Misrule, Not Misfortune: The Roots of Iran’s Environmental Crisis

By Nahal Lotfi

Source: Wikimedia Commons (CC0 1.0), By Mostafa Meraji Once a symbol of life and prosperity in central Iran, the Zayanderud River has dried up in recent years due to decades of water mismanagement and unsustainable development policies. Photo by Mostafa Meraji, via

Iran is the country of four seasons, but in the last decade, what each season has brought for its citizens has been a new environmental crisis. In the winter of 2025, for example, schools and businesses, indeed the entire country, had to shut down due to hazardous levels of air pollution. Now, some six months later,  it's summer, a season already harsh for most Iranian cities, and citizens are enduring long hours of water and electricity outages. These conditions are putting the lives of infants, patients, and the elderly at serious risk, while also severely harming the productivity and well-being of working-age Iranians.

It would be misleading, however, to attribute this only to nature. Iran’s current environmental and economic situation is not simply the result of unfortunate circumstances; it is the predictable outcome of a system that has prioritized political and ideological survival over national growth and well-being.

Since the 1979 Islamic Revolution, which led to the establishment of the Islamic Republic, Iran has been ruled by a theocratic regime led by the Supreme Leader and enforced through the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). Though the country holds public elections, true political power rests in the hands of the Supreme Leader, who has held power for over three decades. The regime’s priorities, namely hostility toward the U.S. and Israel, and the enforcement of compulsory hijab, reveal a system where ideological goals override the basic needs of citizens, including environmental protection.

A recent peer-reviewed study published in Environmental Science & Policy highlights that Iran’s environmental degradation stems primarily from domestic factors. The authors note that “Iran's current environmental conditions are not only the result of natural factors or exogenous shocks like sanctions but are deeply rooted in a long history of poor governance and mismanagement” (Madani et al., 2023, p. 3). The country’s water crisis, for example, has been worsened by inefficient and corrupt management, unsustainable agricultural policies, and unregulated industrial expansion.

In a 2023 interview with the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), environmental scholar Shirin Hakim emphasized that “it’s unlikely that a country like Iran, with a long record of mismanagement and human rights violations, would prioritize its environment even without sanctions” (Hakim, 2023). While external factors such as sanctions have had some influence, they are not the root cause of the crisis and were themselves largely triggered by the regime’s decades-long pursuit of hostile and isolating policies, particularly toward Western governments and the United States. The Islamic Republic has historically failed to invest in clean technologies, enforce environmental regulations, or cooperate internationally on climate resilience. Instead, it continues to use non-renewable environmental resources, prioritizing short-term economic control and ideological dominance.

Iran’s air pollution problem is aggravated by outdated infrastructure, poorly refined domestic fuel, and the use of substandard vehicles. Water scarcity has been intensified by the overexploitation of groundwater, the misallocation of agricultural subsidies, and dam-building projects that ignored ecological impact. These problems are further magnified by rapid urbanization, population displacement, and climate change. But the defining factor remains misrule, not misfortune.

Most tragically, the consequences of this neglect are not abstract. They show up in daily life, in children breathing toxic air, in communities abandoned by shrinking rivers, in citizens working through blackouts, and in the rising number of Iranians forced to emigrate in search of a livable environment. The regime’s approach to environmental management, like many of its policies, is driven not by evidence or concern for human well-being, but by its need to maintain power at any cost.

Iran's environmental crisis was preventable. It is the result of political choices that deprioritized sustainability, transparency, and public health in favor of control and ideology. Until this governing logic changes, the seasons in Iran will continue to bring not renewal, but ruin.

References:

Hakim, S. (2023, July 11). Iran’s Environmental Challenge. Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). https://www.csis.org/analysis/shirin-hakim-irans-environmental-challenge

Madani, K., Sadat, S., & Baniasadi, M. (2023). Mismanagement of Iran’s natural resources: The roots of an environmental crisis. Environmental Science & Policy, 146, 103–112. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10213600/

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About the Author: Nahal Lotfi is a Master of Public Policy candidate at UC San Diego’s School of Global Policy and Strategy, specializing in Program Design and Evaluation. She currently serves as Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of International Policy and Strategy. Born and raised in Iran, Nahal has years of first-hand experience living under and reporting on authoritarian governance in the Middle East. Her work focuses on the quantitative effects of public policy and the design and evaluation of development programs, particularly in contexts marked by repression and poor governance.