Iran Crisis: Water Shortages & Revolution Risk – Expert Analysis

Severe water shortages are fueling unrest in Iran, according to a leading expert on the Middle East. Latvian University Professor and Director of the Center for Near Eastern Studies, Leons Taivāns, stated in a recent interview that a chronic lack of water is a primary driver of the protests, a factor he claims is largely unreported in the press.

“Persians are a highly emotional people, and they are first driven to the streets by despair, because the economic problems in Iran are gigantic,” Taivāns told NRA.lv. “Let’s start with the fact that there is a lack of water, a constant lack of it, but the press doesn’t talk about that.”

Taivāns described a situation in Tehran where water reservoirs were completely depleted, prompting the city’s mayor to consider the evacuation of the sprawling metropolis. He acknowledged that some of the water scarcity is due to objective factors, but also pointed to failures of the current regime. According to Taivāns, public blame for the shortages is directed at Ayatollah Khamenei and his administration.

“That is the answer to why people are taking to the streets,” Taivāns said. He drew parallels to the 1917 Russian Revolution, which he asserted began not with military action, but with desperate mothers unable to feed their children queuing for bread. “It is despair, and that is where a real revolution begins. Not the shooting of the ‘Aurora,’ salvos and some kind of military operations. That is mythology. The truth is that,” he emphasized.

Taivāns suggested that Iran is currently on the precipice of a similar upheaval. He noted that, unlike Russia in 1917, Iran is not currently facing widespread famine.

Leons Taivāns is a professor at the Faculty of Humanities, Department of Asian Studies at the University of Latvia, with research interests including political science, economics, history, and religious studies, according to his university profile.

In a separate interview with LA.LV, Taivāns stated that Latvia has an interest in a swift end to conflict in Iran, though the nature of that interest was not elaborated upon.