| Submit your comments on this article |
| Iraq-Jordan |
| Blood for Water |
| 2004-11-06 |
| With a hat tip to Donald Sensing, this article from American Digest posits a strategic underpinning for the decision to take down Saddam Hussein and explains why the troops won't be coming home anytime soon. What Iraq has that Iran, Syria, and Saudi Arabia do not is not oil, but fresh water. In fact, Iraq has almost all of the fresh water in the region. It is water that determines life in the Middle East and there's not a lot of it. The two largest rivers, Tigris and Euphrates, flow down the core of Iraq before bending towards Iran to share those waters briefly with Iran before meeting the ocean. No other country gets so much of a taste unless Iraq agrees. Iran has little fresh water as does Syria. Saudi Arabia has almost none. It is one thing to control oil fields. The wealth from that resource can buy desalination plants that give your expanding population the water to survive. If the oil tap is cut off, the economies of the west would begin to wither and die within three months. Cut off water and populations begin to die within three days |
| Posted by:RWV |