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Comment by rayiner | Hacker News Reader

I find Iran to be a truly baffling civilization. Iranians are so educated and orderly, but the country punches so below its weight class in terms of prosperity.

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Geographically speaking, over 80% of Iran’s land is classified as arid or semi-arid, and it is likely to face over 5°C of warming by the end of the century: the impacts of climate change will likely be more severe in Iran than the regional average. The region suffers from extreme weather including both droughts and flooding, seismic activity in the form tectonic uplift, particularly near the Makran coast, and constant attacks: economic attack by sanction, cyber attack on energy infrastructure, and lately even kinetic attack from neighbors. The fact that the regime hasn’t collapsed is a testament to Persian, Iranian and Islamic culture, and I hope its people find ways to prosper when the deck is so stacked against them.

Almost everything you’ve described, except for natural disasters, is an own goal. There’s literally no need for the country to be poor and on the brink of collapse. They are doing it to themselves.

On the fruits of their hands labor you shall know them..

There may have been some external meddling from a certain international superpower.

Iran isn’t a breadbasket exactly, but it has more arable land per person than Germany, Italy, the UK, or Ireland. And vastly more than Japan. It’s relatively temperate now—future warming doesn’t explain its current situation. On top of all that, it has oil! In 1980, just after the revolution, Iran had a PPP GDP per capita above Taiwan, China, and South Korea. And only modestly behind Poland. Today those countries are far ahead. Same for Thailand, Malaysia, and Turkey.

The economic sanctions are a symptom not the cause.

Not just PPP.

It's nominal GDP per capita was above Taiwan, Turkiye, South Korea, and all of Eastern Europe.

If the stuff that happened to Iran in our timeline didn't happened in the 1980s-2000s, it probably could have seen an economic boom comparable to what SK and Taiwan saw in the 1990s - especially becuase the leadership in 1980s South Korea and Taiwan were equally as authoritarian as that in Iran back then.

Other similar losers from that era were the DRC, Syria (before the civil war it was roughly on par with Turkiye), the Ivory Coast (it was France's premier financial hub in Franafrique before the civil war), and Pakistan (it's GDP per capita was significantly above China's until the 1990s, and Pakistani advisors helped industrialize significant portions of the Gulf).

All good points.

"economic attack by sanction, cyber attack on energy infrastructure, and lately even kinetic attack from neighbors."

They could just stop being at war with Israel any time, it is a pointless choice.

I completely agree with you. We who wish well on Iranians can only hope the situation is speedily rectified and the regime will finally fall, ending the oppression, want, war and poverty they have inflicted on so many millions of people both within and without their borders.

In the meantime i hope it rains.

Gee, I wonder what possibly could have happened over the last 50 or so years that might have damaged their prosperity.

The incredibly incompetent theocracy irrationally obsessed with destroying Israel?

Their government spends itself into poverty fighting proxy wars against Israel both directly and indirectly through sanctions. It’s a theocracy so economics is not the most important thing to their leaders.

I wonder what happened...

It is a crying shame and the Iranians deserve better. At the moment 16 million people may find themselves without water in the near future. I'm lost for words.

If one positive thing could be found in this situation it might finally be the thing that brings down the regime. I think it's fair to say this year has been an annus horribilis for them.

It's all British/American fault. /s

Dont forget the mighty CIA.. so mighty they couldn't even stop trump from ruining it for the military industrial conplex with isolationism. Anything to prevent the realization that left policies are and where rejected by the people.. if you start introspection, the movement immolates.

I suspect that the IRGC will be the last ones with empty canteens.

They will still be empty eventually. It might still become a stable situation though. If you look at pictures from North Korea the only person who doesn't look malnourished is Kim Jong Un. Otoh water is different from food. Also it's the middle east. They might have to cut back on their aggression but their antagonists (who by now is literally everyone) won't.

Nothing baffling about it. Religion was used by a clerical class to marshall the lumpen masses with promises of free handouts in this world and paradise in the next. Their own thinking set (of the ruling clique) are bound by ideology - whether as matter of actual belief or means of governance - so they do not make any decisions based on national interest or reason. It is the ideology that does the 'thinking'.

(Sounds familiar? Warning bells for other locals, maybe? ..)

Most educated Iranians you know, btw, are (drum roll) in diaspora, for good reasons.

Well it's the most heavily sanctioned country on earth...

Sanctions surely aren’t helping

Theocracy surely isn't helping

The situation the article is about seems more to do with corruption and mismanagement than sanctions.

It's hard to manage a water supply and economy in Tehran when your top minds are busy running proxy wars in Lebanon and Iraq and funding or supporting ones in Syria, Yemen, and Gaza [1, 2].

It's sad to such a great people subjugated by their government.

1: https://www.cfr.org/article/irans-regional-armed-network 2: https://www.unitedagainstnucleariran.com/proxy-wars/map

Dams blocking the inflow to Lake Urmia that almost dried up nowadays were built by the Shah, for example. Man-made environmental damage and corruption aren't new by any measure, as well as unstable water levels and shortages in arid zones. See e.g. Aral Sea which fluctuated in the range of dozens of meters over centuries before finally drying up, which was enough to establish and subsequently abandon multiple settlements on the lake bed during the Mongol Empire.

True, but water desalination plants also exist and Iran has plenty of oil to power them.

Sanctions will do that. Both soft and hard

> truly baffling

It's an Islamic theocracy with nuclear as well as regional hegemonic ambitions; what about the corresponding impoverishment of its citizens is "baffling" to you?

There is nothing baffling about it. When the world's superpower targets you for destruction, it's impossible to prosper. What's baffling is how long they've been able to persevere.

Imagine if the US targeted germany or japan or saudi arabia for destruction. They'd be in far worse situation than iran.

They are governed by Islamic fundamentalists ?

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