Environmental/Political Commentary of the Day

After three weeks of inability to extinguish the fires in the elite Hyrcanian forests, the government is now speaking of sabotage by other states.
The regime-affiliated newspaper Farhikhtegan has published a piece reporting the arrest of 20 people in connection with the matter.
Linking the forest fires to sabotage only serves to conceal decades of weakness, incompetence, and anti-environmental policymaking.
Last year as well, the regime attributed drought and the drying of lakes and wetlands to “cloud theft” by foreigners and their superior technology, an idea that experts quickly ridiculed.

The attempt to connect the Hyrcanian forest fires to sabotage was also raised differently by environmental reformists. These so-called environmental activists announced last week that the government must arrest those responsible for the fires, though without linking the issue to a foreign state, as Farhikhtegan suggested.

Now one should expect trials and possibly news of the execution of several political prisoners on charges of setting the forests on fire and of ties to Israel and the United States, accusations that the writer of Farhikhtegan (possibly from IRGC)  has not yet explicitly stated.

According to reports, government officials, including those in the regime’s so-called Environmental protection agency, showed no reaction to the early reports of the fire, which local residents repeatedly raised during the first week. The same reports indicate that some of the locals who demanded that the news be spread are among those arrested.