Following Khamenei's lead, Iran clerics blast US in Friday sermons

Water inflow to dams stood at about 780 million cubic meters as of Oct. 18, a 39% decline from the 1.29 billion cubic meters recorded a year earlier, according to data reported by ILNA news agency. Despite a 29% cut in water discharge to conserve supplies, total storage in the country’s reservoirs fell to 17.7 billion cubic meters from 23.3 billion, leaving national reserves around one-third full.

Twenty-two major dams are in critical condition, holding less than 15% of their designed capacity, wrote ILNA. In Tehran province, the five dams supplying the capital’s drinking and agricultural water are among the hardest hit. Amir Kabir Dam is at 11% capacity, an 80% drop from last year, while Lar Dam has fallen to just 2%, and Latyan, Mamlu and Taleghan dams each recorded declines of more than a third.

Reservoirs in other key provinces, Khuzestan in the southwest, Fars and Kerman in the south, and East and West Azarbaijan in the northwest, have registered deficits ranging from 20% to 70%, while some dams in Golestan province in the north, including Voshmgir and Bustan, have run completely dry, the report said.

Average rainfall since late September has been just 1.9 millimeters, far below the long-term average of 56 millimeters, and no measurable rain has been recorded in 21 provinces, including Tehran, Isfahan, Khuzestan, Kerman, and Kurdistan. Officials have warned of growing risks to both drinking water and crop irrigation in the coming months.

Drought altering rural life in Isfahan

In the central province of Isfahan, the water crisis has gone beyond agriculture to reshape entire communities. “Water scarcity has had deep effects on land subsidence, migration, and the changing character of rural areas,” said Gholamreza Goudarzi, head of Iran’s Statistical Center, in remarks published on Friday.

Census data collected during last year’s agricultural survey, he said, show that prolonged drought has altered crop diversity and forced some residents to abandon villages.

Experts warn that without immediate conservation measures, technological upgrades in irrigation, and coordinated drought management, Iran faces escalating water shortages that could endanger both rural livelihoods and urban supply in the months ahead.

The Financial Trend Analysis (FTA) released by the Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) outlines how Iran used foreign companies and exchange houses to skirt sanctions and fund overseas operations, including oil sales and weapons procurement.

“Identifying Iran’s complex financial lifelines and shadow networks is an essential part of cutting off the funding for their military, weapons programs, and terrorist proxies,” FinCEN Director Andrea Gacki said. “By issuing this public analysis, we hope to draw attention to Iran’s shadow banking activity and encourage financial institutions to be vigilant,” she said.

The FTA forms part of US president Donald Trump’s maximum pressure campaign announced in February, aimed at denying Iran nuclear weapons and missile capabilities and curbing its regional influence.

FinCEN’s report is based on financial institution filings covering transactions made before the campaign’s launch, supplementing a June advisory on Iranian oil smuggling and procurement efforts. It highlights that shell companies outside the United States appear to play the largest role in the shadow banking network, accounting for roughly $5 billion of activity in 2024.

The report also found that Iran-linked oil companies, primarily based in the United Arab Emirates and Singapore, moved about $4 billion that year—likely tied to concealed oil sales. Meanwhile, entities suspected of technology procurement handled approximately $413 million in transactions linked to Iranian networks.

According to FinCEN, the network spans the UAE, Hong Kong, and Singapore, with Iranian front companies in sectors from shipping to investment. The findings stress how Tehran’s financial system relies on layers of intermediaries to maintain access to global markets despite sanctions.

The new analysis, the Treasury said, would assist US and foreign banks in tracing suspicious transfers and reinforcing compliance efforts.

“We're all in the same boat shaped by the sacrifices of the martyrs of the Islamic Revolution, and it would be a shame if our differences created weaknesses", he said in an interview with state media

It sounded, at first, like an appeal for unity. But in the opaque language of the Islamic Republic, moral parables are rarely innocent.

Beneath the call for calm was a political warning: a message to rival factions inside the regime to stop leaking, stop exposing, stop fighting, before their infighting sinks the whole ship.

When Shamkhani urged everyone not to “puncture the boat,” he invited an obvious question: whose boat? Was he speaking of the Iranian nation or of the VIP mariners like himself who have captained it for nearly five decades?

In one reading, the “boat” is the state itself, a vessel battered by sanctions, protests and crises. From that vantage point, Shamkhani’s warning was a familiar one: security men urging unity to preserve the ship of state.

But there’s another interpretation, and it’s the one most Iranians heard. This wasn’t a plea for national survival.

It was a coded SOS from the elite, a reminder to fellow insiders that the leaks threatening to sink them were coming from within their own cabin. Their “boat” isn’t the Islamic Republic; it's the luxury vessel of privilege, patronage and power that keeps them afloat while the rest of the country treads water.

History has shown that when Iran’s political ship hits rough waters, it’s not the captains who drown, it’s the crew.

Economic collapse, inflation, repression, all of it falls hardest on those already half-submerged: workers, teachers, pensioners and the youth. Meanwhile, those steering the ship have lifeboats waiting: foreign bank accounts, Dominica passports, villas on Private Islands or even in London.

So when Shamkhani warns that “we’ll all sink together,” he isn’t speaking to the street vendors or nurses who can’t afford rent. He’s speaking to his peers, the sanctioned oligarchs and security bosses who know that too much sunlight might burn their privilege.

The crumbling myth of piety

The scandal’s power lies not in the wedding itself, but in what it reveals: the erosion of the ruling system's last claim to legitimacy and moral authority.

For decades, the Islamic Republic justified its rule through an ethic of sacrifice and piety. The message was simple: we may be strict, but we are righteous. Now, its ruling class lives like exiled royalty and curses its critics.

Every leaked image of over-indulgence, every glimpse behind the velvet curtain, peels away another layer of the revolution’s moral armor.

Corruption is not a crack in the hull; it is the hull. And the public knows it. Outrage has given way to a colder recognition: the ship has been taking on water for years.

The Iranian people no longer expect reform from within. They have learned that the system cannot self-correct because it was never built to share accountability, only to protect those who built it.

And so, Shamkhani’s metaphor holds, but not in the way he intended.

Iran is a boat, yes. But it’s one where a few dine under chandeliers while others take on water in the dark. The waves are rising. And this time, the passengers in steerage are no longer willing to go down quietly.

“The international community must urge the Iranian regime to give up its false hope of revolution, forego its ambitions toward its neighbors, and stop meddling in the politics of other countries in the region,” Michael Waltz said in a speech at the UN.

“Instead, Iran should engage in direct and good-faith dialogue with the United States for the benefit of the Iranian people and the security of the region,” Waltz added.

Iran's relations with Washington appear to be deteriorating as an impasse over Iran's disputed nuclear program festers and European countries triggered the so-called snapback of international sanctions on Tehran last month.

Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei said in a speech on Monday that Washington sought to bully Iran by making it concede defense capabilities, appearing to reject a peace overture the previous week by US President Donald Trump.

Speaking on the Gaza peace plan, Waltz praised the Trump administration for its achievement and called for greater pressure on Iran to ensure full implementation.

“Because of tough action against Iranian proxies, we are seeing historic opportunities in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and across the region. In this spirit, the United States supports the reimposition of UN snapback sanctions on the Iranian regime,” he said.

The sanctions have further strained Iran's economy after a punishing 12-day war with Israel and the United States in June.

“The regime will continue to face consequences as long as it remains on its path of destruction,” Waltz said.

Iran’s ambassador to the United Nations, Amir Saeid Iravani, rejected the remarks, saying Iran’s foreign policy is based on “respect for sovereignty and territorial integrity, non-interference and good neighborliness,” and that it “has always been ready for fair and genuine dialogue.”

Tehran maintains that its nuclear program is peaceful and that repeated US accusations were aimed at justifying what it calls its aggression.

Western countries have called for Tehran to engage in renewed diplomacy with Washington and restored access to international nuclear inspectors.

The scorching comments in a speech delivered by Larijani, a key aide to Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, have few parallels among top officials in recent months even amid a US-Israeli war in June.

Coming after Khamenei addressed Trump directly in a speech on Monday to "keep dreaming" about the president's "nonsense" on destroying Iran's nuclear program, the remarks signal a hardened line among Iran's top decision-makers on their top foe.

"Trump’s statement that he wants to create peace through strength is a strange one — because Hitler said the same thing," Larijani said in a speech at an event in Tehran commemorating an Iranian commander killed in the civil war in Syria in 2015.

Larijani was appointed Secretary of Iran's National Security Council following the summer conflict and is Khamenei's personal representative to the key body.

He dismissed a summit held in the Egyptian resort town of Sharm al-Sheikh on Oct. 12 to formally clinch a US-brokered ceasefire in Gaza as a “Trump show” to which the president arrived late, "spoke only by himself, did not allow anyone to speak and even mocked the heads of the countries present."

Trump had invited Iran to participate in the event and had raised eyebrows in an address to the Israeli Knesset earlier in the day in which he said Washington hoped Tehran could be folded into a broader Mideast peace.

Iranian officials bristled at the attacks by their two top foes, calling them illegal, asserting that its nuclear activities are peaceful and lamenting that the military campaign was launched while Washington and Tehran were in the midst of talks.

The summit “was low-level and had no place for revolutionary Iran," Larijani said.

It was attended by several heads of state from Western and Islamic countries but not those of Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates or Israel. A video of Trump shaking a senior Emirati official's hand at the summit and intoning with a smile, "A lot of cash!" circulated widely online.

Trump's relationship with Arab states also came into Larijani's crosshairs, a veteran navigator of the highest echelons of Iran's opaque security and political establishment, who said the property developer turned president exploited his wealthy Mideast allies.

"Trump ... sees the Arabs as money and is merely a businessman," Larijani said.

Iran's top officials have for months held off on direct criticism of Trump or commentary on the US relationship with Arab neighbors as it has pursued a rapprochement with the latter and appeared to weigh dialogue with the West.

An impasse over Iran's nuclear activities has persisted despite the war in June and disagreements have festered since European countries triggered the restoration of UN sanctions last month.

Western states seek the resumption of US-Iran talks and inspections by the UN nuclear watchdog while Tehran has ruled out what they call US demands to rein in its missile program and support for armed Mideast allies.