Iran’s famine of the wise
by Nik Kowsar
n private conversations, U.S. officials often sound less confident than their public rhetoric suggests.
Americans can pressure Tehran, but they can’t manufacture a legitimate Iranian leadership — and they know it. The danger is not only that the Islamic Republic may stumble into a crisis, but that a vacuum could be filled by the loudest brand, rather than the most capable hands.
Iran’s problem, in other words, is not just drought in its reservoirs. It is drought in its leadership pool.
I’ve worked on water issues for as long as I can remember. The words “ghahti” (famine) and drought have always scared me. Too many Iranians don’t grasp what famine actually means, until food vanishes from the table and the tap gives you air.
But Iran faces a second scarcity that may be even more dangerous: what Iranians call “ghaht-e rejal” — a famine or drought of capable people. A moment when the country runs out of competent, trusted people, and the public is pushed to choose the least terrible option. In other words, in a city of the blind, the one-eyed man becomes king.
The truth is even when the right people exist, many stay silent. They know what comes next – smear jobs, fake scandals, and made-up charges meant to destroy them before they step forward. Once public trust is poisoned, even the most capable individuals become ineffective. You can’t rebuild a country on an empty reservoir or broken faith.
Years ago, when Srdja Popovic — a former Serbian student leader and key figure in Otpor — spoke in Washington after the Arab Spring, I asked him to analyze Iran’s Green Movement. His answer stuck because it wasn’t philosophical, it was practical: the Green uprising could not become a true movement because it lacked leadership, shared objectives, and strategy. It was more a reaction than an organized campaign, and a reaction, by itself, cannot bring down a regime.
After Milosevic fell, Popovic helped develop CANVAS, which has trained activists in nonviolent resistance. Different countries get different outcomes, but the lessons don’t change: movements win when they build alliances, weaken the pillars that keep an oppressive system standing, use momentum deliberately, and stay proactive rather than reactive. They also win when they have a credible idea of the day after, a plan people can picture and trust. In Iran that matters, because people inside the country have been burned by fantasies before.
Iran does not need another savior. It needs a movement capable of surviving repression, operating under blackouts, and earning legitimacy through results. That requires equal citizenship, a state neutral toward religion, free elections and term limits, the rule of law, protections against revenge and impunity, and legitimacy built through process, not branding. A representative council with transparent rules, rotating responsibilities, conflict-of-interest standards, and a code of conduct is not optional. Neither is the unsexy machinery that turns courage into leverage: secure communications guidance, detainee tracking and legal aid, strike support, and systematic documentation for sanctions and future courts.
Finally, the movement must stop reacting and start shaping the terrain. Strategy means weakening the regime’s pillars, splitting loyalties within the coercive apparatus, and building alliances across factions, regions, and classes. It also means offering a credible picture of tomorrow, including an interim plan for security and essential services, political prisoners, transitional justice, and a clear timetable toward elections.
Iran is entering a period where water stress, economic collapse, and institutional decay will reinforce one another, and the regime will answer the crisis with violence. The opposition cannot answer with personality worship. In a time of drought, a famine of the wise is a national emergency — and the antidote is building leadership as a system.
The question of who can lead Iran also matters for U.S. interests and national security. President Trump has now made the point twice: the figure many consider the leader may be a “nice guy,” but whether he can actually lead remains in doubt.
This is why it matters: a “leader” who urges people into the streets with no plan, then disowns responsibility after they’re massacred, doesn’t just cost lives — he destroys trust.
Yes, the regime pulls the trigger. But leadership’s job is to reduce the blood price through planning, organization, and a believable day-after plan. Riding a wave isn’t leadership, especially on a sea of blood.
Copyright 2026 Nik Kowsar, distributed exclusively by Cagle Cartoons newspaper syndicate.Nik Kowsar is an award-winning Iranian-American journalist, cartoonist, and water issues analyst based in Washington, D.C. He was exiled to Canada and the U.S. after his arrest for a cartoon satirizing a powerful cleric.
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