The Washington Post wrote an extended piece on Iran's water crisis, Taps are running dry in Iran. Decades of bad decisions are to blame. It listed things like over-extraction of groundwater, building too many dams that disrupt water flows, and subsidizing farmers who then plant water-thirsty crops.
Even in this article, Iranian officials can't stop themselves from somehow mentioning Israel:
Peyman Falsafi, vice-chairman of the parliament’s agriculture, water, and natural resources commission... pointed to the Israeli bombing of Iran during the 12-day war earlier this year and Palestinian starvation caused by Israel’s siege of Gaza as evidence for why Iran must provide its own food. “Today, farming and food are used as weapons,” he said.
Yet somehow unmentioned is the basic fact that Iran has poured billions of dollars into building its "axis of resistance" against Israel, funding weapons and terrorist groups in Gaza, Lebanon, Iraq and Yemen as well as the previous Syrian government. As Falsafi's statement shows, Iran's obsession with destroying Israel outweighs its concerns for its own citizens. Those billions could have funded desalination and pipeline projects. Iran relies on desalination for only a tiny percentage of its water usage as opposed to other nations in the (Persian!) Gulf.
The best estimate I could come up with is that Iran has been spending about $2 billion annually on the "axis of resistance" - more during the Syrian civil war. This is more than it has spent on water management for its own people.
Similar articles about Tehran's water crisis in CNN, The Guardian and the New York Times also fail to mention Iran's historic budget priorities of countering Israel over caring for its citizens when discussing the looming catastrophe.
The only outlet I saw that mentions this obvious fact was The Arab News, which said a solution "will not be possible without a complete change in Tehran’s foreign policy, starting with bringing an end to any support for nonstate armed groups, such as in Lebanon or Iraq. It should think of its people and the future generations in the entire Middle East."
The problem is man-made. Iran's rabid antisemitism causes its own citizens to suffer.
(h/t Brad)
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