Iran’s national security adviser has warned that the rapidly deteriorating economy has plunged the country into one of the most difficult periods in its history.

Mohsen Rezaei, Iran’s top security official, made the rare admission on Saturday at a high-level government meeting about how to stabilize the economy after more than seven months of war.

Iran’s currency, the rial, has plummeted since the United States and Israel launched the war on Iran in February. The decline has accelerated sharply in recent weeks, since the United States ratcheted up sanctions and enforced a naval blockade. That has made imports more expensive and deepened a longstanding cost of living crisis that sparked nationwide protests last December that the security forces crushed with deadly force.

Analysts say the U.S. naval blockade has also largely prevented Iran from exporting oil, depriving the country of its main source of revenue and causing a fuel crisis.

Mohsen Paknejad, the oil minister who said in July that Iran would continue exporting oil despite U.S. sanctions, resigned on Sunday. Seyed Mehdi Tabatabaei, a spokesman for President Masoud Pezeshkian, said on social media that Hamid Bovard, managing director of Iran’s national oil company, would be Mr. Paknejad’s interim replacement.

In recent days, government and private sector employees, including nurses and teachers, have taken to social media to say they were quitting their jobs because their salaries could no longer support them. Iranian local media has reported that retired government employees have held protests in the past few weeks because they said they had not received their full pensions.

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