This chapter investigates the ‘meta-controversy’ over the primary cause of Lake Urmia’s desiccation, a debate with direct implications for both political accountability and restoration strategies. It traces how media, scientific, and policy narratives have shifted from attributing the crisis to climate variability towards emphasising human mismanagement, including dam construction, irrigation expansion, and groundwater depletion. While a majority of recent studies foreground anthropogenic drivers, a persistent minority of credible voices argue for climatic primacy, underscoring the need to resist premature closure of the debate. The chapter critically examines high-profile synthesis efforts revealing how selective evidence use and methodological shortcuts can stabilise contested narratives. Drawing on Latour’s concept of ‘panoramas’ and Venturini’s ‘second-degree objectivity’, it frames scientific knowledge as contingent, shaped by institutional interests and political contexts. The analysis also exposes the depoliticisation of the crisis: technical framings often deflect attention from structural political-economic drivers rooted in decades of centralised hydraulic development under both Pahlavi and Islamic Republic regimes.