Enemy, Drought, and Lies Against Iran - Kaveh Madani

Kaveh Madani's new article in Forbes reviews the prayer of Darius the Great for Iran and addresses the question of how Iran has become trapped in a situation that perhaps the worst-case scenario of the US and Israel could not have designed and implemented in this manner.

The memo explains how six years of severe drought, years of unsustainable management, mistaken self-sufficiency policies, underpricing of water and energy, dam construction, and water transfer projects have driven Iran to a state of "water bankruptcy"; a situation where the country has, for years, withdrawn more than its renewable water capital, and now even its capital is on the verge of "Day Zero" and exposed to possible evacuation.

While the US has revived the "maximum pressure" policy, Israel has carried out the most extensive military attacks on Iran's infrastructure, and UN sanctions have been reinstated, the most significant blow to Iran's future will not come from Washington, Jerusalem, or New York, but from a sky that no longer rains, rivers that no longer flow, and aquifers that have been depleted.

The article emphasizes that drought is not the primary "cause" of today's situation but only an accelerator and revealer of Iran's water bankruptcy;

Darius the Great's famous trio (enemy, drought, and falsehood) are once again aligned in Iran:

Foreign enemy and years of sanctions and threats

Long-term drought and a changing climate

Falsehood, denial, data secrecy, marginalization of experts, and securitization of the environment.

Kaveh Madani believes that sanctions will one day be lifted and international disputes will eventually end, but the collapse of the water system, land degradation, and erosion of public trust are not easily repairable. According to the author, if the current trend continues without serious reforms in water policies, nature will quietly do what sanctions and bombing could not: bring an ancient civilization to its knees.

The full text of the article can be read in Forbes.

 https://www.forbes.com/sites/kavehmadani/2025/11/16/in-drought-stricken-iran-nature-is-doing-what-sanctions-and-airstrikes-could-not/