As the Iranian rial tumbled to new lows on Tuesday, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad blamed the plummeting value of the currency on a “psychological war” waged against his government by the United States and his domestic critics.

The Tuesday news conference marked an unusually open admission by Ahmadinejad of the pain inflicted by Western sanctions, imposed to press Iran to curb its nuclear program.

The economic restrictions are “a hidden and heavy war on a global scale,” Ahmadinejad said, arguing that the West had targeted Iran's people, not its government.

The president also complained that critics such as parliamentary speaker Ali Larijani had wrongly laid the blame for the sinking rial with government mismanagement instead of “the economic war of the enemy.” He singled out Fars News Agency, which is close to the Revolutionary Guards and interviewed Larijani, arguing it had attacked his government for the past six months.

When “the enemy has thrown a rock on our path,” he said, “everybody needs to help throw the rock back to the enemy."

While Ahmadinejad fired back at his critics, street traders said the rial was trading Tuesday at a new low of 37,000 to the dollar, a stunning drop from just five days ago, when 26,900 rials bought a dollar. The street value is far lower than the official trading rate of 12,260 rials per dollar used by its central bank for essential goods, which most Iranians cannot access.