Four-minute read
When state TV abruptly cut the live feed of the Iranian regime president Masoud Pezeshkian’s December 5, 2025, meeting in Yasuj, the reason was obvious. An environmental activist had accused the government of pushing illegal dam projects; Pezeshkian snapped, ordering him to sit. Moments earlier, he had admitted on air: “We are trapped everywhere in Iran over water… Tehran is worse than here.”
That single scene captured a wider truth: across water, currency, energy, and air quality, the clerical dictatorship is confronting simultaneous failures it can no longer mask. Even official and regime-adjacent reporting now acknowledges that the system is running out of resources—and political insulation.
Water Bankruptcy and Public Backlash
Hashem Ureii, head of the Federation of Energy Scientific Associations, urged officials on December 5 to stop speaking of “water imbalance” and call the crisis by its name: “water bankruptcy.” Nearly 90% of national water consumption goes to agriculture, he noted; blaming households is diversionary.
Tehran’s own data underline the point. According to Mohsen Ardakani, the capital’s four main dams are roughly 3% full; including the Taleghan reservoir brings the figure only to about 9%. Autumn rainfall has been 97% below long-term norms. A deputy energy minister warns that without a fundamental shift in extraction and consumption, even drinking-water security will face “serious challenges.”
Environmental stress is compounding the deficit. Soil researchers report 30,000 hectares lost annually to erosion or degradation; forest and rangeland fires exceed 18,000 per year, over 90% human-caused. These are not isolated shocks but symptoms of a governance model that overdraws land and water to sustain short-term political priorities.
That tension surfaced in Yasuj. Activist Rahman Vafanejad confronted Pezeshkian over a “special order” dated November 10 to accelerate contentious dam projects such as Mandegan and Khersan-3, despite local protests and scientific warnings about damage to the Zagros ecosystem. The president denied issuing such an order and tried to silence him; state TV cut the broadcast. But documentation exists, and demonstrations in recent weeks show that water and land disputes are no longer technocratic issues—they are political flashpoints the state cannot easily manage.
Why #Iran Is Running Out of Water, Power — and Patiencehttps://t.co/9ZghlJCNpO
— NCRI-FAC (@iran_policy) August 13, 2025
Currency Collapse and Shrinking Incomes
If water is Iran’s most visible scarcity, money is its most destabilizing. By December, the free-market dollar had climbed past 122,000 tomans. Gold coins and major foreign currencies also hit record highs. State inflation remains officially in the low-40% range, but state-aligned economists now warn that year-end inflation could reach 55–60%, with a real risk of triple-digit inflation in 2026.
Economist Vahid Shaqaqi says “all the engines of inflation are running at once”: a budget deficit of 1,000–1,500 trillion tomans; structural gaps in the banking and pension systems; and overlapping crises in electricity, gas, gasoline, and environmental infrastructure. On the revenue side, U.N. sanctions snapback on September 28, 2025 and weaker Chinese demand have slowed oil sales. Shipping-intelligence data show roughly 52 million barrels of Iranian crude stranded in floating storage—far above the 5–10 million barrels at the start of the year.
The squeeze on households is immediate. Labor-market experts cited by state media put the urban poverty line above 55 million tomans per month and estimate that more than half of Iranians now fall below it. Other assessments suggest around 40 million people live under the relative poverty line, with about 7 million facing absolute food insecurity.
Food inflation makes the crisis tangible. Iranian rice has leapt from about 125,000 tomans per kilogram to roughly 332,000 in a year. Beef has risen from 575,000 to about 864,000 tomans; chicken is up 50%. State outlets now report 30-egg trays above 250,000 tomans across many cities. A senior MP confirms that hard-currency allocations for essential imports dropped from $18 billion to $11 billion this year—leaving the government less able to stabilize basic goods or medicines.
#Iran’s Currency Crisis: The Legacy of Four Decades of Multi-Rate Policieshttps://t.co/IQdGFZryQ3
— NCRI-FAC (@iran_policy) August 24, 2025
Toxic Air and a Health System Under Pressure
Air quality has deteriorated to levels officials can no longer downplay. Tehran has recorded only six “clean air” days all year. Early December brought sustained “unhealthy” and “red” readings, while Isfahan, Mashhad, and multiple cities in Khuzestan registered index levels above 150. Meteorological agencies issued orange alerts, warning that some districts could tip into “dangerous” conditions without rapid emissions cuts.
Hospitals are absorbing the fallout. More than 200,000 people visited emergency rooms nationwide in a ten-day stretch due to air pollution, with sharp spikes in Tehran, Mashhad, Khuzestan, and Alborz. In Hormozgan, the season’s first confirmed flu death appeared as local health officials warned of an accelerating wave of respiratory illness.
State-linked reports show why: major power plants near Tehran and Qazvin burned fuel with sulfur content up to 570 times the legal limit this fall; heavy trucks still receive high-sulfur diesel, pushing pollution deep into urban areas. Temporary school closures are presented as protective, but the underlying reality is clear—the government tolerates toxic air to avoid blackouts and conserve foreign currency.
#Iran’s Lungs on Fire: Wildfires, Toxic Air and the Politics Behind an Environmental Collapsehttps://t.co/whtnsIRDW4
— NCRI-FAC (@iran_policy) November 23, 2025
Fuel Pricing and Political Fear
Into this volatile landscape, the government added a three-tier gasoline system on December 6: 60 liters per month at 1,500 tomans per liter, another 100 liters at 3,000, and any additional fuel—or purchases without personal smart cards—at 5,000. Officials frame the move as anti-smuggling, not a revenue grab. Yet conservative MP Mojtaba Zolnouri warned that the rollout “surprised” citizens and risks triggering new price cascades.
The memory of November 2019’s deadly fuel-price protests hangs over every adjustment. The difference today is that inflation is higher, incomes weaker, and trust thinner. Even modest changes carry political risk.
Clerical Regime in #Iran Sees Uprising Everywherehttps://t.co/r1zaUJf2pV
— NCRI-FAC (@iran_policy) November 30, 2025
A System Running Out of Margin
Inside the elite, signs of strain are unmistakable: quarrels in parliament, rumors of cabinet reshuffles, and loyalist media warning that factions have “moved beyond the system.” Pezeshkian himself describes his tenure as an unbroken run of “bad events,” listing water shortages, energy imbalances, and fiscal gaps while acknowledging public anger.
Across all sectors, the pattern is the same: scarcity deepens, capacity thins, and the state’s margin for error narrows. The government cannot ration water, clean air, fuel, and currency while also rationing political space. As officials themselves now admit, “we are trapped”—a conclusion much of society reached years ago.