, controls an estimated half of the country’s total state-held economic assets, including key sectors like oil and gas production and foreign trade, according to Hersh’s reporting. U.S. officials involved in the operation told Hersh their core strategy is to choke off funding flowing through the global financial system to the IRGC, with the end goal of eroding troop loyalty and weakening organizational morale enough to enable a popular overthrow of the Iranian government without triggering large-scale violent repression by the IRGC.

Hersh cited an anonymous U.S. official claiming the IRGC is already facing severe funding shortages. A well-placed Israeli source further told Hersh that many low-ranking IRGC members have gone months with little to no pay, with some forced to beg neighbors for food to support their families. Citing input from U.S. officials, Hersh added that most IRGC rank-and-file are not ideologically committed religious hardliners, but rather work for personal income, making them vulnerable to financial pressure. Current intelligence, including satellite imagery, confirms widespread fuel shortages across Iran, with motorists facing daily waits at gas stations and purchase limits of just five liters per vehicle, due in part to Iran’s limited domestic gasoline refining capacity. With the country already reeling from widespread shortages of food, clean water, jobs, and fuel, U.S. strategists believe a public street revolution could gain traction even without covert American or Israeli support, as a cash-strapped IRGC would be unwilling to mass-violently suppress protests.

Against this high-stakes geopolitical backdrop, University of Sydney researchers Hamideh Khaleghi Mohammadi and Ali Abbasi unpack how this escalating economic pressure is playing out for ordinary Iranians, documented from the ground up by Iranian social media users.

Long before Operation Economic Outcast launched on August 24, Iran was already grappling with a severe, cascading economic crisis. Decades of international sanctions, disrupted trade, restricted oil exports, and longstanding domestic economic mismanagement left the country on the brink. Recent official data cited by Reuters places Iran’s 12-month average inflation rate at 69.9%, with food, beverage, and tobacco inflation surging past 128% — nearly double the overall rate. Iran’s national currency, the rial, has plummeted to a record low, trading at more than 2.2 million rial to one U.S. dollar, up from roughly 1 million rial per dollar just one year prior. Official figures also lay bare the yawning gap between income and basic needs: the average monthly salary in Iran equals roughly $125 USD, while the minimum cost of basic household necessities totals around $450 USD per month.

While these official statistics paint a grim picture, they fail to capture the day-to-day human experience of living through hyperinflation and economic collapse — a gap Iranian social media users are filling by creating an unofficial, bottom-up archive of national hardship. A widespread trend sees users sharing side-by-side comparisons of what a fixed amount of Iranian currency could purchase one or two years ago versus what it can buy today, using everyday goods from washing machines to bags of groceries and snack chips to illustrate the rapid collapse of purchasing power.

Other posts focus on current realities: users photograph supermarket receipts, capture images of half-empty store shelves, and list once-common household products that have now become unaffordable for most families. While academic economic indicators and government inflation data provide aggregate numbers, these social media posts convey the granular, personal experience of economic crisis: which items have disappeared from regular shopping baskets, what goods families have substituted with cheaper alternatives, which necessary purchases are being delayed indefinitely, and what products are now treated as unobtainable luxuries.

The tone of these posts varies dramatically across the platform. Some users express anger and despair over their lost purchasing power, while others use dark humor and memes to cope with the relentless rise in prices. Some posts call for boycotts, mass protests, and collective action against the government, while others frame the hardship as an unavoidable wartime condition and urge followers to practice endurance. Despite these divergent voices and political outlooks, all posts are united by their focus on grounding national economic crisis in everyday life.

Iranian government officials have not denied the severity of the current strain. Central Bank governor Abdolnaser Hemmati has acknowledged that managing household livelihoods has become extraordinarily difficult, while parliament speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf has named inflation, unemployment, and currency instability as three of the government’s most pressing major challenges.

For researchers Mohammadi and Abbasi, these grassroots social media posts carry long-term historical significance beyond documenting the current crisis. Official economic records will capture inflation rates, exchange rate fluctuations, and aggregate spending data for future historians, but the unedited, personal accounts shared on social media will preserve how ordinary Iranians actually experienced this period of crisis. Decades from now, the full economic history of this era will be written not only from government spreadsheets and inflation charts, but also from the receipts, shelf photos, memes, and images of shrinking shopping baskets that Iranians chose to capture and share with the world.

On a Wednesday evening just off the coast of a popular Philippine tourist destination, a routine overnight ferry journey devolved into chaos and tragedy when a sudden fire tore through the MV June Aster, leaving at least five people dead and 86 others unaccounted for in what is shaping up to be one of the deadliest maritime disasters the Southeast Asian nation has seen in recent years.

The incident unfolded roughly 1.2 nautical miles (2.2 kilometers) from Marcilla village, near the port of Coron on Palawan province – a top beach and island getaway that draws millions of domestic and international travelers annually. Owned by local operator Atienza Shipping Lines, the ferry departed Manila’s Port of Baseco at 8:13 p.m. local time Tuesday, carrying more than 100 passengers and a cargo hold loaded with vehicles including motorcycles, an electric car, a forklift, and a pick-up van, bound for an arrival in Coron by 6 p.m. Wednesday. The first alert of the blaze was raised at 6:45 p.m. Wednesday by a shipping line staff member, according to the Philippine Coast Guard. Initial accounts from survivors point to a loud explosion originating in the cargo hold that sparked the fast-spreading flames.

For passengers on board, the spread of fire triggered a frantic race for survival. Roland Lerma, a 30-year-old construction worker from Leyte province who was traveling to Coron for work with five neighbors, recalled how screams of panic cut through the night as hot smoke and heat rapidly filled the vessel. As he scrambled to reach the deck and escape the advancing fire, Lerma slipped and fell, where he was trampled by other fleeing passengers before he could regain his footing and jump overboard into the dark ocean. To stay afloat, he discarded all his belongings – his clothing, mobile phone, and bags – before floating on his back for nearly two hours in cold water waiting for rescuers to reach him. “If the rescue had been delayed, I would have definitely died last night,” Lerma told the BBC from a Coron hospital, where he is recovering from bruises and chest pain. He recounted seeing other passengers, including children, jump into the water alongside him, and that two Chilean travelers had been staying in the bunks adjacent to his on the overnight ferry. Authorities later confirmed that the two Chilean nationals were among the 43 people pulled alive from the water.

In the aftermath of the blaze, search and rescue operations are still ongoing, but authorities confirmed Thursday that the fire on the half-submerged ferry has not yet been fully extinguished, with visible smoke still billowing from the vessel. Many of the rescued survivors remain in a state of shock following their harrowing escapes, a Philippine Coast Guard spokesperson told local media.

For the families of the missing, the hours since the fire have been an agonizing, sleepless wait for any word of their loved ones. Anelyn Magbanua, whose husband Marlon was on the ferry returning to Coron after visiting their two college-aged children in Manila, said she had gone to bed Wednesday night expecting him home within hours, only to be woken by news of the disaster. She rushed to the local hospital Thursday hoping he had been rescued, but officials have yet to account for him. “I have been crying and praying since last night,” Magbanua told reporters outside the hospital, describing her overwhelming anxiety as she waits for updates.

Shipping accidents are a relatively common occurrence in the Philippines, an archipelagic nation where maritime travel is the primary mode of transport between islands for millions of residents. This incident has already emerged as one of the deadliest such events in recent years, with the death toll expected to rise as search operations progress and the missing are accounted for. Atienza Shipping Lines, the operator of the MV June Aster, released a statement Thursday saying it is cooperating fully with government investigations into the cause of the fire and expressed “profound sadness” over the tragic outcome.