Iran President Replaces 2 Cabinet Members, State Media Say

Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi has announced a Cabinet reshuffle, replacing the minister of agriculture and the head of planning and budget, Iranian media reported. The moves came amid widespread dissatisfaction with the government.  State TV said late Tuesday that Raisi had replaced agriculture minister Javad Sadatinejad with a deputy who will serve as interim minister. He replaced the vice president and head of the planning and budget department, Masoud Mirkazemi, with Davoud Manzoor, a former department deputy.  The country's dire economic conditions, including inflation of nearly 50%, have contributed to widespread anger at the government. Retirees and teachers have held scattered protests in recent months.  Iran's currency, the rial, is at a low of 510,000 to the dollar as the effects of nationwide anti-government protests and the breakdown of the 2015 nuclear deal shake the economy. The rial was trading at 32,000 to the dollar when the country signed the nuclear accord with world powers. The agreement lifted international sanctions in return for strict limits on and surveillance of its nuclear activities.  The most recent Cabinet reshuffling was the fifth in the less than two years since Raisi came to power.  Earlier this month, Raisi dismissed the education minister after a delay in payments to teachers. In December, he replaced the minister of roads after he became terminally ill. Last year, Raisi replaced the labor minister after protests by workers and retirees over payments.  In 2018, then-President Donald Trump unilaterally withdrew the U.S. from the nuclear deal and restored crippling sanctions. Iran responded by ramping up its enrichment of uranium and now has enough for several atomic weapons if it chooses to develop them, according to the U.N.'s nuclear watchdog.  Iran insists its nuclear program is entirely peaceful, but experts say it had a nuclear weapons program until 2003 and is developing a breakout capacity that could allow it to quickly build an atomic weapon should it decide to do so.  Meanwhile, Iran has seen waves of anti-government protests since the September death of a 22-year-old Kurdish Iranian woman who was detained by the morality police for allegedly violating Iran's strict Islamic dress code.  The protests rapidly escalated into calls for the overthrow of Iran's ruling Shiite clerics, marking a major challenge to their four-decade rule. Iran has blamed the unrest on foreign powers, casting it as an extension of the sanctions, without providing evidence.  Critics say more protests are expected if the economic problems remain unsolved. 

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