An Opportunity In Thirst.

Iran is running out of water. This is a route to foment an insurrection against the mullahs. 

 

When the well is dry, we know the worth of water.

 

Benjamin Franklin

 

Iraq has a population of 88 million, and almost three quarters of them have no memory of the Shah. An overwhelming majority have only known the mullahs ruling over their nation and running it into the ground. A country with vast energy resources experiences regular electrical brownouts. “Food prices are increasing by double digits per month. In January 2025, the cost of food for a family of four was approximately 58% of the minimum wage. Reportedly 26 million Iranians cannot meet their basic nutritional needs, and that may soon rise to 32 million.” Add to that now, Iran’s running out of water. 

 

From Foreign Policy:

 

Iran’s Taps Are Nearly Empty

 

After five straight years of drought, the country is running dry.

 

Iran’s environmental collapse is no longer the slowly worsening problem that leaders ignored for decades. It’s here, it’s accelerating, and it’s threatening the very survival of the country. This summer’s brutal drought, layered over decades of mismanagement and the regime’s obsession with regional conflict, has laid bare a stark reality: Iran is nearly out of water—and almost out of time...

 

...things have gone from bad to worse, and the country is now in its fifth straight year of drought. What was once a slow crisis is now spiraling fast.

 

From 2003-2019, when Iran’s population was still under 90 million and rainfall was higher than it is today, the country lost nearly 211 billion cubic meters of water. That’s almost twice its renewable supply, the amount of water that is naturally replenished, at today’s levels.

 

Most of that was pumped to grow food, often through inefficient farming. In dry, hot years, renewable supply drops sharply due to faster soil drying, increased evapotranspiration, and reduced aquifer recharge. Meanwhile, consumption rates often remain unchanged, causing the deficit to grow significantly. With weaker rains in the past few years, annual losses have slowed, but pressure on groundwater remains intense as heat rises and droughts worsen.

 

While headlines often focus on Iran’s nuclear ambitions or its proxy wars, the real existential threat lies beneath the surface—literally. The regime that once showcased its engineering prowess with dam-building and water transfer projects now presides over a broken hydrological system. Rivers have dried up. Lakes have disappeared. Aquifers are collapsing....

 

...Across the country, citizens are facing unbearable heat and growing fears of prolonged water shortages. Outside of Tehran, in towns such as Nasimshahr, Sabzevar, and Khomam, protests have recently erupted in the streets. In the past 10 years, water protests have occurred from Khuzestan to Isfahan. Farmers, workers, and families have taken to the streets, asking why their rivers are gone and their wells are empty. With public supplies faltering, some households have turned to private water tankers just to get by.

 

The regime’s response to protests? Tear gas and bullets... 

But a government with people staving, thirsty, and the dark has the resources to spend 400 billion on a nuclear program since 2020. And it shows how corruption is the cause. Under the Shah, they were a first-class nation with schools, power and prosperity. While the population in Iran doesn’t have that now, they do have limited access to the Internet. 

 

We (hopefully) have been sending in special operations into Iran to foment an insurgency against the mullahs. As younger people see other nations with freedom and prosperity, they will want it for them and their children. They need to be shown the mullahs will starve them before they allow peaceful regime change, and this will drive them to battle the government. To borrow the phrase, we “must first rub raw the resentments of the people of the community; fan the latent hostilities of many of the people to the point of overt expression.”

 

Remember what convinced Boris Yeltsin that the Soviets could never prevail against the West? He toured multiple grocery stores in the US and was astonished at the variety and quality of the items available to anyone. He knew even high party members didn’t have the selection of foods as the general public in the United States. We need to show the Iranians life is much better away from the mullahs. 

 

Ironically if regime change comes, one of the greatest allies in handing the water crisis just attacked Iran. Israel has been a leader in the desalination process since the 1990s, and now over half of their potable water comes from seawater. Israel now has a water surplus and is looking at exporting supplies. I have no doubt if the mullahs were overtaken today, Jerusalem would assist in providing this technology to the Iranian people. Having a stable and non-hostile Iran is in everyone’s interest.  

 

Twenty years ago I was in a staff meeting at my Army Reserve unit, and the commander made a lucent point. “You think these people will fight over oil. Wait till you see what they will do then they have to fight over water.” We need to feed that anger and get the Iranians willing to fight and die to rid themselves (and the world) of the threat in Tehran. Painful, yes. No revolution is painless. But the threat to the Iranian people, to every other nation, is more painful.