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In late August, as Iran buckled under severe electricity, water, and gas shortages, the regime’s president, Masoud Pezeshkian, offered a simple explanation for the nation’s suffering: the people themselves. “We have gotten used to consuming badly,” he declared on August 26, 2025, shifting the responsibility for systemic failure onto the public. Yet, just two weeks later, during a trip to Ardabil on September 11, Pezeshkian revealed the regime’s profound helplessness. Faced with the deepening crisis, he openly challenged anyone to step forward, stating, “Whoever in this country can solve the problem of water, fuel, and agriculture… the ball is in your court.”
This glaring contradiction encapsulates the Iranian regime’s approach to a crisis of its own making: deflect blame onto its citizens while admitting its own inability to govern. While officials lament public consumption habits, the evidence points not to the people, but to decades of corruption, mismanagement, and a crumbling infrastructure that the regime has failed to address.
Why #Iran Is Running Out of Water, Power — and Patiencehttps://t.co/9ZghlJCNpO
— NCRI-FAC (@iran_policy) August 13, 2025
A Crisis of Mismanagement, Not Consumption
The regime’s narrative that citizens are to blame for the energy crisis collapses under factual scrutiny. According to independent energy experts, the claim of overconsumption is a fabrication designed to mask state incompetence. In reality, “per capita household electricity consumption in Iran is 45% less than in Europe and 4 times less than in the US.”
The true source of the crisis lies in the regime’s systemic neglect. An estimated 40 terawatt-hours of electricity—an amount equivalent to 40% of the total annual consumption of all Iranian households—is wasted each year due to the dilapidated state of the transmission and distribution network. Similarly, the acute water shortages are exacerbated by a failing infrastructure that allows for a “32% water loss in the distribution network.” These figures reveal a state that is not only failing to invest in critical infrastructure but is actively allowing a massive portion of its resources to go to waste, all while scolding its citizens for their modest usage.
#Iran's Labor Uprising: 4,000 Arak Workers on Hunger Strike, Exposing Regime’s Systemic Failurehttps://t.co/OJT7GCm8Vv
— NCRI-FAC (@iran_policy) September 11, 2025
Adding Insult to Injury: Extortion Amidst Blackouts
Instead of addressing the root causes of the crisis, the regime has resorted to a punitive campaign of financial extortion against a population already suffering from constant blackouts and soaring inflation. On September 10, 2025, reports emerged that the Ministry of Energy was imposing tariff increases of up to five times the actual cost of consumption.
A striking example from a residential complex in Tehran illustrates this predatory policy. The building’s bill for “consumed energy” was listed as 30 million tomans, but after the addition of arbitrary and opaque fees such as “power price,” “power plant fuel costs,” and “electricity duties,” the final amount demanded skyrocketed to a “staggering 150 million tomans.” This immense financial burden is being placed on citizens who are simultaneously enduring scheduled power outages. To compound the injustice, these inflated bills come with a threat: failure to pay within 48 hours will result in disconnection. This policy is not a measure to manage energy use; it is a clear act of leveraging a manufactured crisis to extract wealth from an exhausted populace.
#IranProtests: Isfahan Farmers Continue Water Rights Demonstrationshttps://t.co/5X6Zyav3Ag
— NCRI-FAC (@iran_policy) April 1, 2025
A Symptom of a Failed State
The energy and water crisis in Iran is not merely a technical or environmental issue; it is a direct and inevitable consequence of the regime’s political priorities. While officials like Majlis member Sadif Badri admit that “the weekly and monthly increase in the price of goods” is crushing the people, the regime offers no solutions beyond blame and extortion.
The crisis exposes a system that has long prioritized its ideological and military ambitions over the basic welfare of its people. As Iran’s infrastructure crumbles and its citizens are punished for the state’s failures, Pezeshkian continues to praise Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, calling him “the pillar of the tent that this country depends on.” For millions of Iranians enduring blackouts and facing impossible utility bills, that tent has already collapsed, brought down by the very pillar it was built to support.