Iran People Protest Regime Over Water Scarcity: ‘No Will to Resolve the Problems of the River’

Nothing is going right for the Islamic Republic. Hackers promoting the liberation of Ahwaz – the southern province right on the Gulf, where Iran’s Arab minority live, and most of the country’s oil is produced – have hacked into, and disrupted for the third time, Iran’s Mahan Airlines. In Isfahan, Iran’s third largest city, for several weeks this November many thousands of farmers, joined by thousands of others who share their rage, have been protesting the drying up of the Zayandeh Rud river, the result both of drought – which the government has been completely incapable of dealing with – and of the decision by President Khatami in 1998 to divert some of the river’s water to his hometown of Yazd. The protesters not only yelled about the government’s continuing diversion of water from Isfahan to Yazd, but called for an end to the regime, denouncing the Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei by name, while some demanded “No To Gaza, No To Lebanon” ” – which meant, “Forget about supporting Hamas in Gaza, and Hezbollah in Lebanon, and put all your efforts into the responsibilities of rule here at home. We – the Iranians—need help.”

More on the situation in Isfahan is here:

“Thousands of people from Isfahan, farmers from the east and west of the province, have gathered in the dry Zayandeh Rood riverbed with one key demand: let the river run,” a state television journalist in Isfahan reported, broadcasting live images of Friday’s rally.

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“For years, there has been no will to resolve the problems of this important river,” the journalist said.

The charge of “no will to resolve the problems of the river” expresses the people’s fury at the government’s dramatic failure to address the drought, its mismanagement of the deepening water crisis, Tehran’s choosing to allocate resources to, and to focus the country’s attention on, building its “Shi’a crescent” abroad and its nuclear program at home, rather than sensibly concentrating on the country’s colossal domestic problems that have made tens of millions of Iranians so miserable.

Footage aired on the channel showed men and women in a crowd spanning the riverbed clapping in unison.

“Plundered for 20 years” and “the water must return”, they chanted.

Others were seen holding up banners that read “East Isfahan has become desert” and “Our water is being held hostage,” in pictures published by Iranian media outlets.

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What the government channel did not show were the anti-Khamenei cries from the crowd, and the signs some held denouncing the government’s fixation on Israel and the Palestinians. The protesters covered a large area of the Zayanderud River bed. Thousands of women were among the protesters. They chanted: “Guns, tanks (are useless), Mullahs must get lost,” “Neither Gaza nor Lebanon, my life only for Iran,” “If the water does not flow, Isfahan will rise,” “Our enemy is right here, they lie [when they say] it’s America,” “Beware of call by farmers to rebellion.”

The city of Isfahan is Iran’s third largest, with a population of around two million.

It is a tourist magnet due to its heritage sites, including a historic bridge that crosses the Zayandeh Rood river — which has been dry since the year 2000 apart from brief periods.

Drought is seen as one of the causes, but farmers also blame the authorities’ diversion of the river water to neighbouring Yazd province.

The government’s diversion of water from Isfahan began in 1998. Mohammad Khatami was then the president, and the diversion was a gift from him to Yazd, his hometown. Instead of water management experts dealing with such matters, in Iran’s despotism, a president can make major decisions about the allocation of water resources based on nothing more than his desire to favor his home town.

The Iranian government has promised to come to the aid of farmers and resolve the crisis.

“Now, because of the drought, there is none left over for us. Will Yazd now lose its supply of water? What will happen to its farmers? There has to be a comprehensive answer, not just for Isfahan and Yazd, but for all of parched Iran.”

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The solution to this 20-year-drought can only come from more advanced systems of waste-water management, wider use of drip irrigation, the building of desalination plants right on the Gulf, and the production of water from the circumambient air. All four of these – wastewater management, drip irrigation, desalination, and producing water out of the air – are areas where one country, Israel, is a world leader. But the troglodytes who run Iran are so consumed with hatred for the Jewish state that they would never consider accepting its help, no matter how deep Iran’s drought becomes or how useful Israel could be.

“I have ordered the ministers of energy and agriculture to take immediate steps to deal with the issue,” Iran’s First Vice President Mohammad Mokhber said on television.

The riverbed in Isfahan has been dry since 2000. The Iranian government has had more than 20 years to address the problem. Why should anyone believe it is now suddenly capable of solving – or at least ameliorating – the problem? And If the water that has been diverted to Yazd is now kept for the use of the people of Isfahan, what happens to those in Yazd whose farmers have come to depend on that water?

Energy Minister Ali-Akbar Mehrabian apologised to farmers for being unable to provide water for their crops.

“We hope to fill these gaps in the coming months,” he said.

Iran’s President Ebrahim Raisi had already met with representatives from the provinces of Isfahan, Yazd and Semnan on November 11 and promised to resolve water issues.

Largely arid Iran has been suffering chronic dry spells for years.

In July, deadly protests broke out in the southwestern province of Khuzestan after drought led to widespread water shortages.

Iran is one of the most water-stressed countries in the world.

Water levels in the country’s lakes and reservoirs have halved since last year due to the severe drought affecting the country and the wider region, a report from Iran’s space agency said in October.

In just one year, water levels in Iran’s lakes and rivers “have halved,” and since then they have continued to plummet. What will Iran’s farmers do? How many tens or hundreds of thousands will go out on the streets to curse their rulers, and insist “no to Gaza, no to Lebanon” and a resounding thousand times no to the mismanagement and corruption of the mullahs? And quite aside from the ever-deepening drought devastating Iran’s farmers, how will the government rescue the rest of its floundering economy?