The people of the Gulf live in a desert, but the population of the region far exceeds the natural carrying capacity. This has been possible due to the huge oil wealth of the area that’s allowed the various monarchies to build desalination plants to provide for adequate water supplies. They’ve also been building complex modern cities, along with ridiculous infrastructure like palm-shaped islands and indoor ski hills, allowing the population to live in an elevated state of luxury, with imported servants from all over the world, also sustained by the desalination plants. Now all that infrastructure is under threat, and the authoritatian monarchies are beginning to experience a rapid convergence with reality.
The Gulf countries are all vassals of the US empire, hosting huge American military bases, many luxury-loving western expats, data centres, American universities and more. Under the petrodollar system, they’ve invested heavily in American weaponry, not so much for anticipated use, but as tithe to the American military industrial complex. Now the region is at war – war begun by the US at the behest of Israel. The US is using the military infrastructure it built to conduct the war, but this is implicating the Gulf monarchies in the conflict, making them targets for retaliation. Some are more willing than others, and at least one – Qatar – has already said enough is enough, after their new $26 billion LNG plant took $20 billion of damage and will be offline for up to five years.
Israel, which has long coveted the land of the Arabs for lenbensraum, has a vested interest in keeping the conflict going, and specifically in encouraging Iran to retaliate against Gulf infrastructure. If the US appear reluctant to strike, Israel takes matters into its own hands in targeting Iranian infrastructure on a false flag basis. The intention is to provoke an internecine conflict between the Sunni monarchies and Shia Iran, in order to watch them destroy each other for Israel’s benefit.
Trump, who is likely being blackmailed as well as bribed to follow Israel’s lead, has been threatening to destroy Iran’s civilian infrastructure, notably its power grid, if a deal to open the Straits of Hormuz is not reached, but he’s building in progressive delays. Israel has stepped into the breach and begun to do what Trump threatened, including bombing Iran nuclear reactor at Bushehr multiple times. Iran is retaliating as promised, against both Israel and the Gulf countries, but so far in a measured way. The critical factor will be the desalination plants, upon which the Gulf is utterly dependent. Iran itself only uses desalination as a minor supplement to its water supply, but some Gulf countries are virtually 100% dependent on it, and all obtain the clear majority of their water in this way.
If the desalination plants are taken out, the result will be catastrophic. There is no alternative source that can be called upon for the millions of people living in the region. A lack of water in a desert is a death sentence in a matter of days, and it would be impossible to evacuate the region before a humanitarian catastrophe set in. The wealthy are already leaving the region if they can, although they mostly can’t expect any help from their own governments, and airports are being damaged. Others are simply trapped, hoping that their water supply survives. The depopulation of the Gulf is a distinct possibility at this point, but it isn’t Iran’s doomsday plan, it’s Israel’s.
