Iran International
Tehran and other major cities are edging toward water poverty, Dr. Kaveh Madani told Eye for Iran, with millions at risk of relying for their water on tankers trucks as taps begin to run dry.
Madani, director of the UN University Institute for Water, Environment and Health and former deputy head of Iran’s Department of Environment, told Eye for Iran that the country is not going through a normal drought but what he calls water bankruptcy.
This is a condition in which consumption exceeds supply and the reserves built over generations have already been drained.
“We have never seen such a thing,” Madani said. “The people of Tehran, the city that is the richest, most populous and strongest politically, is running out of water, is facing day zero.”
Satellite images and field data show alarming patterns nationwide. Tehran’s five main reservoirs are at some of their lowest recorded levels. Mashhad’s major dams have fallen below 3 percent capacity.
In many regions groundwater has sunk so deep that recovery is unlikely in this generation. The Ministry of Energy has already prepared rationing plans. Some neighborhoods have reported nighttime cuts. Officials have urged households to purchase storage tanks.
But experts stress that households are only a small part of the equation. More than 70 percent of Iran’s 90 million people live in large cities with no mid-size urban centers to absorb population shifts.
Ninety percent of all water use still goes to agriculture, a sector governments have protected for decades under a policy of food self-sufficiency. That choice has prevented water from being redirected toward cities even as the climate has grown hotter and drier.
For decades the state masked scarcity by expanding supply: building dams, drilling deeper wells and pumping water across basins from distant aquifers.
These measures created the illusion that dry regions, including the Tehran plain, could continue to grow. Over time that perception encouraged development and migration beyond what the land could sustain.
Aquifers drained, river exhaustion
With reserves depleted, Iran’s cities have very little left to fall back on.
Madani warns that if winter rains fail life in major cities could shift abruptly. “It means pumps and stores, delivery through tankers, more bottled water instead of tap water, a change of lifestyle.”
At the same time he cautions against mistaking brief rainfall or even seasonal floods for real recovery.
One storm could momentarily refill canals or ease pressure on local networks. But the underlying deficits, from drained aquifers to collapsing river systems, remain unchanged. “These days are real,” Madani said. “And even if in a few months there are floods, we shouldn’t conclude the problem has been resolved forever.”
Years of sanctions and a so-called resistance economy have pushed the state to extract whatever natural resources remain. Environmental reform is costly and slow with benefits that may not appear for a decade.
Asking citizens to cut consumption requires public trust, something the government lacks. Without transparent information about what reserves remain and clear communication about the severity of the crisis, cooperation will remain limited.
There is still a narrow window, Madani says. A few hours of concentrated rainfall could buy cities days. Collective reductions in consumption could buy weeks. But the structural imbalance, too many people and too little water, is now a national reality.
“This is a national security issue,” he said. “It affects every Iranian, no matter who is in charge.”
You can watch the full episode of Eye for Iran on YouTube or listen on any podcast platform of your choosing.
Tehran’s unveiling of a towering statue depicting the Roman Emperor Valerian kneeling before pre-Islamic Persian King Shapur I has renewed criticism of the Islamic Republic’s appeal to nationalist sentiment following the June war with Israel.
For over forty years, the theocracy purged ancient Persian history from schoolbooks, replacing it with post-Islamic narratives. But after the 12-day conflict with Israel, officials have turned to the distant pre-Islamic past to rally a divided society.
From murals of ancient kings and soldiers to patriotic songs added to Shi’ite mourning ceremonies performed before Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, Tehran now embraces imagery once deemed heretical by its own revolutionary ethos.
'Kneel before Iran' campaign
Tehran’s Revolution (Enghelab) Square was the scene of an unusual spectacle on Friday as officials unveiled a massive bronze statue depicting Roman Emperor Valerian kneeling in submission before Sassanid King Shapur I, commemorating Iran’s victory at the Battle of Edessa (260 AD).
The event was held under the slogan “Kneel before Iran,” part of what authorities describe as a campaign to project “national unity and historical pride” following the June war with Israel.
Tehran Mayor Alireza Zakani, a staunch ultraconservative, said on X: “Enmity with Great Iran can only end in kneeling before this historic nation.”
Municipal official Davood Goodarzi said the installation would be accompanied by visual displays depicting “other victories of Iranians over foreign aggressors,” including the defeat of British forces by local commander Rais-Ali Delvari, Mirza Kuchak Khan’s resistance against Russian troops, and Surena’s triumph over Rome at the Battle of Carrhae in 53 BCE.
The goal, Goodarzi said, is “strengthening concepts such as national dignity, social unity, and Iranian identity.”
The statue, he said, would remain temporarily at Revolution Square before being moved to a city gateway “where it will stand as the first emblem of Iran before diplomats and foreign visitors.”
Unveiled women were allowed to attend the unveiling ceremony—an uncommon scene at events organized by Tehran’s ultra-hardline municipality.
The turn to the pre-Islamic past
The sharp reversal also recalls remarks once made by Khamenei. In a 2011 speech, he asserted that “all the great military victories of this nation came after Islam,” dismissing pre-Islamic accounts as “things that are not documented.”
In 1987, he had said that prophets triumphed over kings such as Cyrus and that “nothing remains of these monarchs in history but names remembered with derision.”
Nevertheless, pro-government social media accounts have now gone so far as to circulate posters equating Khamenei himself with Shapur, showing him standing with a staff as Benjamin Netanyahu and Donald Trump kneel before him. The caption reads: “You will kneel before Iran.”
'Hypocrisy'
Pro-government figures have hailed the move as a patriotic success. Conservative political reporter Hossein Saremi posted: “Today’s grand Iranian gathering showed that people and the state share one essence: Iran itself. Nothing can take our homeland away.”
Others, however, called the spectacle “hypocrisy.” Journalist Gholamhossein Pashaei wrote on X: “Every year you close Pasargadae to stop people from celebrating Cyrus Day, yet you unveil Shapur’s statue in Enghelab Square with drums and fireworks during Fatimiyya (mourning period)!”
Dissident commentator Hamid Asafi called the ceremony “a perfect snapshot of the Islamic Republic’s contradictions.”
On Telegram he wrote: “A week ago they closed Cyrus’s tomb out of fear of the crowds, and now they glorify Shapur in the same breath. The Islamic Republic fears living history but poses for selfies with its corpse.”
He added: “They know people no longer respond to rosaries and sermons. That’s why they’ve brought history back to the stage—in a controlled costume. If they can’t erase the past, they’ll try to own it.”
The irony deepened as UNESCO formally recognized Cyrus’s Charter as one of the earliest human-rights documents.
President Masoud Pezeshkian wrote on X: “Iran, the cradle of dialogue, justice, and coexistence, can still inspire peace today.”
Users swiftly replied, questioning how such pride could coexist with a government that blocks access to Cyrus’s tomb each year to those wishing to visit it on his birthday.