This research aims to provide an integrated, critical, and evidence-based analysis of water governance in Iran through a systematic review of existing scientific literature. Employing qualitative meta-synthesis following the PRISMA framework, the study analyzes 51 peer-reviewed articles published between 2014 and 2024. Article quality was assessed using the CASP tool. Findings are organized around a core theme—"Pervasive Governance Failure" —manifested across five intertwined layers: (1) structural and institutional failures (extreme centralization, overlapping mandates, legal weaknesses, symbolic empowerment of river basin organizations); (2) political economy barriers (rent-seeking allocation, political logic of large projects, resistance to reform, systemic corruption); (3) social and participatory failures (distrust, tokenistic participation); (4) cognitive and discursive deadlocks (dominance of techno-engineering discourse, technology rebound effects, psychological distance, science-policy gap); and (5) intra-territorial and transboundary geopolitical failures. The findings demonstrate that the paradigmatic tension between supply-side management and demand-driven governance, the hegemony of technocratic discourse, the rentier-developmental state duality, and structural resistance to transparency and accountability have generated a "locked-in" cycle of inefficiency. Finally, policy recommendations are articulated across five strategic axes: institutional, political-economic, participatory, discursive, and geopolitical.