Three-minute read
Across Iran, daily life is being pushed toward a threshold where many have nothing left to lose. The shrinking of the dinner table, the rationing of drinking water, and the spread of unsafe buildings are no longer abstract indicators of mismanagement; they are direct constraints on survival. These overlapping pressures are not the product of temporary shocks, sanctions, or misfortune. They reflect a political order that has systematically prioritized regime security, foreign projection, and elite patronage over the most basic conditions of civilian life.
As these systems break down together, the clerical dictatorship is confronting not just public anger—but the loss of the material basis of social control.
Food Affordability: A Basic Meal Becomes a Luxury
On November 2, 2025, Valliollah Bayati, a member of parliament, warned that inflation and currency decline have “severely reduced household consumption.” His example was rice—a staple of the Iranian diet. With Iranian rice averaging 400,000 tomans per kilo, state-controlled media calculated that one spoonful costs around 2,400 tomans.
This is not about preferences shifting; it is forced exclusion. Families are removing food categories—first dairy, then protein, now staples.
Even Jahan-e Sanat, a pro-government economic newspaper, warned that the government’s method of classifying income groups is designed to avoid paying subsidies, noting that the state is “using false and non-realistic benchmarks” to reclassify families as “wealthy.” The editorial warned this approach is likely to trigger social unrest.
Meanwhile, research cited by the Majlis Research Center estimates 30 percent of the population—26 million people—live in absolute poverty, and four million are now in extreme food insecurity.
These numbers themselves are likely underestimates; official data in Iran is frequently altered, withheld, or redefined to avoid political consequences. But even the regime’s own filtered statistics show a rapid descent.
#Iran News in Brief:
The Al-Sharq al-Awsat newspaper claimed it is been told by #Iranian sources that state officials have issued secret instructions to security and judicial units to prepare for public protests following the rise in food prices.https://t.co/7YVxbgfcDo pic.twitter.com/EvXsoe96Io
— NCRI-FAC (@iran_policy) May 5, 2022
Water Insecurity: Tehran on a Two-Week Respirator
On November 1, 2025, the managing director of Tehran’s Regional Water Company announced that the Amir-Kabir Dam—one of the capital’s main drinking water sources—holds only 14 million cubic meters, about two weeks of supply. Last year at this time, it held 86 million cubic meters.
The government announced plans to reduce urban water allocations by 10 percent.
In the same period, Vice President Mohammad-Reza Aref stated that water consumption in parts of Iran remains around 250 liters per person per day, while European urban consumption is planned around 100 liters. Aref said: “We must speak honestly with the public about water realities.”
But Aref’s call for “honest conversation” is not transparency; it is a political tactic. The water crisis is not a result of public overuse or sudden climatic strain—it is the product of decades of state-led groundwater depletion, unregulated construction approvals, and agricultural allocation designed to reward patronage networks and security-connected landholders. By presenting the crisis as a matter of public consumption habits, Aref aims to shift responsibility downward and dampen public anger through the appearance of openness, rather than acknowledging that the state itself engineered the scarcity.
Why #Iran Is Running Out of Water, Power — and Patiencehttps://t.co/9ZghlJCNpO
— NCRI-FAC (@iran_policy) August 13, 2025
Urban Safety: The Possibility of Mass Casualty by Neglect
On November 1, 2025, Kamran Abdoli, deputy head of Tehran’s Fire Department, reported that 80,000 buildings in the capital are unsafe, including 27,000 high-risk structures and 129 classified as “severely critical.”
This means the state knows where mass death may occur—and lacks either the resources, authority, or political will to prevent it.
Recent fires in commercial buildings showed that equipment existed but was never maintained. Abdoli described this as: “Like a vehicle with no brakes. Present, but useless.”
The collapse of Plasco Building in Tehran in 2017 and the Metropol tower in Abadan in 2022—along with similar failures in other major cities—did not lead to reform. Each disaster followed the same pattern: construction approved through political patronage, ignored safety warnings, and no accountability. The underlying drivers—speculation, corruption, and impunity—remain intact.
Everything the Collapse of the Metropol Building In Abadan Brought to Lighthttps://t.co/dRRiLuBilX pic.twitter.com/XySFQDQ79o
— NCRI-FAC (@iran_policy) June 3, 2022
Fiscal Constraint Without Governance Reform
The deputy chairman of the Majlis Budget Commission announced on November 2, 2025, that the government faces a budget deficit approaching 1.8 quadrillion tomans by year-end. Oil export targets were politically inflated, and real revenues lag.
In response, the government plans to introduce a third gasoline price tier at 7,500 tomans per liter starting in 2026.
Price adjustments of this type have historically triggered:
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transport inflation
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food price cascades
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wage-purchase power collapses
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and unrest
Yet the state remains focused on mechanisms of revenue extraction, not correction of structural economic drivers.
#Iran News in Brief
Ebrahim Raisi's government tackles budget deficit with a major bread price hike, initially in Mashhad and now extended to 13 other provinces. State #media and officials express concerns as the issue becomes nationwide. Read more: https://t.co/BtqcMyYpua pic.twitter.com/MFvAYw7Vee— NCRI-FAC (@iran_policy) August 4, 2023
Structural Meaning: The State Did Not “Fail” to Protect Welfare — It Never Prioritized It
It is crucial not to misread the situation as one where a government wishes to provide services but “cannot” due to constraints.
From the clerical regime’s inception, public welfare has been instrumental—useful only insofar as it sustains regime stability. When resources tighten, welfare is expendable, but:
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security budgets,
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elite patronage networks, and
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foreign proxy financing
remain protected.
The present crisis is therefore not the breakdown of a social contract. It is the exposure of the fact that no such contract existed.
According to estimates, the #nuclear program in #Iran has incurred a staggering cost of over $2 trillion to date. Watch and judge who is ultimately paying for this level of squandering the nation's wealth. pic.twitter.com/w5cdxEsV2u
— NCRI-FAC (@iran_policy) June 14, 2023
When Systems Break Together, Control Weakens
- Food insecurity reduces compliance.
- Water scarcity erodes patience.
- Unsafe cities create latent trauma and visible fear.
Together, they move the population closer to the point where continued endurance holds no rational benefit.
The state can arrest, censor, and police dissent— but it cannot police hunger, thirst, or gravity.
Iran is not facing a temporary downturn.
It is undergoing structural loss of state capacity in core survival systems.
This is not a crisis the regime is managing.
This is a crisis managing the regime.