IRAN - Moroccan Locusts Threaten Crops

A swarm of Moroccan locusts is wreaking havoc upon eastern Iran’s agricultural sector, according to Iranian media reports and footage showing large numbers of the insects descending on affected areas.

Primarily feeding on grain crops, date palms, citrus fruits, fruit trees, olives, and figs, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations has described the species as “one of the most serious pests of many cultivated plants.”

Iran has now entered its sixth consecutive year of water shortages, following years of poor water management. After abandoning the country’s ancient qanat aquifer system, authorities constructed dams in an effort to boost agricultural output.

Roger Macmillan, a security analyst and former director for Iran International, told The Jerusalem Post: “The locust threat sits on top of years of drought, chronic under-investment in agriculture, and an import system that sanctions and now conflict have made increasingly unreliable. But it also sits on top of something broader: decades of economic mismanagement, cronyism, and the diversion of national resources toward the regime’s military and ideological priorities rather than the basic infrastructure that might have made communities resilient to exactly this kind of shock. Iran cannot easily replace what it fails to grow domestically. The currency to buy alternatives on world markets (even if they could) has largely evaporated.”

-www.jpost.com, 3 June 2026

Commentary: Iran’s population for 2025 is listed at 92.4 million inhabitants. By ethnic groups, 61% are Persian, with 16% Azerbaijan and 10% Turkish. Religion is 99.4% Islam.

According to the IMF, the per capita GDP (PPP) for 2026 is estimated to be $20,279; a red arrow after this figure indicates a downward spiral.

Al Jazeera, an outspoken anti-Israel news outlet from Qatar, states: “No, Iran did not fight against Israel in the 1948 Arab-Israeli War. In fact, Iran’s stance at the time was quite the opposite; following Israel’s declaration of independence, Iran became the second Muslim-majority nation (after Turkey) to officially recognize the State of Israel.”

That is quite surprising from a Muslim country. Thus, the question arises: Why the change? We can answer with one word: religion.

Here, Wikipedia says: “The 1979 Islamic Revolution is the primary historical root of the Iran-Israel conflict, transforming the two nations from strategic allies into arch-enemies. While they shared close ties under the Iranian monarchy, the current conflict is driven by ideological opposition, nuclear tension, and regional proxy wars.”

About the Medo-Persian Empire, today’s Iran, we read: “Cyrus the Great: In the Old Testament, Cyrus is famously referred to by the prophet Isaiah as God’s ‘anointed one’ or messiah (Isaiah 45:1). In 548 BC, he issued a historic decree allowing the Jewish exiles in Babylon to return to Jerusalem and providing the resources to rebuild the Jewish Temple.”

These few citations suffice it to identify Islam as the cornerstone of anti-Israelism.

(See The Facts on Islam, Item #2354, $6.99.)