The taps are running dry in Tehran.
Iran's capital is now experiencing a massive and deepening water shortage. After months of drought and scorching heat, the five reservoirs feeding the city of more than 10 million are mostly empty. Local authorities have been forced to mandate water rationing, and the situation has become so dire that Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian recently warned that, unless the region experiences rainfall in the coming weeks, the city may need to be evacuated altogether.
The crisis extends far beyond Iran's capital. The Islamic republic is now weathering a national hydrological crisis of truly catastrophic proportions. Cumulatively, water mismanagement, prolonged drought, climate change, inefficient irrigation practices and the overextraction of groundwater now affect every aspect of Iranian life. Rivers and lakes are shrinking, undermining agriculture and deepening food insecurity. Iran's urban areas face widespread water shortages, and infrastructure is increasingly strained. Communities throughout the country are exposed to rising health risks as a result of drying wetlands. Regional ecosystems have collapsed.
The problem is hardly unexpected. More than a decade ago, Iranian officials were warning that chronic water mismanagement and misallocation represented a "major threat to the country." By 2019, the World Resources Institute had classified Iran as one of the most "water-stressed" nations in the world. By 2021, Iranian officials were estimating that some 110 cities across the country were forced to implement water rationing or suffered disruptions as a result of summer drought conditions. The situation has only worsened since.
The reasons have everything to do with the skewed priorities of Iran's ruling clerical regime. True to their revolutionary pedigree, Iran's ayatollahs have consistently preferred guns over butter. They have poured billions of dollars into the country's nuclear program, its burgeoning arsenal of ballistic missiles and its extensive network of terrorist proxies.
What they have not done is make a meaningful, sustained nationwide effort to reverse the country's worsening water situation. Now that the crisis has truly hit, Iranian officials are predictably trying to deflect the blame onto the Iranian people themselves.
Thus, Mohsen Araki, an influential member of Iran's Assembly of Experts, has pinned the responsibility for the country's hydrological crisis on a failure by ordinary Iranians to adequately follow Islamic law. "Drought, water crisis, and reduced rainfall are signs of God's warning to awaken us from negligence and inattentiveness toward him," Mr. Araki recently opined.
It's no wonder Iranians are increasingly disillusioned. A recent poll covered by the Tehran-based news site Rouydad24 found that 9 out of 10 Iranians are unhappy with the country's direction, amounting to a resounding vote of no confidence in Iran's clerical leaders. Iranians understand precisely who is responsible for their water woes.
Another recent survey, conducted by the Netherlands-based GAMAAN polling group, found that an overwhelming number (75%) of Iranians pinned the blame for the country's crisis on domestic mismanagement and inefficiency — that is, the Iranian regime itself.
That dissatisfaction has the potential to mobilize the country against its ruling clerical elite. Much as the recent "woman, life, freedom" movement, with its focus on the regime's religious-based repression of women, cut across the country's various social and economic strata, Iran's water shortage is a truly universal issue that affects every citizen regardless of political orientation or ethnicity. As a result, the longer the crisis persists, the more likely it is to lead to a sustained, nationwide challenge to regime authority.
All this makes Iran's situation about much more than water scarcity. Quite simply, it is a critical test of legitimacy, and it's far from clear that the ayatollahs will be able to pass it.