Firsthand accounts reveal how severe water and electricity shortages are disrupting daily life across Iran, with blackouts causing life-threatening accidents and hardship for vulnerable families.
The formal start of the UN “snapback” process to restore sanctions, the latest critical report by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), and President Masoud Pezeshkian’s high-visibility diplomacy at the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit together mark a decisive moment for Tehran.
The most immediate challenge is the likely restoration of UN snapback sanctions before 28 September.
European governments argue the trigger is Iran’s sustained non-compliance with key limits in the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) over the past six years. Tehran rejects that position, insisting the E3 forfeited standing by failing to deliver promised economic normalization after Washington’s 2018 withdrawal.
Whatever the legal briefs, reinstated measures would effectively return Iran to a Chapter VII-related sanctions framework, with all the familiar consequences: renewed constraints on arms transfers, reinforced financial isolation, and fresh layers of economic restrictions that have already strained household incomes and the broader investment climate.
Scrutiny intensifies
New IAEA findings have sharpened scrutiny of Iran’s program.
The agency signaled fresh shortfalls in cooperation, pointing to unexplained inventories of enriched uranium at levels exceeding JCPOA caps.
A confidential tally circulated to member states indicated Iran holds about 441 kilograms of uranium enriched to 20% or higher – enough, by the agency’s rule of thumb, to yield material for around ten nuclear devices if further refined.
Director General Rafael Grossi has said there is no sign of diversion, but emphasized the need for verification and timely documentation – something Iranian officials have yet to provide.
Rather than escalate immediately, the Secretariat has kept contacts open in hopes of restoring routine access. Two reports to the IAEA’s 35-nation Board of Governors underline the urgency: inspections must resume “without delay,” and the buildup of highly enriched stocks remains a “serious concern.”
Eastward turn accelerates
It is against this tightening sanctions and verification backdrop that President Pezeshkian’s China tour looms large.
Over a week of meetings – most prominently with Xi Jinping in Beijing and Vladimir Putin in Tianjin – Tehran sought to translate a long-advertised “Look East” doctrine into concrete political and economic ballast.
Iranian officials pressed for more than sympathetic rhetoric: Moscow and Beijing are backing Iran’s claim that snapback is legally void but, crucially, Tehran hopes they avoid implementing any reimposed UN measures.
For China and Russia, the ask is non-trivial. Skirting U.S. and European unilateral sanctions is one thing; openly discounting UN obligations is another, with implications for their global positioning.
Still, Pezeshkian delivered a message calibrated for both audiences at once.
He reaffirmed Iran as a “reliable friend” to China, echoing Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei’s priority on eastern partnerships. He also stressed Tehran’s readiness to operationalize the 25-year agreement with Beijing across energy, infrastructure, and technology.
The session with Putin amplified the signal: in Tehran’s view, China and Russia are no longer transactional partners of convenience, but strategic anchors to confront Western pressures.
Roadblocks remain
The SCO summit in Tianjin provided the showcase for this reorientation. Now a full member, Iran leaned into the organization’s language of sovereignty, non-interference, and resistance to unilateralism.
Yet the question of deliverables hangs over the pageantry.
Iran’s earlier eastward experiments, notably under Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, yielded less than the rhetoric promised. Banking bottlenecks, compliance risks for major companies, and the gravitational pull of Western markets on Chinese firms limited follow-through.
Whether today’s geopolitical alignment—and the higher stakes of great-power competition—change those cost-benefit calculations is the live test.
For Tehran, success will be measured not in communiqués but in sustained energy sales, credible financing channels, technology transfers, and visible progress on infrastructure that can withstand sanctions headwinds.
Future hangs in balance
Inside Iran, the “Look East” pivot has sparked an energetic debate.
Hardline outlets herald the emergence of an “Eastern front” that validates decades of resistance to Western dominance. But reformist and moderate voices warn that the country risks swapping one form of dependence for another.
Their critique is less civilizational and more structural: if Iran becomes overly reliant on Moscow and Beijing for markets, capital, and diplomatic cover, it could re-create the asymmetries of influence that the 1979 Revolution sought to overturn.
In this reading, the pivot is a pragmatic hedge, but also a bargain that may constrain policy autonomy over time.
The central uncertainty is whether the “Look East” approach can move beyond symbolism and episodic deals to furnish the durable economic and technological lifelines Iran needs.
If it can, Tehran may blunt the effect of renewed UN measures and stabilize growth on an alternative platform. If it cannot, the pivot risks devolving into a slogan that masks deepening isolation and narrowing options.
As September advances toward the snapback deadline, Tehran stands at a genuine crossroads.
Choices made now – on access for inspectors, on the pace and level of enrichment, on the specificity of commitments with China and Russia – will shape not only Iran’s nuclear trajectory and economic survival, but also the character of its grand strategy for the remainder of Khamenei’s tenure.
In one video, a woman with a broken leg, filmed in a hospital, pleads with officials to step aside if they cannot provide basic services.
“Why in the 21st century should we have power outages?” she asks. “If you can’t run the country properly, you better get lost.”
She explains that her diabetes requires overnight monitoring before surgery.
Another clip shows a woman describing repeated falls in the dark. Pointing to a cane on the floor, she says: “Now I have to move around with this. I swear to God I don’t even have a single rial to go to the doctor and get an X-ray.”
Other footage shows a man trapped in an elevator after a sudden outage, urging that buildings be equipped with emergency systems to prevent such dangers.
Daily disruptions
From Sari to Mashhad, residents describe routine blackouts at night and during business hours.
A young man in Sari says the power cuts every evening from 9 to 11 p.m., while a merchant in Mashhad films a bazaar left in darkness.
“Look at the bazaar,” he says. “How can these people make a living and pay their rent?”
In Tehran, a customer records shoppers enduring stifling heat in a hypermarket after air conditioning and lighting failed.
“This place used to be cool and comfortable, but now everything is off,” he says. “People are forced to shop in this unbearable heat.”
Official response
Energy Minister Abbas Ali Abadi has promised improvements.
“Soon the water situation will improve, the gas situation will improve, and weather conditions will also cooperate,” he said this week, before adding the telling qualification: “God willing.”
But Iran’s reliance on decades-old thermal power plants—still providing over 80% of electricity—alongside shrinking hydroelectric capacity due to prolonged droughts has left the grid deeply vulnerable.
Spring hydro output has collapsed from about 6,500–7,000 megawatts to only 2,500.
Public embarrassment
The crisis has also spilled onto national television.
One widely shared clip shows a state broadcast plunging into darkness shortly after a lawmaker claimed an alleged Israeli pilot’s “confession” would soon air.
Israel’s Foreign Ministry mocked the scene on X, posting in Persian: “Just make sure the power doesn’t go out in the middle of broadcasting the confession.”
