According to ehistorylib, in 2005, Iran had a population of around 70 million people and a GDP of $201 billion. The economy was largely based on oil and gas production as well as manufacturing and agriculture. Unemployment rates were relatively high, standing at around 12%, while poverty levels remained quite high with an estimated 28% of the population living below the poverty line.
Foreign relations in 2005 were strained due to sanctions imposed by the United Nations Security Council in response to Iran’s nuclear program. Despite this, Iran maintained diplomatic ties with many nations in the Middle East and North Africa, as well as some countries in Europe and Asia. In addition, Iran sought to improve its regional influence through increased economic ties with Iraq, Syria and Lebanon.
Politically, Iran was an Islamic republic during this time period with executive power vested in the Supreme Leader who had authority over all branches of government and could veto any legislation passed by Parliament. Furthermore, there were three branches of government: Executive (Supreme Leader), Legislative (Parliament) and Judicial (Supreme Court). These branches worked together to ensure that laws were properly enforced throughout the country.
Yearbook 2005
Iran. According to countryaah, Tehran is the capital and one of the major cities within the country of Iran. Tehran’s ultra-conservative mayor Mahmoud Ahmadinejad won the presidential election in June, becoming the country’s new leader. The background was a widespread disappointment at incumbent President Mohammad Khatami’s inability to solve the country’s economic problems and curb high unemployment. The mighty conservative Guardian Council disqualified in May all but eight of the 1,014 people who had applied for candidacy in the presidential election. After a candidate had resigned in the first round, on June 17, seven combatants remained, of whom four could be described as conservatives and three as reformists. Most votes were given to the conservative former president (1989-97) Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani and in second place came Ahmadinejad. The latter, who, during his campaign, had promised to try to recreate the mood prevailing in the country at the beginning of the 1979 revolution, received in the second round of elections on June 24, overwhelming support of the country’s poor, giving him 62% of the vote. The turnout was 63% in the first round and just under 60% in the second.
- Also see abbreviationfinder.org for how the acronym IR stands for the country of Iran and other meanings of this two-letter abbreviation.
The election of Ahmadinejad was a major setback for the country’s reform forces. It was noticed in everyday life, e.g. through the ban on Western music in state ethereal media, and in relations to the outside world. In October, Ahmadinejad said that Israel should be “wiped off the world map”, which sparked protests worldwide. The conflict with the US and the EU over the country’s nuclear program escalated. The United States and the three EU countries France, the United Kingdom and Germany tried, with various economic and political lures, to enable Iran to open their nuclear facilities for inspections. But Iran did not allow himself to be moved, but continued to assert his right to be self-sufficient on nuclear power. The enrichment facilities were shut down following an agreement with the EU Troika in 2004, but the facility in the city of Esfahan was put into operation on August 10, shortly after Ahmadinejad took office as president. A few weeks later, the United Nations Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) published a report stating that the traces of high-enriched uranium that inspectors found in Iranian nuclear facilities in 2003 came from equipment imported from Pakistan, something Iran has constantly argued.
Regional unrest was reported during the year from several parts of Iran. A number of people were killed in the Arab-dominated province of Khuzestan in the southern part of the country in connection with riots in April and during the summer. The unrest erupted following reports that the government was planning to forcibly move residents from the province. In August, government troops were reported to have been sent to the country’s Kurdish parts where demonstrations were said to have been going on for several weeks. At least 13 Kurdish activists and protesters were reported to have been killed.
About 500 people were killed in an earthquake that shook central Iran on February 22. The earthquake measured 6.4 on the Richter scale. On December 6, about 110 people were killed when a military transport plane crashed straight into a high-rise building in southwest Tehran.
The state executed several hundred people during 2016. This included several minors. Most were convicted of drug-related crimes. At the end of the year, 78 minors were on death row. A number of prisoners of conscience carried out hunger strikes in protest of their confinement.
The state further tightened its freedom of speech during 2016, adding more apps to the list of illegal programs: WhatsApp, Line and Tango. The Revolutionary Guard unit of Cyber Crime closed other accounts. A new law on political crime was passed in January and went into effect in June. It criminalized all statements that were deemed “against the country’s leadership, its political institutions and its domestic and foreign policy” and “made” with the aim of reforming the situation in the country without necessarily damaging the basic structures of society “.
In April 2016, the US Supreme Court issued a ruling that Iran should pay nearly $ 2 billion. US $ to the victims of the bomb attack on the US military camp in Beirut in 1983. In response, the Iranian parliament passed a law requiring the Iranian government to seek compensation in the United States for the hostile acts of the superpower against Iran – including the CIA coup against the Iranian government in 1953 and US support. to Iraq during the Iraqi war on Iran in the 1980s.
President Rouhani regained the post at the May 2017 election with 57.1% of the vote against the conservative Ebrahim Raisis 38.3%. During the registration of candidates in April, 1636 candidates signed up. An increase of 686 candidates from the previous election. Interestingly, 137 women were also registered. A clear challenge to the Constitution, which demands that the candidate be a “religious or political person (or man)”. A few days later, the Guardian Council published a list of 6 people (men) they believed were eligible. Thus, despite the participation of Iranian women in politics (as opposed to the dictatorship in Saudi Arabia), these continued to have no access to run for office. With few exceptions – the United States and Israel – the UN, the EU and a large number of individual states congratulated Rouhani on the election victory.
After eight years of decline in Israel’s influence on US foreign policy – during the Obama administration in 2009-16 – Israel regained full influence with the appointment of Donald Trump as president of the United States in January 2017. One of Trump’s first official actions was to issue an entry ban to the United States for nationals from a number of Muslim countries. Iran was also on this list, which immediately hit a large number of exile Iranians studying and working in the United States. In October 2017, Trump announced that the government would no longer certify progress in Iran’s relations with the United States Congress, and this would open the United States from the United Nations agreement with Iran and to impose new sanctions on the superpower. EU Foreign Coordinator Federica Mogherini stated dryly that the United States could not repeal an agreement that was a UN resolution. Security Council. Trump further stated that the United States would seek to impose sanctions on Iran’s Revolutionary Guard “for supporting terror.” While the EU and the UN shook their heads at the President of the United States, declaring that the deal complex was unaffected, Israel and Saudi Arabia were both satisfied. Both countries wanted to wage war against Iran – with weapons supplied by the United States. Just 3 months before his speech, Trump had visited Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states, claiming to come home with weapons orders worth US $ 400 billion. The United States, on the other hand, was totally isolated from the rest of the world in question.
