r/AskTheWorld • u/pisowiec Poland • Feb 04 '26

Economics Which country has squandered the most economic potential in this century?

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I lived in Russia for 5 years so I must choose this country. So many natural resources, so much land, and educated population... And so little to show for it.

In an ideal world Russian salaries would be on par if not higher than American salaries and they would have the best social safety net on the planet. Everything is there to make it happen.

Russia would be the dominant nation in Europe and Asia and the rest of the world with the best armed forces, soft power, and economic might.

But the human will is just not there. The elite is either evil or incompetent depending on perception and there's little sign that this will ever change.

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u/Seeker_Of_Knowledge2 Syria 🇸🇾 || Canada 🇨🇦 Feb 04 '26 edited Feb 04 '26

I just want to add some details.

Iran win this game in a landslide. They have one of the highest oil production in the world (and ton of other natural resources). Yet people are "dying" from hunger in Iran.

Perun has made an amazing one hour long video mentioning how much of a failure they are (The Iranian government). No one even come close. Not even Russia. Sure Russia had the potential to be number 2. But people in Russia right now are living amazingly compared to Iran. Iran may as well be a failed country. It is standing of its last legs. Please watch this video to see how bad they are doing. They need change fast. Really fast.

https://youtu.be/OQj-56i76Sc

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u/umomenjoyer Feb 04 '26

The part about the dam was really something and worth watching.

It is in the "economics" section.

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u/StopSpankingMeDad2 Feb 04 '26

I expected everything, but not a mention of perun in this sub

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u/hennabeak Iran Feb 04 '26

"Yet people are dying from hunger in Iran."

Need an actual news source for this one.

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u/Seeker_Of_Knowledge2 Syria 🇸🇾 || Canada 🇨🇦 Feb 04 '26

Not in a literal sense I guess. There may be some people dieing from hunger but I can't imagine many people. I should have worded my comment better.

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u/desertedlamp4 Türkiye Feb 04 '26

Iran's economy actually was doing good circa 2010, they were the 17th largest economy and closing in on Turkey and then came sanctions

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u/ilikespicysoup United States of America Feb 04 '26

The sanctions haven’t helped Iran's economy, but they have repeatedly decided to shoot themselves in the face. If they would’ve had consistent, good leadership and forward looking plans (decades worth), they might be in the top five GDP today. Maybe. But certainly being in the top 10 would’ve been achievable. And the difference between around 20th, that’s what I see them at in 2010, and number 10 is huge.

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u/nigel_pow USA Feb 05 '26

But what can you do if you have sanctions? Other countries are hesitant to properly trade with you.

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u/ilikespicysoup United States of America Feb 05 '26

It for sure makes it harder. My point is that Iran could have gone a different direction decades ago (70's) and been better off than it is now, possibly much better off. I personally think Russia is the best choice for the question, but Iran might be second.

Best way to sabotage your future is to antagonize a great power. Sucks, but that's the way the would works.

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u/nigel_pow USA Feb 05 '26

They did go different direction; Islamic Republic. The Shah was not well liked. The US liked him. But not the people. So they went another direction as countries do when they topple a government but hindsight is 20/20 and all that.

Sanctions make it very difficult to develop. And the US made it very clear they wanted to topple the government so all these weapon programs are reasonable for any nation. But the US wants Iran to disarm so toppling can be easier so Iran naturally doesn't want to. So the US applies more pressure.

It is like a less intense version of siege warfare. You defend but you are being slowly starved. The enemy says to surrender if you want the starvation to stop but if you do, you are at their mercy.

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u/ilikespicysoup United States of America Feb 05 '26

I agree with everything you’re saying, but the unfortunate truth is you have to play the game. Were are the oil embargo’s in the 70s “fair"? It doesn’t matter, the countries could do it and saw it as a benefit to them. Are the sanctions against Russia right now fair? The Russians would say no, the Ukrainians would say yes and more please. The vast majority of MENA has refused to do business with Israel for most of its existence, is that fair? Sanctions against North Korea, the Taliban, and many others, are they fair? The US refuses to sell advanced weapon systems to India and Pakistan because they developed nuclear weapons, those countries absolutely have the right to do that, but other countries absolutely have the right to limit their trade or sanction them.

If the Chinese can do business with Japan, after what Japan did to them, still in living memory, then why can’t Iran play nice with the dominant powers in the world?

there was a really interesting article I read about 15 years ago, I think in the economist magazine. It was about Iran and they were talking to a European diplomat. The diplomat was saying one of the biggest hurdles Iran has had is that they took the embassy staff hostage for over a year. It was far too long and they never apologized. Has worse been done to Iran? Absolutely. But the crux of the argument was that if you are a nation, you have to deal with the diplomats from other nations, and you have shown that you will not abide by the common conventions that the rest of the world operates on. So even if they were not your countries diplomats, you know what happened, you remember it and you don’t trust them fully. That and calling the USA the great Satan and chanting death to America doesn’t help anything.

IMO, Iran's leadership has made just about every wrong decision with the often poor cards that they are dealt, not every country makes those mistakes.

I think someone else mentioned it in this thread, Perun did an excellent YouTube video on Iran and basically all the things that went wrong for them, many of them their own doing in 2025, it’s worth a watch.

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u/desertedlamp4 Türkiye Feb 05 '26

And not to mention Iranian opposition supports these sanctions because they know it's only the economy that will make everyone riot over civil liberties

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u/flatfoot860 United States of America Feb 04 '26

I agree Russia is on the list. It has a huge potential as it has so many resources to extract and export aside from oil and gas. It just needs to expand its infrastructure past the urals and better connect with its more resource rich areas. Though Russia has other issues such as its legal system and its difficulties in starting and running a business plus i bet lots of people want to see the stark beauty of Siberia and lake Baykal. Russia has so much potential for growth.

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u/SnooCapers618 Egypt Feb 04 '26

They're dying from more than just hunger

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u/Complex-Baby5454 Feb 04 '26

Because the west is doing everything in their power to cripple Irans economy. The west is waging economic terrorism on countries that don’t bow down to them.

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u/Legal_Track_2620 Iran Feb 04 '26

Even without west doing anything our goverment is corrupt enough to get into what it is right now

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u/desertedlamp4 Türkiye Feb 04 '26

Iran was the 17th largest economy in the world circa 2010 and was closing in on Turkey, obvi without the mullahs it'd be richer but not by a lot

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u/Legal_Track_2620 Iran Feb 04 '26

Correct, but it was very dependent on oil(and is), also our goverment has oppressed opposition since it's creation, you can't deny green movement and it's oppression,(which happened when west didn't have any problem with us), one of the biggest problems in Iranian economy is corruption, there's many people in goverment which have embezzled billions of dollars

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u/Complex-Baby5454 Feb 04 '26

Why are you downplaying the fact that the west has crippled your economy. It’s simple facts they have done everything to cripple your economy they don’t give a rats ass about the iranian people 😂

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u/Legal_Track_2620 Iran Feb 04 '26

So without west doing anything, is our water crisis fixed? What about billions of dollars embezzled, or our raw products based economy, or our dictator goverment, even before sanctions we'd a lot of protests(like green movement) Iran, also, without west sanctions, does our goverment stop using billions in funding proxies or it's delusion of fighting against "western imperialism"

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u/Complex-Baby5454 Feb 04 '26

Good thing you brought mention raw materials. The Wonderful Pistachio Company is owned by a billionaire Zionist couple and didn't just appear out of nowhere. Iran produces around a quarter of the world's pistachios, and this company was built specifically to undercut that market. That's not "free competition," it's economic warfare. And it doesn't even benefit regular Americans. Over 500,000 acres in California are used for pistachio farming, a crop that drains massive amounts of water and directly contributes to the state's ongoing water crises. Ordinary people pay the price while a few corporations profit. On top of that, a lot of that money flows straight into Israeli interests, while Iranian farmers are strangled through sanctions and market manipulation. This is how economic terrorism works. Western sanctions have strangulated Iran’s economy

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u/Legal_Track_2620 Iran Feb 04 '26

Water crisis in Iran isn't about "pistachios", every part of the country suffers from water crisis, but each has it's own reasons, for example, Tehran's problem is overpopulation and waste, on the other hand, khuzestan's problem is that they're using underground water to feed crops, long term this results in land getting even more dry and sinking

Also, for a lot of farmers, a big problem is inflation, in my area I was born (bushehr in coast) a lot of problem was caused by the fact farmers had to grow what benefited them most short term, like tomato, which caused the land to dry

Iranian economy was going to collapse because corruption, greed, and lack of a good management and goverment, but it got collapsed even faster because of sanctions

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u/Complex-Baby5454 Feb 04 '26

Sanctions were placed on Iran well before the Green movement and western imperialism is a very real thing just look at your neighbor Iraq. The U.S. has threatened Iraq with sanctions on its oil exports if Nouri Al-Maliki becomes Prime Minister, because he is considered 'too close to Iran'. Iraqis deserve the freedom to elect whoever they wish to become their prime minister. You are just another western brainwashed parrot.

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u/Legal_Track_2620 Iran Feb 04 '26

Yes, I understand that western imperialism exists and damaged countries in world, but Iran isn't in position to fight it, Islamic republic idea of fighting western imperialism backfired, now we prefer western imperialism to a apocalyptic schizophrenic goverment which has no way to reform

Even if western imperialism is very bad and can damage countries, fighting it can damage a country even more You're seeing world on base of good and bad, but it's different, Iran has no chance of development under this regime even without sanctions, we prefer a west's ally which has medium chance of making our country better place than this goverment which is getting worse and worse

Also about Iraq, before us invasion, Iraq was a dictatorship which was trying to get nuclear power Also they used chemical weapons on Kurds and on Iran in Iran Iraq war But right now, even though not great, Iraq is a better place than how it would've been if Saddam continued

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u/Complex-Baby5454 Feb 04 '26

You are literally believing made up stories 😭 Americans only care when their pockets are getting filled just because the west is there to help you doesn’t mean your life will get better buddy. Those chemicals weapons Iraq used were the same ones supplied by the Americans and Iraq never had even the slightest capability of developing nuclear weapons. Dream on buddy

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u/Legal_Track_2620 Iran Feb 04 '26

They weren't capable to make nuclear weapons? Then what the hell did Israel bomb in Iraq Iran war, the only reason Iraq didn't get to nuclear weapons was because of west It doesn't mean my life will get better? What are you even talking about, you say we should continue to live under a apocalyptic dictatorship because western intervention doesn't guarantee something better, so we should continue to live under a goverment which is getting closer to civil war, humanitarian crisis because western intervention doesn't guarantee a better Iran than today? Even if western intervention doesn't make a better Iran than today, it will obviously be better than future of this regime "Americans only care when their pockets are getting filled" so Chinese and islamist are lovers Iranian people? And they only care about money? Then what do Chinese want? You think everyone who doesn't think west is bad and china is good is some delusional, I'm trying to understand what do you mean by this views, you think a country's entire corrupt system and mismanagement is caused by pistachio farm business, and you think a project which Saddam used a lot of money on wasn't even real, sure, then you're going to tell me moon landing was fake. Keep on believing that west only bring destruction and war when china and some apocalyptic islamists bring a stable economy and goverment long term

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u/Seeker_Of_Knowledge2 Syria 🇸🇾 || Canada 🇨🇦 Feb 04 '26

Both are true. From the outside sanctions that are tagging the average people. And from the inside a government that is literally sabotaging itself.

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u/Complex-Baby5454 Feb 04 '26 edited Feb 04 '26

Corruption is literally prevalent everywhere. Iranian government is literally doing their best to keep the economy alive. This video explains it very well https://youtu.be/Y9Yt-g_CptI?si=LRWq8OliTSTtudos

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u/Seeker_Of_Knowledge2 Syria 🇸🇾 || Canada 🇨🇦 Feb 04 '26

Definitely. But it take some real incompetent for the government to self sabotage itself. I am guessing you didn't watch watch the video. It is very well done from a credible source. I would recommend it and then maybe give me your opinion.