While prices for beef and lamb had already soared out of reach, meaning fewer of the kebabs and stews beloved by middle-class Iranians, when the cost of yogurt spiked this week, Iran’s economic troubles hit home for virtually every household in the country, The Washington Post reported Thursday, October 4. Protests over such price hikes brought thousands into the streets this week in central Tehran. Calm was reported Thursday in the capital, as security forces patrolled key intersections and presided over mostly empty stalls in the city’s largest street bazaar. But the unrelenting pressure on Iran’s currency appears to be achieving an effect that some U.S. officials have been quietly advocating for years: a kind of widespread economic distress that they hope will lead to changes in Iranian behavior, if not a change in the leadership itself.