A former agriculture minister has said Iran's water shortage is a bigger threat to the country than either Israel or the United States, Al-Monitor reported this week citing local media. According to Al-Monitor, Issa Kalantari, the minister of agricultural under president Hashemi Rafsanjani... the fourth President of Iran. He was a member of the Assembly of Experts until he was eased out in 2011 He continues, for the moment, as Chairman of the Expediency Discernment Council. In 2005 he ran for a third term as president, ultimately losing to rival Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who was in Khamenei's graces back then. In 1980 Rafsanjani survived an assassination attempt, during which he was seriously injured. He has been described as a centrist and a
pragmatic conservativewithout all that much reason. He is currently being eased out of any position of actual influence or power and may be dead by the end of 2012...
, told Ghanoon newspaper this week that the water crisis is the "main problem that threatens" Iran, adding that it is more dangerous "than Israel, America or political fighting" among the Iranian elite.
Kalatantari is not the only Iranian official who is concerned about the water shortages in the country. Mohammad Hossein Shariatmadari, a former Iranian trade minister, said in April that he believes the water issue is reaching an alarming level. The following month a deputy energy minister similarly warned that the country would soon face a water crisis. Even the U.S. intelligence community sees water shortages as one of Iran's primary challenges in the coming decades. In its Global Trends 2030 report, the National Intelligence Council said Iran "has no notable watersheds and is therefore heavily dependent on fossil and imported water, including 'virtual water' imports-- such as agricultural goods like meat, fruit, and vegetables using high levels of water to produce."
And while the water crisis is set to worsen considerable in the coming years and decades, it has already resulted in notable unrest. After a drought earlier this year, hundreds of farmers in a town in Isfahan province clashed with police after destroying a pipeline that was carrying water from the Zayandeh Rood River in their town to the city of Yazd in a neighboring province. Agriculture in the country has already been suffering in recent years, but increased water shortages are likely to make the Islamic Theocratic
Republic's goal of self-sufficiency increasingly elusive. Lack of farming opportunities will also force more people to artificially migrate to the cities, where, among other things, the government will need to supply them with water. This will inevitably force the government to divert more of the already dwindling water supplies from rural agricultural communities to the cities, provoking anger and potential unrest from the impacted farmers.