"It was the United States that set the precedent, not Iran." Abbas Araghchi, foreign minister of the Islamic Republic, had thrown back an accusation that had come from Washington. According to the White House, Tehran had just struck desalination plants in Gulf countries. Iranian authorities, in turn, pointed the finger at the American air force, claiming it had struck a water purification facility on the island of Qeshm: an attack considered a serious escalation in the conflict, one that would have cut off water resources for thirty villages in the area.

Seyed Abbas Araghchi @araghchi

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The U.S. committed a blatant and desperate crime by attacking a freshwater desalination plant on Qeshm Island. Water supply in 30 villages has been impacted.

Attacking Iran's infrastructure is a dangerous move with grave consequences. The U.S. set this precedent, not Iran.

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The mutual accusations between the United States and Iran

All of this was happening on Saturday 7 March, as a war that had already killed at least 1,440 people and wounded more than 18,000 had been raging for over a week, according to broadcaster Al Jazeera. The following day, Bahrain reported damage to a desalination plant on Muharraq Island, to the north-west of the capital Manama. "Striking those infrastructures means crossing a line that should be uncrossable," Franck Gallard, an analyst at the Paris-based Foundation for Strategic Research, told the French daily Le Monde.

From the very first days of the conflict in Iran, the spectre of water resources being used as a "weapon" of war has loomed across the entire Middle East. More than one observer has explained that Iran could respond by attacking the vital infrastructure of Gulf countries, with the primary aim of choking off a key element of the United States economy.

Why a Gulf crisis could trigger a "big crash" on Wall Street

The petrodollars received by these nations from hydrocarbon sales are reinvested in American companies through financial markets. By blocking that inflow of money, one of the risks — among others — is the sudden interruption of the liquidity feeding speculative bubbles, such as the one that has long characterised the stock market performance of hi-tech shares and artificial intelligence in particular. In other words, Wall Street could wake up to a big crash, and potentially a wave of panic also fuelled by the "animal spirits" described by economist John Maynard Keynes in his "General Theory".

In other words, striking the Gulf countries means directly attacking the American financial system. Although the economic resources of Riyadh, Doha and Abu Dhabi are almost limitless — consider the sovereign wealth fund Pif of Saudi Arabia (the sixth largest in the world, with assets of nearly one trillion dollars) — the region's environmental vulnerability could play an unexpected role. One that has been further sharpened, in recent years, by the pressure exerted by climate change.

Anadolu English ✓ @anadoluagency

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💧 Water infrastructure increasingly targeted as US–Israel war with Iran escalates, raising fears of humanitarian risks in Middle East

➡️ Iran Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi accuses US of striking desalination facility on Qeshm Island, disrupting water supply to about 30

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450 desalination plants operating in the Middle East

To understand what we are talking about, it is useful to focus precisely on water resources. The region is home to approximately 450 desalination plants, accounting for 60 per cent of installed capacity and 40 per cent of production worldwide, explains Lebanese daily L'Orient-Le Jour. This despite the local population representing just 1 per cent of the global total.

Gallard himself emphasises that this is not simply a strategic resource but, as one can easily imagine, a vital one for those countries. Qatar is entirely dependent on desalination for its drinking water supply (at 99 per cent, to be precise). Kuwait at 90 per cent. In Saudi Arabia, 70 per cent of water consumption comes from plants of this type; in the United Arab Emirates the figure reaches 42 per cent. In Oman it stands at 86 per cent, according to figures cited by Middle East Eye.

An environmental and water vulnerability exacerbated by climate change

Striking these infrastructures, furthermore, does not only mean creating an immediate survival problem for the population. It also means preventing hospitals from functioning, as well as complicating operations at oil facilities, which in turn consume large quantities of water.

Anadolu English ✓ @anadoluagency

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📌 Water under fire: Iran war underscores growing threats to vital infrastructure

🔹 Recent attacks on desalination plants in the Middle East highlight the vulnerability of water infrastructure in modern warfare

🔹 Experts say attacks on vital systems are 'one of the most

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And Iran itself is not immune to the problem, which has been compounded by numerous consecutive years of drought, exacerbated by global warming. So much so that Tehran's authorities have not ruled out the eventual need to relocate the capital's 15 million inhabitants, as evoked just a few months ago by President Masoud Pezeshkian, according to Al Jazeera.

In the Islamic Republic, many facilities are concentrated along the southern coast, noted David Michel of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, as reported by the weekly Courrier international. "But the countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council (of which Iran is not a member, ed.) depend far more on desalination for their water resources than the Islamic Republic does," he noted. The multilateral organisation accordingly convened an extraordinary meeting on 3 March, specifically to assess the level of preparedness of member states to cope with possible drinking water shortages.

Water: a weapon of war since Israel's conquest of the Jordan River banks

Of course, whether the missiles are American, Israeli or Iranian, striking facilities upon which the lives of millions of people directly depend can constitute a war crime. There are also precedents: water resources have been a crucial factor since Israel's conquest of the banks of the Jordan River in 1967. Since then, the Jewish state has drawn water from it, limiting the quotas available to Palestinians.

Bloomberg ✓ @business

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The Iran war has underscored a fundamental vulnerability of the oil-rich nations in the Persian Gulf: their reliance on desalination plants for water. Here's what to know bloomberg.com/news/articles/…

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During the first Gulf War in 1991, Iraqi forces opened a Kuwaiti oil pipeline, causing an oil spill at sea that contaminated the region's desalination plants. The monarchy was forced to distribute water by tanker truck.

More recently, Israeli bombardments have destroyed two of the three desalination plants in the Gaza Strip, prompting United Nations experts to speak of "thirst used as a weapon of war". Ninety per cent of the inhabitants of the Palestinian enclave found themselves without access to drinking water, dependent in this respect too on humanitarian aid.

From the bombardments in Gaza to acid rain in Tehran

In Tehran, in recent days, a number of fuel depots were attacked. The Red Crescent issued an alert to the population of the capital and surrounding areas, explaining that the resulting acid rain could not only prove "extremely toxic and dangerous," causing "risks of chemical skin burns and serious lung injuries," but could also contaminate groundwater and consequently the drinking water distributed across the city.

In practice, then, the context of extreme water stress facing Gulf countries is demonstrating how conflicts can transform an environmental vulnerability into a factor of social destabilisation. All the more so given that, since the Second World War, in all military operations the vast majority of victims are now civilians. Wars fought between soldiers ended in the first half of the twentieth century.

"These infrastructures truly serve only civilians and therefore nothing justifies their being targeted," declared Mohammed Mahmoud, head of climate and water policy for the Middle East at the United Nations University. Yet when two regional powers conceive of a conflict as "existential," from their perspective everything is permitted.