The public overwhelmingly perceives the Iranian government's decision to relocate the capital as a misguided response to a deepening water crisis, criticizing the regime's prioritization of military expenditures over essential infrastructure. A strong sentiment of frustration, anger, and skepticism pervades the discussions, with many calling for political change and innovative solutions instead of temporary fixes.

Iranian Government

International Community

The ayatollahs have been lecturing the world how they have direct links to their god. Time to make that call.

OneNormalBloke

Would this be the largest mass migration of humans in modern times?

SituationMediocre642

Perhaps if the Iranian government had not spent the last fifty fucking years concentrating power into the hands of a select few dipshit, violent zealot men hellbent on dominating women and eradicating civil rights, and instead had invested in developing climate resilience infrastructure, they wouldn't be in such a place at the moment.

SlaterVBenedict

If it's worth doing at all it's worth waiting till the last possible moment to do it...guess the pray for rain plan fell through.

groovyinutah

I guess getting their not-so-secret nuclear facility bombed by America is the least of their problems. Moving 10M people somewhere else is going to be a huge effort. I mean is there anywhere in Iran where water isn't a problem?

rustednut

This is a self inflicted wound. Prime example of what happens when religious fundamentals are in charge.


They literally built dams until the water went away for no reason.

madnessone1

I don’t think this crises just popped up unexpectedly. What were they doing to prepare for this crisis for the past few years? Looks like nothing 

RemodelingMe26

are they not moving to an area that once killed Alexander the greats army with heat?   Doesnt seem like the best place to go with water shortages.....

Saskstryker

But at least they have a buried nuclear program and thousands of missiles that missed their targets

CaptainRAVE2

sovietarmyfan

A. k. a. we have lost control of the population and need a place from where we can continue to rule autocratically.

jcrestor

Maybe if you hadn’t been exporting terrorism to the rest of the world for the last 40 years, all those billions of dollars and wasted resources could’ve been used to help your people, crazy.

And for anyone who says what about the US, I totally agree you’re correct.

Gunofanevilson

Anyawnomous

Translation: Hello dear citizens, we are building a new capital city which you will pay for. We're moving there with our loyal cronies. The rest of you are on your own.

CucumberExpensive43

I bet they wish they treated the desalination guys better

ForsakenRacism

Way to plan ahead guys. Its not like everyone is on the verge of terminal dehydration or anything.

Spright91

Maybe if these assholes stopped trying to build nukes and kill Jews they would have the money to give their people water

zer0sumgames

I heard Israel is an expert on desalination. Maybe take some advice from them?

Simpsyt

I'm wondering if they spent more money on infrastructure then weapons and ditched their nuclear program they would be in a better position, those sanctions can't be helpful

Feral_Nerd_22

&gt;water crisis deepens

Poor choice of words.

bebopbrain

This strategy seems to be popular around the world for national capitals 

Jakarta rapidly sinking because of illegal digging and climate change? Abandon ship, create new capital

Cairo constantly gridlocked and prone to mass political violence? Abandon ship, create new capital

Tehran suffering catastrophic drought, unable to meet the needs of its residents? Abandon ship, create new capital

Which capital is the next to fall, I wonder?

mariusbleek

Weird that they can’t build a water pipeline from desalination plants.

starker

The people suffer while Iran spent billions on proxy wars in Syria and on proxy groups around the ME. While at the same time mismanaging water and failing to address the issues with the infrastructure. They could use desalination but then they would need help from countries they consider enemies. And that won’t help the capital really.. 

They have gotten way less water through rain than usual but continued Aquaphor pumping has been catastrophic

virus_apparatus

Why no desalination plants?  Israel is refilling the Sea of Galilee with desalination water from plants near the Med.

Designer_Buy_1650

G3Saint

Holy hell. Has a maneuver like this ever actually happened successfully?

shiningdickhalloran

Where are they going to get the funds to build that new capital? Not to mention, it's not like any part of Iran is particularly rich in water (besides maybe the caspian coast).

Swimming_Average_561

The shores of the Caspian Sea, plus the greenery and the mountains just inland would be an amazing place for a city, though I don't know if water access is worse there.  The Caspian Sea won't be of any help for fresh water.

strangelove4564

A simple engineering job to pump water. But all the good engineers are too busy trying to make nukes I guess.

Move 10 million people vers building some infrastructure and utilities. 

It’s a no brainer so I find it hard to believe they have not started building anything?

The thing that probably convinces me most is that in North Korea they don’t have clean running water pumped to their houses and have to fill up barrels in their kitchen. 

Why nutcase leaders think water is less important than nukes says all you need to know about how bad they are.

No_Nose2819

Well, at least they don't have to move the CAPITOL.

thodgson

And by “capital move” he means me and my homies. The rest of you all work that shit out.

swentech

No money to move the capital which is no longer habitable but enough money to fund an unnecessary nuclear program and terrorist groups around the Middle East.

desert_foxhound

Iran just died due to global warming, ya would think an island country would go down first

Otherwise-Sun2486

ISeeGrotesque

Presumably the city population will not go to zero, how do they determine who can stay? How does this work with property rights?

scandiumflight

The crazy thing is Tehran isn't in a desert but is near one. It makes you wonder about desert cities or places experiencing droughts and if this will happen to them

bass248

I'm surprised they didn't just make water illegal for women to drink. A country that lets "religous" men rule their women like property will absolutely fail when it goes on generation after generation. 

About 50% of their population could be helping, but their laws say no. So now they're 50% more fucked.

despenser412

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Context: 

Mashhad, Iran’s second largest city has seen its water capacity fall below 3%. The capital, Tehran, is also under extreme pressure due to water shortages. 

The Iranian government focused on building dams to redirect water from lakes, rivers, marshes, etc and drilling more wells to tap into underground aquifers vs managing their water resources more efficiently or improving existing water infrastructure. Consequently, water sources are being depleted faster than they can be naturally replenished (which is being made worse by the drought). 

Iran has 75-90 desalination plants, but they’re mostly small-scale and used to supply local communities or “industry”. Combined they provide less than 1% of Iran’s water needs. 

This is looking bad.

Khamvom

Should Tehran ( pop. 9.5 m ) be evacuated in December if it does not rain then Iran risks becoming ungovernable.

Other major cities suffering the same plight will make the country largely uninhabitable and result in mass climate related migration. 

The prospect of perhaps tens of million homeless people is developing into a major crisis for Iran and neighbouring countries,

iyamwhatiyam8000

They say that every civilization is only three missed meals from revolution. Now we will see how many days of missed water lead to a revolution.

Ognius

Russia has plenty of fresh water and loves Muslim immigrants. 

You just have to sign this 2 year military contract and unlimited fresh water for you.

Sufficient-Grass-

To show how vile this countrys regime is, remember they would rather risk war for nukes, spend money on terrorists and Weapons to blast cities in Ukraine 

They would rather kill women for showing their hair, then invest in water infrastructure and their people's future 

The amazing people of Iran are beings sucked dry by a parasite this regime

Select-Cash-4906

We are seeing a preview of the latter half of this century in this crisis.

fuyu-no-kojika

Will this cause a political overthrow of the Khomeini?

saranowitz

They are famous for making bad decisions. The country is so sunny they could probably provide most of their energy requirements from solar panels, and they expect the world to believe they want nuclear technology for peaceful purposes? Lmao.

The cities that are running dry are so far from any sea that it’s really too late to do anything. Riots incoming, hopefully.

yazs12

m0llusk

Good thing they spent all that time, money and energy on enriching uranium instead of desalinating drinking water. Morons.

The_Arkham_AP_Clerk

I just wonder if the cleric elites and the IRGC
Are rationing or suffering like normal people?

Positive_Patient4019

I mean, they do hate Israel more than they love their own citizens. This was to be expected.

BionicBreak

We are maybe a decade away from this happening in India and Pakistan. Plus sea level rise ruining cultivatable land in Bangladesh. So this is like a preview of coming attractions.

porgy_tirebiter

Icutthemetal

Why do these totalitarian fundamentalist religious countries never think it's a punishment from god when these sorts of things happen though? Oh right, it's because religion is just an excuse the rulers use.

CaptainCFloyd

When a country doesn't respect their mothers, sisters, and daughters and allows them to be treated like property, sooner or later, it all falls apart.

Generation after generation of mistreating women and not allowing them an identity means that a huge part of their population could potentially help, but they just won't let them.

As a result, their country becomes a place no one can leave, and no one wants to visit. It ends up being a shithole and their nonsense laws just make everything worse.

Also, Iraq has basically no rivers that don't start other countries ( mostly Iran). How long before the emergency go down that way too?
This looks real grim.

Eymrich

I have a solution to the water crisis yall:

Waste 10s of billions of more dollars trying to destroy Israel

Pool-Supermodel-

Meanwhile Israel operates in a water surplus🦾🦾🦾

Pretoriaboytjie

You hate to see it… but maybe this will teach their leader(s) that you shouldn’t be basically hostile to all the rich, generous, democratic socialist nations while basically relying on the generously of Russia while they’re repeatedly punching their own dicks in Ukraine.

The best part is Europe and ( maybe) the US are still going to bail them out with aid. Iran is just going to have to be mad about it when even with aid thousands still die.

NuclearLMG

Didn't Israel offer to sent their scientists responsible for water management to assist Tehran and the Iranian government adamantly refused it?

skinnywolfe

duc1990

When you have an impending water crisis, I would imagine the population would begin mass hoarding water and running taps all the time, which could be exacerbating the issue.

c0mputar

Unfortunately the future looks very much like a dystopian hell hole where fresh water will be much harder to come by.

imironman2018

Cause and effect at work... It's not like they didn't have money or time or knowledge from the scientific community that this was coming... This was a choice. Deal with it.

IwillNoComply

The fundamentalist regime must have really pissed off their own god lately, LOL. If it's not a drought it's having their fucking air defences destroyed or their proxy militias blown the fuck up.

GeraldineTacodaego

GoRangers5

It’s time for them to rise up now and storm the government buildings and take control of their country from the dictators before it’s too late.

bitcoin_moon_wsb

tommygun731

This is karma in action, Iran deserves all of it.

True-Tip-2311

Wait, I thought they could pray their way out of this?

scabbyshitballs

Iran needs new leadership just like some other countries do..

Ok-Turnover1797

Should have spent that oil money on some BN-350 reactors...

C4PT_AMAZING

If your reservoirs have fallen to below 3% of capacity I don't see how rationing can solve the problem. Officials also said that if consumption reduces by 20% rationing can be avoided. The maths doesn't add up. At 3% capacity the reservoirs are almost dry. No rationing or reducing consumption is going to help.

I know many have been hoping for regime change in Iran. 

This is looking more and likely as the extent of the government's mismanagement of water resources becomes apparent.

Critical-Clue1343

They refuse to work with western countries too to solve their problems 😒

An_Obese_Beaver

So what happened with Iran's cloud seeding project?

supersanting

In the 45 years the religious zealots have been running Iran they prioritized funding violent extremists, invested in infrastructure to divert water to industrial uses that enriched a cabal of powerful men and had to divert even more water for agricultural uses because their relations with other nations are so bad they cannot import food.  Subsequently (and predictably), they do not have enough water for tens of millions of citizens living in the desert.  My heart goes out to the people of Iran who, frankly, are completely fucked.  I hope to see the heads of every member of their government on a poll after the people rise up.

shackleford1917

Hey Iran, get fucked LMAOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO.

horsecume

I think that there is going to be a climate refugee crisis in late 2030s

NetHistorical5113

We have ZERO permanent rivers in the Arabian peninsula. A large portion of our water supply is desalinated water. The major downside of desalination plants is the sheer amount of energy they consume, but that shouldn’t be a problem for Iran. Why don’t they invest more in desalination?

Cergun_

People underestimate what years of sanctions can also do to a country obviously when you pair that with mismanagement that reck havoc, but still alot of new technology that could help mitigate the mismanagement that has existed since the pahvali era are not available for Iran. Add to that the sanctions limits their capabilities to invest in R&amp;D.

Successful_Brush6502

Exporting all your engineers to the West is a winning strategy

MilesOfEmptiness6550

self-inflicted due to the stupid regime, they're getting what's coming for them.

Let's just hope it doesn't end up like Syria, since the 2007-2010 drought played a crucial role in the civil war

RemarkableJello2042

The regime is busy with finding hijabless women in the streets. They don't have much time or money to invest in R&amp;D

KindleShard

Hard to say what might happen but speculating this probably would lead the regime to invest in some desalination projects most likely with foreign Aid, GGC Maybe or china if they even have such tech, I think it's gonna lead to the regime opening up but not mass immigration, where would they go?

Astronomy8

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Complete failure of governance meets the realities of climate crisis. There's frankly not a place in Iran they could move the capital where this wouldn't happen so long as they remain the corrupt autocrats that they are. Feel very bad for the people of Tehran rn, things are rough for them as is and now this.

randommathaccount

https://preview.redd.it/lu51iv8c1g2g1.jpeg?width=1290&amp;format=pjpg&amp;auto=webp&amp;s=24e0144e32b9fac864f7340edee39952e21f83d6

I have a better solution.

riderfan3728

If I were the Iranian government I would simply do political reforms ~~and throw the entire IRGC into the Gulf~~

Matar_Kubileya

Move *where*?! 

How could they possibly let it get to this point

AcrobaticMistake2468

Setting aside whether this is avoidable via better management, events like these and Jakarta augment my skepticism that climate change will be a matter of just shaving a few tenths of a percent off of GDP.

These events seem like they would be massive, persistent drags on the economy.

HD_Thoreau_aweigh

One can only hope this accelerates the collapse of this miserable regime. Otherwise, there is no silver lining for the people of Tehran. Awful all around.

jogarz

Another milestone in the long-running Iranian tradition of moving capitals 🧐

BlackCat159

Are we sure the Iranian government is capable of water management? Sure they can move the capital but the migration of millions will stress the supply in the new region

Fruitsy

Didn't they walk back the initial comment they made about this? Are they actually thinking of doing this?

nitro1122

Don’t really see a whole lot of talk here on whether the idea of moving the capital is a good idea or not, just that the place they’re moving it to is bad or that it’s Iran so they’ll bungle it. Assuming this was handled by a halfway decent government, is moving the capital the right move and, if so, where?

BurningHanzo

Not only running out of water but also parts of the city sinking, makes the whole talk of Iranians getting nuclear weapons seem even more absurd when they cannot mitigate their own man-made disasters.

Zuliano1

The only move that makes sense politically (i.e. give the regime legitimacy) is to go to a brand new city built near Persepolis. But that would be unbelievably expensive, and the water shortage is even worse there.

fredleung412612

Colorado River water rights management in twenty years

ThisI5N0tAThr0waway

ONETRILLIONAMERICANS

VoidBlade459

Iran is facing a severe water crisis that might lead to the relocation of its capital, Tehran, due to critical water shortages intensified by climate change.

Iran Water Crisis and Capital Relocation

Why This Matters

Public Sentiment Summary

Highlighted Comments

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What the people want