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Water Woes: Resources as Weapon in the Middle East
As warfare in the Middle East becomes more common, water is becoming an increasingly common weapon.
Activists have renamed Lake Assad—the main reservoir for northern Syria—“Lake Revolution,” but soon it may not matter what they call it. In 2014, the lake’s level fell by six meters, or more than 80 percent of its usable water supply. Much of Syria lacks regular supplies of water; recent photographs show children in Aleppo drinking from roadside puddles.
Political choices, more than poverty, have caused many of the Middle East’s biggest water problems. In the twentieth century, Arab and Turkish engineers built dozens of dams capable of retaining the entire water supply from the Tigris and Euphrates basin, but the waterworks have been used for destructive ends. Saddam Hussein famously stopped the flow of water to Iraq’s southern marshes in 1991, displacing at least 100,000 Marsh Arabs in retaliation for their participation in a post-Gulf War uprising.
Even after Saddam, the water weapon has remained salient. The rivers’ many dams create an abundance of chokepoints. In Iraq, the Islamic State controlled the Fallujah dam and flooded farmland in spring 2014, displacing up to 40,000 families. Some of the first air strikes in Iraq against the Islamic State targeted militants besieging the Mosul and Haditha dams. In Syria, the Islamic State has sped up the flow of the Euphrates through the Tabqa hydroelectric dam to produce more electricity for its constituents, helping drain Lake Assad. Even in Damascus, rebels frequently cut public water supplies.
The Middle East has plenty of water problems without warfare. As warfare becomes more common, water is becoming an increasingly common weapon.
This piece is a part of Mezze, a monthly short article series spotlighting societal trends across the region. It originally appeared in the Middle East Program's monthly newsletter, Middle East Notes and Comment. For more information and to receive our mailings, please contact the Middle East Program.
Political choices, more than poverty, have caused many of the Middle East’s biggest water problems. In the twentieth century, Arab and Turkish engineers built dozens of dams capable of retaining the entire water supply from the Tigris and Euphrates basin, but the waterworks have been used for destructive ends. Saddam Hussein famously stopped the flow of water to Iraq’s southern marshes in 1991, displacing at least 100,000 Marsh Arabs in retaliation for their participation in a post-Gulf War uprising.
Even after Saddam, the water weapon has remained salient. The rivers’ many dams create an abundance of chokepoints. In Iraq, the Islamic State controlled the Fallujah dam and flooded farmland in spring 2014, displacing up to 40,000 families. Some of the first air strikes in Iraq against the Islamic State targeted militants besieging the Mosul and Haditha dams. In Syria, the Islamic State has sped up the flow of the Euphrates through the Tabqa hydroelectric dam to produce more electricity for its constituents, helping drain Lake Assad. Even in Damascus, rebels frequently cut public water supplies.
The Middle East has plenty of water problems without warfare. As warfare becomes more common, water is becoming an increasingly common weapon.
This piece is a part of Mezze, a monthly short article series spotlighting societal trends across the region. It originally appeared in the Middle East Program's monthly newsletter, Middle East Notes and Comment. For more information and to receive our mailings, please contact the Middle East Program.