Today I Learned

Eh, reading the first article, it sounds like it was even more than that, as in: too much middle-management involved in making key water decisions, too much zeal post-revolution in building new dams, too much waffling and inadequate resoluteness at the leadership levels across several decades.

In other words, the sanctions were no doubt a major blow, but the real issue seems to be how Iran responded to the blow. Plus a bunch of other stuff on top that didn't help.

Meanwhile, something I have no idea about is whether Iran's regional allies, plus China & Russia, could have used trade and such to help offset the sanctions in the first place..?

Iran has open trade relations with China, Russia, and Turkey, which all have significant agricultural output. It also does quite a bit of trade with Europe despite sanctions. It does not have to artificially limit itself to importing only 15% of its food, especially given that irrigation is contributing to an unsustainable water crisis.

Let's just not talk about how the US overthrew a democratically elected government and installed a puppet who was deeply unpopular and was later overthrown after a revolution which caused the current leader to be in power due to a power vacuum which then lead to deep sanctions from US and US allies so they've had to try and be self sufficient.

Parts of the US, like all the major cities in Texas, are actively sinking because we're draining the aquifers that took millennia to fill. It's yet another problem just festering, fascinating to watch as the reality approaches.

people in power are myopic and prioritize short term benefice over long term thonking

I'm not sure "maintaining adequate levels of domestic crop yield" is a short-term benefit. They're stretched for water because they're in a historic drought during a climate catastrophe. This is a no-win situation, exacerbated by the constant threat of military invasion by nuclear superpowers and their rabid fascist local proxies.

The Iranian government can't summon rain from the heavens any easier than their Saudi or Qatari neighbors. Those states just have the benefit of access to western markets and engineering firms for enormous desalination plants. Meanwhile, Iranians' energy infrastructure - necessary to run the pumps and pipelines that irrigate much of the country - have been subject to repeated bombardment by Israeli and US aircraft. Most notably, their civilian nuclear program was crippled by Trump's B-2 bombing run in June. But this is just the tail end of the damage inflicted by the eleven day shootout with Israel.

Yeah they've talked about how Iran has been in a drought for quite a while. It's like utah, we've been in a drought for 20 plus years at this point we had one good water year last year and for the first time in quite a while came out of our drought status and everybody just kind of forgot and then all of a sudden by the end of the summer most the state was back in a drug in severe drought status again I can't wait for all of our idiotic agriculture here to dry up the water table just like it has over there.