Cogito Ergo Non Serviam
Water May Decide Iran War
The war with Iran is entering its second month, and it looks like it is going to go on and on. The American administration has failed to find an off-ramp. The Iranians believe they are in an existential fight for the survival of the regime with no desire to quit. The Israelis have a war in Lebanon that demands them to fight for months to secure their buffer zone south of the Litani River. As the missiles and bombs continue to fall, there is certainly going to be massive infrastructure damage across the region. While the media are focused on the price of oil, it might make more sense to keep an eye on the drinking water supplies in a region that relies on desalination.
Al Jazeera reminds:
The Gulf states are deserts with no permanent rivers. While they lack rivers, they do have seasonal waterways called wadis, which carry water during rare rainfall.
These nations rely primarily on groundwater and desalination to supply water to their rapidly growing cities, industrial zones and agricultural areas . . . .
The Gulf countries produce roughly 40 percent of the world's desalinated water, operating more than 400 desalination plants along their coasts.
Those desalination plants take years to build and cost anywhere from $400 million for a small one up to $3 billion for the biggest. In other words, these assets are costly and effectively irreplaceable in the short and medium term. That is especially true if the Strait of Hormuz remains closed; it will be difficult to get cement and steel to the sites to say nothing of more complex and elegant materials.
The Iranian approach to this war has been one of careful escalation. They understand that the US and Israel can wipe the floor with them in conventional combat, so they are not fighting that way. They are not targeting civilian sites across the board. If an Iranian oil facility is hit, then all oil facilities in the region become fair game. When schools and hospitals are hit, the Iranians are willing to target similar places in hostile states.
In the last day, a US attack struck the desalination plant on Qeshm island destroying its generators. The Iranians claim to have brought the plant back on line with new generators. However if the rest of the plant had been hit, it would be out of commission for months at least. There are about 54 villages on Qeshm that rely that plant. The strike endangered civilian lives, and that is why attacking a water facility is a war crime. Tehran probably feels that desalination plants are now acceptable targets, too.
Here, the Iranian asymmetrical approach to the fight shows its advantages. Iran relies on desalination for about 3% of its fresh water needs. Much of Iran is mountainous and possesses snowy patches that feed its streams and rivers (e.g., the Karun River, 950 kilometers long and navigable). Water is only a problem in places like Qeshm.
The Gulf States have a much greater reliance on desalination. David Michel writing for the Center for Strategic and International Studies stated:
Desalination fulfills 77.3 percent of total water demand in Qatar, 67.5 percent in Bahrain, 52.1 percent in the UAE, 42.2 percent in Kuwait, 31 percent in Oman, and 18.1 percent in Saudi Arabia. Desalination plants are especially important for meeting drinking water needs. Qatar derives 99 percent of its drinking water supplies from its network of desalination facilities, and Bahrain over 90 percent. For Kuwait, Oman, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE, the figures are 90 percent, 86 percent, 70 percent, and 42 percent, respectively. Cities such as Doha, Dubai, Manama, and Kuwait City would not be possible without desalination. Qatar and Bahrain, in particular, also rely heavily on desalination for industry, too, devoting over half their desalinated water production to sectors such as petrochemicals and data centers.
As for Israel, it gets 70% of its drinking water from 5 plants. Iran will now probably target those now. Water is a vulnerability for most of the small counties allied to the US. It will be hard for them to remain supporters of America if they are dying of thirst.
© Copyright 2026 by The Kensington Review, Jeff Myhre, PhD, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent. Produced using Ubuntu Linux.
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