Tehran eyes Caspian energy boost, risking deeper dependence on Moscow

The city’s water resources are in exponential decline, Reza Haji-Karim, head of Iran’s Water Industry Federation, told the website Didban Iran.

“Water rationing should have started much earlier. Right now, 62 percent of Tehran’s water comes from underground sources, and the level of these aquifers has dropped sharply.”

The crisis, he said, is the result of years of neglecting scientific warnings about groundwater depletion and climate change.

“The only way to save Tehran is through a chain of measures – from wastewater recycling and consumption reform to cutting agricultural water use,” he added.

Unannounced rationing begins

Residents of Tehran have reported repeated overnight water cuts in several districts in recent days. The Tehran Water and Wastewater Company said the outages are intended to refill storage tanks and prevent the city’s distribution network from collapsing.

Local media outlets reported that nightly rationing has already started in parts of the capital and now continues until early morning hours.

The government may be forced to reduce water pressure to almost zero at night when demand is low, Energy Minister Abbas Aliabadi said Saturday, urging households to install storage tanks.

"Pipeline infrastructure in our country is more than 100 years old; the pipes have become worn out, and some of them were also damaged during the 12-day war" with Israel in June, the minister said.

Presidential warning and vanishing reserves

President Masoud Pezeshkian warned on Thursday that if rainfall does not resume by the end of autumn, Tehran will face water rationing, adding, “If it still doesn’t rain, we will have no water and will have to evacuate the city.”

The Tehran Regional Water Company has said that the capital’s five major dams are now only 11 percent full.

Ali Shariat, secretary-general of the Water Industry Federation, blamed the deepening crisis on “mismanagement and fragmented decisions in agriculture and industry.”

100%

“My honest advice to the public is to take the president’s words very seriously. He has told the truth – bitter but undeniable,” he added.

“Continued inaction may lead to forced migration from Tehran,” Shariat added.

Dams near collapse

A video posted on social media on Thursday showed the dry bed of the Latian Dam near Tehran, whose manager said only half of its remaining 10 percent capacity can be used. Officials in neighboring Alborz province reported that the Karaj Dam is now more than 90 percent empty, with only seven percent of its reservoir remaining.

Tehran, home to nearly nine million people, depends on five dams – all reporting sharp declines.

The Laar and Mamloo reservoirs are at 1% and 7% capacity respectively, while only Taleghan remains above one-third.

This comes as the meteorological organization forecasts no significant rainfall for the rest of November.

Tehran is experiencing one of the driest periods in the past 50 years, according to the energy ministry. If current trends persist, officials warn, the city may run out of drinkable water within weeks.

Residents say water has been shut off from midnight until around 5 a.m. in recent nights.

“Despite repeated denials by officials, it appears the process of rationing has started” and citizens in parts of the capital “are deprived of water during the night,” Mizan News Agency, affiliated with the judiciary, wrote.

The daily Haft-e Sobh likewise reported sudden five-to-six-hour overnight cuts in drinking water across several districts, all without prior notice.

Reduced pressure across the city, the paper said, and declining surface and groundwater reserves had led to “serious instability” in Tehran’s water network.

The outages have lasted long enough to affect even households with backup storage tanks, according to the report.

Rising frustration

Haft-e Sobh quoted residents as saying the sudden shutdowns disrupted daily life. “When the water is cut off at night, we don’t know when it will return, so we can’t plan our use. Even tanks empty quickly,” one resident said.

President Masoud Pezeshkian warned on November 6 that if rain does not arrive by December, water will have to be rationed across Tehran, adding that prolonged drought could even force evacuation of the city.

The head of Tehran’s provincial water company recently described the capital’s situation as “red and concerning.”

Health and cost concerns

Unannounced rationing, Haft-e Sobh warned, could hinder hygiene and household routines dependent on steady water access. Unreliable supply may increase health risks in residential buildings and impose higher costs on families forced to rely on water tanks or delivery services, it added.

Meteorological data show 20 provinces have gone more than six weeks without measurable rainfall.

100%

No precipitation has fallen in Tehran since the start of autumn, Mohammadreza Kavianpour, head of Iran’s Water Research Institute, said on Thursday warning that forecasts show the drought is likely to persist through the season.

“The risk of water scarcity in the capital must be taken very seriously,” Kavianpour said.

Tehran’s supply depends heavily on the Karaj Dam, whose remaining reserves are sufficient for only two weeks of drinking water.

Environmental experts say years of over-extraction, unscientific dam-building and poor management have pushed the country toward what some describe as “water bankruptcy.”

The proposal, reported Thursday by the IRGC-linked daily Javan, would put Mayor Alireza Zakani in charge of supplying essential goods to households in the capital.

Zakani claims the plan, approved by President Masoud Pezeshkian, could reduce prices by up to 40 percent. Residents quoted by Javan said municipal-run markets already sell cheaper goods than elsewhere in the city.

But even at face value, the initiative seems to be yet another reactive measure in a system afflicted by deep structural problems. The question is less whether this plan can work and more why such plans keep reappearing.

Moderate outlet Fararu this week laid out the structural flaws driving Iran’s crisis: contradictory decision-making by overlapping institutions, a budget tied to unstable oil revenues, and an absence of dependable data that leaves officials governing by instinct rather than information.

Economic policy, the outlet said, is shaped by ministries, the Central Bank, the Planning and Budget Organization, and an array of parallel bodies that often work at cross-purposes.

“Most economic decisions in Iran are made overnight,” it wrote, warning that real change requires slow, coordinated reform across government—something the Islamic Republic has resisted for decades.

‘Bipolar economy’

The centrist daily Sazandegi pointed to another symptom of this dysfunction: chaotic decision-making that thrives in the grey zones created by sanctions.

The paper highlighted the clash between hardline MP Amir Hossein Sabeti and Babak Zanjani—the ‘sanctions-fixer’ once sentenced to death but pardoned and now tapped again to recover Iran’s oil revenues.

“Iran’s economy exists in a bipolar state,” Sazandegi wrote, “caught between a revolutionary pursuit of social justice that resists globalization and a rentier capitalism that thrives on sanctions.”

The public spat between two privileged insiders, Sazandegi argued, is evidence of an economy pulled between ideological theatrics and rent-seeking networks—a system that’s neither competitive nor transparent.

Bleak outlook

Despite their scathing critiques, both outlets chose to not mention the elephant in the room—as is almost always the case in Iran: a foreign policy that has produced decades of isolation and tightening sanctions.

With the return of UN sanctions in late September—and Tehran’s continued combative stance—the situation is likely to deteriorate further before any improvement is possible.

Seen through that lens, Zakani’s food-distribution proposal is less a solution than another reflex: an attempt to patch symptoms without addressing the machinery underneath.

Tehran tenants ended the Iranian month of Mehr (late September to late October) facing a 34 percent year-on-year jump in rental prices, according to data from the Statistical Center of Iran cited by Khabar Online.

The government’s promised measures to regulate the housing market, the report said, have failed to materialize, with renters still squeezed by weak supply and spillover demand from the unaffordable homeownership market.

In major cities such as Tehran, typical monthly rents for standard apartments range from around $400 to $1,800, depending on location and quality.

On a broader national average basis, one-bedroom urban rentals are reported at approximately $250-$300 per month. However, the average monthly net salary is around $200.

While officials have highlighted a minor decline in the overall pace of housing inflation, figures published by the center confirmed rents continue to surge. Monthly housing inflation stood at three percent in late October, year-on-year housing inflation at 34.2 percent, and the annual rate at 36.6 percent -- only slightly below September’s 37.5 percent.

The outlet Tabnak reported that despite the withdrawal of genuine buyers, prices rose another three percent during the period, widening what it called the gap between “the expectation to sell high and the buyer’s zero purchasing power.” A 36.6 percent annual inflation rate, it added, compared with stagnant wages, has pushed first-time buyers out of reach of homeownership.

With both housing and rental prices rising together, accommodation costs now absorb a growing share of household income, fueling urban sprawl and eroding living standards.

The depreciation of the rial -- now trading around 1.08 million per dollar -- has intensified broader economic strains, which analysts link to renewed pressure following the reactivation of UN sanctions under the snapback mechanism.

The UK Charity Commission’s launched a statutory inquiry last week into the Islamic Human Rights Commission Trust's transfer of large six-figure annual sums into publications and events of a private company listed at the same address.

Cooperation of this kind is not inherently improper, but it demands transparency and demonstrable separation of purpose.

This controversy is not unique.

Across Europe and North America, governments have investigated institutions they suspect of channeling Iranian influence or ideological extremism while presenting themselves as advocates against Islamophobia and imperialism.

Lawful activism or faith-based advocacy can be conflated with subversion, leading to limits on freedoms a liberal democracy seeks to protect.

But Islamophobia can also be invoked as a rhetorical shield against legitimate oversight, discouraging scrutiny through accusations of prejudice.

Getting the balance right is crucial—and countries have tried to do so in different ways.

Germany: constitutional patriotism

Germany, grounded in its doctrine of wehrhafte Demokratie, acted decisively on July 24, 2024, by banning the Islamic Centre Hamburg (IZH) for functioning as a proxy of the Iranian state and ideological partner of Hezbollah.

Fifty-three premises were searched, assets seized, and the director expelled. Berlin’s message was plain: freedom of worship does not extend to institutions operating as arms of foreign governments.

Sweden: Law over rhetoric

On February 3, 2025, Sweden withdrew state funding from the Imam Ali Islamic Centre in Stockholm after confirming its use for Iranian espionage. 

The move, conducted within the bounds of legal proportionality, underscored that liberty of religion is strengthened—not weakened—by the rule of law.

Denmark: oversight before crisis

When reports surfaced of Iranian-linked transfers to Copenhagen’s Imam Ali Mosque, Denmark’s parliament opened Question S 770 (February 28, 2025), seeking government assurances of transparency.

This pre-emptive scrutiny exemplified democratic vigilance through inquiry rather than decree.

France: faith vs politics

France, long the sentinel of laïcité, dissolved Centre Zahra France on March 20, 2019, for glorifying armed movements and inciting hatred—a decision later upheld by the Lille Administrative Court.

Paris reaffirmed that belief may be free, but the politicization of faith is not protected under law.

The Netherlands: intelligence and prevention

In March 2025, Dutch and Belgian security agencies jointly reported Iranian intimidation and influence operations via religious networks. Their method—monitoring and early warning rather than dissolution—illustrates how intelligence can achieve restraint without spectacle.

Canada: strategic resilience

Canada has pursued a hybrid approach of fiscal regulation and national-security vigilance. The RCMP confirmed expanded investigations in its June 4, 2025, statement, while the Montréal Police Service increased protection for both Muslim and Jewish institutions amid geopolitical tension.

The 2019 revocation of charitable status for the Islamic Shia Assembly of Canada remains an instructive precedent that financial oversight can neutralise ideological capture without impugning religious liberty.

Patterns and implications

Across these jurisdictions, three convergent lessons emerge.

First, democratic states must recognise that the rhetoric of anti-discrimination can be co-opted to shelter extremism.

Second, the line between anti-Zionism and antisemitism remains a defining fault line. Regulators face a daunting challenge in distinguishing between political expression and the propagation of hatred.

Third, effective counter-strategy depends upon clarity of evidence and transparency of law. Germany and France favour enforcement; Sweden and Denmark rely on procedural oversight; Canada employs intelligence and fiscal scrutiny.

Their diverse methods share one aim: to protect the neutrality of civic space from ideological manipulation.

The British Context

The United Kingdom now faces its own test.

An official warning leveled in March and now the inquiry into the Islamic Human Rights Commission Trust are not isolated events but part of this wider democratic reckoning.

The Charity Commission seeks to determine whether funds raised under the banner of human rights were used for non-charitable political ends.

The Trust’s published accounts record £324,228 in 2022 and £416,246 in 2023 transferred to its corporate counterpart for “projects undertaken on behalf of the Charity.”

The question is not one of theology but of governance: whether charitable privilege can coexist with political partisanship, and whether appeals to anti-imperial justice can obscure the advance of intolerant ideology.

Britain’s tradition favors law over proclamation and balance over reaction. In that spirit, the task of the Charity Commission is to reaffirm the principle that transparency and accountability are the guardians of liberty.

Different approaches

Decisive action need not be punitive; proportionate inquiry and public explanation are the hallmarks of democratic strength.

If Germany has wielded the sword, France the decree, Sweden the warrant, and Canada the audit, then Britain may hold the scale—steady, balanced, incorruptible. For charity, like liberty, perishes less from attack than from misuse.

It is possible, indeed necessary, to tread with such care that the sceptred isle may once again say, in the calm majesty of her conscience, that she has defended both her charities and her soul.