Iran’s regime-made ecological disaster and the threat to Europe

While the regime poured billions into proxy wars and ideological adventures, Iran’s environmental infrastructure collapsed. A Reuters investigation recently showed millions of dollars diverted to Hezbollah through opaque financial networks – money drained from Iran’s national resources while Iranians face poverty, thirst, and toxic air. This is not just corruption; it is the systematic looting of a nation’s lifeline, at a moment when people struggle for the most basic elements of survival.

Environmental experts have warned for decades, but the regime ignored them, silenced them, or imprisoned them. And so too many dams were built, farming used more water than the land could support, thousands of illegal wells were dug, and groundwater was over-pumped. These actions turned a manageable problem into a disaster. Iran’s rivers are drying up or polluted. Its lakes are dying. Its wetlands are disappearing. The land is sinking. Millions of people no longer have reliable access to clean water. Iran’s water crisis is not natural; it’s man-made.

And then there is the air – or the loss of clean air to be precise. On November 26, 2025, the Swiss air-quality company IQAir reported that Tehran had become the most polluted city in the world. The air people breathe is becoming dangerous.

Mohammad-Esmaeil Tokkoli, the head of Tehran Province’s Emergency Organisation, said on November 30, that 357 deaths had been recorded in the region over the previous eight days, and that air pollution could be one of the contributing factors. Why has it come to this?

Because when fuel shortages happen, the Islamic Republic orders power plants to burn mazut, one of the dirtiest fuels in the world, banned elsewhere, yet burned every day above Iranian cities.

Because the Islamic Republic fears economic unrest more than air pollution. Because it fears factory closures more than it fears poisoning its own people. It fears economic instability more than environmental collapse. And this brings us to the main question:

Now that Iran’s pillars of life are collapsing at once, does the Islamic Republic not fear the day when people take to the streets not for democracy and freedom but simply for water and breathable air?

In the past 47 years, we have had many uprisings in Iran, but most people stayed at home not because they supported the regime, but because they were afraid after seeing thousands of innocent young people killed.

But no society can stay silent forever when its survival is in danger. The day will come sooner or later. The question is not if, the question is when.

The regime hides behind endless political theatre – conservatives, reformists, new colours for each election – but Iranians no longer believe it. In the streets they cried, “Reformist, conservative – the story is over.” And they chanted “Death to the dictator.” They meant not just one man, but the entire system suffocating Iran’s people and its land.

Today, Iranians ask the international community for something clear and simple: Do not give the Islamic Republic more time. Do not be fooled by fake political factions.

The international community must stop pretending this regime can reform itself. Extending its life will only deepen Iran’s environmental collapse and destabilise the region further. The unfolding environmental crisis has made confronting the regime an even greater priority for the West.

A failing state of 90 million people, running out of water and air, will produce mass migration, regional unrest, and new opportunities for the armed groups the regime has long sponsored. If the West ignores this, it risks a cascade of security, humanitarian, and geopolitical shocks that will not stop at Iran’s borders.

Confronting the regime is not an act of idealism but one of strategic necessity: a state that cannot provide water or air to its own people will soon export even more chaos to everyone else.

As long as this regime remains in power, both the land and the people of Iran will continue to suffer. The world must recognise that this is not only an Iranian tragedy. It is a coming global crisis – unless the cycle is finally broken.

Ellie Borhan, a software engineer by training, is the founder and policy director of Stage of Freedom, a UK-based organisation advocating for democracy and human rights in Iran