Seeing Iran's Environmental Crisis Clearly:

Iran is burning. Iran is drying. Iran is sinking.

Environmental mismanagement was a contributing factor to the protest movement that was violently suppressed in January. Of course, it is only one element of an ongoing national divorce between society and state. The people rose up because they reject the regime’s radical Islamist ideology; the violent maintenance of an autocratic and unrepresentative political system; skyrocketing inflation and economic stagnation along with rampant corruption; and gender apartheid.

Regardless of the prospects of a deal or war with the United States, these are the issues that moved Iranians from reform to revolution against the Islamic Republic and will likely continue to animate them. Among the least studied of these issues is Iran's environmental decay, which, left unanswered, will make Iran a failed state regardless of who is at the helm in Tehran.

Below are 62 environmental incidents within the six-month window between the end of the 12-Day War with Israel in June and the start of anti-regime protests in December. These incidents range from drought to fire to sandstorms to land subsidence to air pollution. Taken together, they paint a picture of a government that is inattentive to Iran's needs, revealing the Islamic Republic for what it is: a poor guardian of the state, the well-being of its citizens, and the land they live on.