The whole world holds its breath looking at the same point on the map: the Strait of Hormuz. With markets trembling at the possibility of a barrel of oil breaking the $100 barrier and exports of liquefied natural gas (LNG) paralyzing, the global narrative has turned this conflict into a purely energy crisis. But the reality is much more primary and terrifying.
As the analyst Javier Blas warns in a forceful report for Bloombergthe real threat in the military escalation between the coalition led by the United States and Israel against Iran lies not in the oil wells, but in thirst. Oil, Blas points out, is essential for the global economy, but water is simply irreplaceable. If total war breaks out, the definitive weapon will not be energy, but biological survival.
This vulnerability is not a secret. As the analyst himself revealsthe American CIA has been warning its policymakers about this matter for decades. In a secret evaluation in the early 1980s —now declassified—, the intelligence agency made it clear that the true “strategic product” (strategic commodity) of the Middle East is not black gold, but drinking water.
Unable to engage in a head-on, symmetrical clash with the combined war machine of the United States and Israel, Iran has adopted a survival strategy based on attacking what are known in military jargon as “soft targets.” And they have already started. As detailed in another report by BloombergIran recently attacked a power plant in Fujairah, in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), which is responsible for keeping one of the largest desalination plants in the world in operation. In neighboring Kuwait, debris from an intercepted drone caused a fire at another of its water facilities in Doha West.
The offense doesn’t stop there. As we have explained in Xatakathe Saudi Ras Tanura refinery was hit by Iranian drones twice in a single week. The truly alarming thing is that this refinery is only 80 kilometers from Ras Al Khairthe largest hybrid desalination complex on the planet. The risk is physical and mathematical: attacks on the port of Jebel Ali in Dubai fell just 20 kilometers from a critical complex with 43 desalination units, according to Michael Christopher Low in The Conversation.
The level of aggressiveness is overwhelming the region. The UAE have already faced more than 800 missile and drone attacks (exceeding in volume those received by Israel). Although most are intercepted, the impacts have caused fires in the Burj Al Arab and have damaged data centers of Amazon Web Services (AWS) in UAE and Bahrain. This last point is critical: As experts warn Chosun Dailythese data centers digitally manage the energy and water distribution network; A digital blackout is equivalent to a physical power outage.
Survival hangs by a thread for 72 hours
The region’s monarchies are “saltwater kingdoms,” How do you define them? The Conversation. Eight of the ten largest desalination plants in the world are in the Arabian Peninsula, concentrating 60% of global capacity. The population’s dependence on this technology, according to data from W.G.I. Worldis absolute:
- Kuwait: 90% of its drinking water comes from desalination.
- Oman: 86%.
- Saudi Arabia: 70%.
- United Arab Emirates: 42% (almost 100% in metropolises like Dubai).
If Iran decides to target these plants, human collapse would be devastating. A great report of House of Saudbased on a 2008 US diplomatic cable leaked by WikiLeaksreveals a terrifying scenario about Riyadh. The Saudi capital, with more than 8 million inhabitants, receives more than 90% of its drinking water from the Jubail plant through a single 500 kilometer pipeline. The report is blunt: if the plant or its pipeline were destroyed, “Riyadh would have to be evacuated within a week.”
There is not even room to improvise. As an analysis in Iran InternationalQatar admitted that, in a scenario of massive water pollution, the country estimated to run out of drinking water in just three days, which forced them to build 15 giant emergency reservoirs. However, as researcher Bailey Schwab points out in WGI Worldwater cannot be politically rationed for long in cities that depend on the State to survive extreme temperatures.
The energy-water nexus: the asymmetric calculation
The system’s vulnerability is asymmetric and deeply technical. As explained by the analysis of House of Sauddesalination plants consume massive amounts of electricity (they represent almost 6% of total consumption in Saudi Arabia) and are co-located with mega power plants. If a missile takes down the power plant, the water supply dies instantly with it.
Additionally, there is an unsustainable gap in recovery times. While an oil refinery can restore part of its production in a couple of weeks (as happened after the attack on Abqaiq in 2019), as Bailey Schwab warns, the components of a reverse osmosis plant are extremely high-precision parts that, if destroyed, would take months to replace.
And defending this is economically unsustainable. Iran is using Shahed-136 droneswhich cost between $15,000 and $50,000 per unit. Opposite, the monumental Ras Al Khair plant cost 7.2 billion dollars and sits just 250 kilometers from the Iranian coast. It is a trivial flight for drones that have a range of 2,500 kilometers.
As if that were not enough, this vulnerability drags food security down with it. There is one fact that goes unnoticed in the economic press: 70% of food imports of the GCC transits through the Strait of Hormuz. Saudi Arabia imports almost 80% of its food (wheat, corn and barley) by sea. With marine insurers canceling war risk policies for merchant ships, Gulf countries not only face dying of thirst, but also food isolation.
The paradox: Iran, a country drowned by its own drought
If the situation in the Gulf is critical, that of the aggressor country is equally desperate, although for different reasons. An analysis by Fred Pearce in Yale Environment 360 (Yale E360) details that Iran faces its own “water bankruptcy.” The crisis has reached such a point that Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian warned last November that the country “has no choice” but to move its capital from Tehran to the southern coasts. This pharaonic project could cost 100 billion dollars.
How did Iran get to this point? According to Geopolitical Monitor, It is the result of 50 years of terrible water engineering. Since the time of the Shah, and accentuated after the 1979 Revolution by the obsession with achieving agricultural self-sufficiency in the face of sanctions, Iran began building dams on a massive scale (58 since 1962).
Even worse was the systematic destruction of their ancestral heritage: the qanats. The Yale researcher points out how this ancient system of underground canals (of which Iran once had about 400,000 kilometers) was sustainable by nature. However, the proliferation of more than a million wells with mechanical pumps in recent decades has dried up reserves. In fact, an international study published in Nature shows that 32 of the 50 most overexploited aquifers in the world are in Iran. The visual symbol of this collapse is Lake Urmia, what was once the largest lake in the Middle East is today an almost absolute salt desert, visible from NASA satellites.
The social cost is already visible. The Conversation tells how this lack of wateradded to air pollution that causes 59,000 premature deaths annually, has fueled strong protests under the cry of “We are thirsty!”. In addition, the land, dry and lacking groundwater, is sinking at a rate of up to 30 centimeters annually in critical areas such as Isfahan. As he emphasizes Guardian, The Iranian drought is aggravated by the Taliban in Afghanistan, who, after inaugurating the Pashdan Dam, now control 80% of the water that should reach eastern Iran.
In short, as Liam Denning’s crude analysis summarizes in Bloombergmilitary strategists fear whispering in dispatches: “Arab nations surrounding the Persian Gulf can withstand price shocks and a temporary energy disruption more easily than they can withstand a major collapse in drinking water supplies.”
It is easy to think that attacking civilian facilities vital to human life is an insurmountable taboo, but columnist Javier Blas throw in Bloomberg a chilling historical reminder. In 1991, during the Gulf War, Saddam Hussein’s troops deliberately opened the taps on Kuwaiti oil pipelines to dump crude oil into the sea for a dual purpose: to slow down American troops and to contaminate nearby Saudi desalination plants.
Today, with the Islamic Republic feeling cornered, fighting for the survival of its regime and suffocated by its own internal water crisis, the risk of them using the same tactics as their former archenemy is palpable. Whether deliberate or due to the miscalculation of a drifting drone, the conclusion is inescapable. Oil powers the economy, but water is irreplaceable. If this conflict escalates, the real battlefield will not measure its losses in barrels, but in drops.
Image | Ryan Lackey and
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