The Islamic Republic, on the other side of the Gulf, is in a serious pickle. After its war with Israel, it is more isolated than ever. Its oil exports are still flowing, but it is struggling to collect the proceeds because America keeps cranking up sanctions on anyone helping it move money. Britain, France and Germany are threatening to restore their own embargoes unless it resumes nuclear negotiations in earnest. That is pushing Iran to find new ways to pay for the foreign goods it so desperately needs. Flooding the Gulf with fruit and veg is one of them. Iran now supplies nine out of ten cauliflowers, tomatoes and watermelons imported by the UAE, a near-monopoly built in just a few years.
Noooooo 
cauliflowers!!
idk anything about the internal situation of Iranian agriculture but imo they have to paint this as evil shit because otherwise what would happen is Iran would export a bunch of food, food prices in general would decline which most people, needing to eat, would see as a good thing, which would then make it much harder to justify sanctions cutting off all of this trade
so instead of "hell yeah Iran is feeding the world, cost of living will go down!" it's all this fucking "vegetable imperialism" nonsense