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A simple trip to the store in Iran these days offers a crash course in life under Western economic sanctions.

The prices of many imported goods, from South Korean refrigerators to Turkish crackers, can be double from last year. The money to buy them, meanwhile, has plunged in value against the US dollar and other foreign currencies.

But there are no apparent shortages for those willing to buy. Chinese products pour in to fill gaps left by European businesses and others that have left Iran’s massive consumer market following economic sanctions over the Islamic Republic’s refusal to rein in its nuclear program.

“You can find what you want,” said Hasan Alaei, who imports food items mostly from China. “The problem is the cost of the imports have increased because of sanctions and the exchange rates.”

It’s places such as these (electronics stores, supermarkets, auto supply outlets, Tehran’s vast bazaar) where the bite of sanctions is most visible even as the United States and Europe take aim at Iran’s critical oil exports with new measures.

Iran’s leaders have claimed there are still enough willing customers in energy-hungry Asia and elsewhere to counter Western oil sanctions. The more immediate troubles are brewing in the shops and markets where consumer discontent may dominate parliamentary elections on March 2 and bring added pressures on Iran’s ruling establishment.

So far, the leadership can be bolstered by widespread public support for the nation’s nuclear program and the perception that sanctions display double standards by the West, which helped Israel keep its nuclear arsenal secret. Israel has been proven to have hundreds of secretly developed nuclear weapons, but refuses to confirm or deny their existence.

But a slumping economy, already rattled by the removal of subsidies that drove up fuel prices, has the potential to erode the backing for Iran’s defiance of demands to halt uranium enrichment, which the United States and allies claim could lead to the production of weapons-grade material, despite US government and UN agencies’ reports offering no supporting evidence. Iran insists it only seeks reactors for energy and medical research.

Sanctions are seen as part of a wider campaign against Iran, which top officials worry could be attacked by Israel in the coming months. Numerous reports indicate the United States has conducted a covert war against Iran for years, funding militant groups such as the Baluchi group Jundullah to carry out assassinations and psychological operations to destabilize the government. As with other militant groups the West has backed in the region, these groups are said to fund their activities through terror, kidnapping and the smuggling of narcotics.

US President Barack Obama signed an order on Sunday that levied tough sanctions on Iran’s Central Bank and its other financial institutions, intended to complicate the country’s ability to conduct international commerce. The sanctions had been signed into law in December but were awaiting Obama’s decision to put them into effect.

In an interview on Sunday with NBC News, Obama said the United States was working in lockstep with Israel to resolve the crisis, “hopefully diplomatically,” noting that sanctions were already having an effect in Iran.

“They are feeling the pinch. They are feeling the pressure,” Obama told the network.

Some cracks are already showing in Iran’s merchant class that has been a traditional base of support for the Islamic system. Importers are struggling with a slumping currency and suppliers are increasingly nervous about dealing with Iranian banks.

For Sharhriar Azadeh, owner of a shop that sells decorative items such as plastic flowers and glass figurines, it’s meant raising prices between 30 percent and 50 percent because of the falling Iranian rial, which has been dragged down by a combination of panic over sanctions and government policies to sharply reduce bank interests that made holding rials less attractive.

The unofficial rate hovered around 18,000 rials to the dollar this week; down from a high of more than 23,000 last month but still far from the rate of less than 11,000 of about a year ago. 

AP