Iran: drought, incompetence, and maybe revolution

A prolonged drought in Iran might accomplish what other challenges failed to do: destroy the rule of the religious extremists who seized power in 1979 and have turned the country into an international pariah.

Maharloo Lake, a hypersaline wetland in the highlands of Iran. Severe drought in the country could be the trigger for an uprising that finally dispatches a regime that has overstayed its welcome, columnist Gwynne Dyer writes.Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

Opinion

BY GWYNNE DYER

November 19, 2025

LONDON, U.K.–Twenty years of strict sanctions on Iran by both the United States and the United Nations did not bring down the regime of the ayatollahs. Half a dozen major waves of non-violent protest involving several thousand deaths have not brought it down, either. Even ...

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