Economic warfare is taking its toll on the Iranian people

Iranians got accustomed to the miniscule increases in their every day quality of life since U.S. and UN sanctions lifted. In 2016, the first year after the Iran Nuclear Deal was signed, the Islamic Republic's economy experienced more than 12 percent growth after the five percent contraction it had the year prior. Along with that growth came a huge drop in inflation rates, increases in luxury goods, and a dip in the poverty rate.

But that's all gone now, wiped away by the reimposition of UN/U.S. economic sanctions – and Iranians are not happy.

You can't buy an iPhone when you can't feed your family.

Many Iranians, however, saw little improvement in their lives, as many economic sanctions weren't actually lifted before President Donald Trump reimposed them after withdrawing from the nuclear agreement. Iranians say they can feel themselves breaking under the economic pressure, but they aren't blaming Trump or the United States; they blame the regime. Little about Iran's economy has changed in the last 40 years. Its inflation rate is now 37 percent and its unemployment rate hovers around 12 percent.

Oil revenues are a full third of Iran's economy and President Trump has blocked it from being sold on world markets while promising to sanction any country who buys it. Still, the Iranians blame the government and its leadership.

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani

Citizens of the Islamic Republic believe many in their government are corrupt, citing reports of former officials who embezzled millions of dollars and then fled the country before it could be recovered.

"The economic war is not from outside of our borders but within the country," Jafar Mousavi, who runs a dry-goods store in Tehran, told the Associated Press. "If there was integrity among our government, producers and people, we could have overcome the pressures."