The recent row between Cairo and Ethiopia over Nile water is just one example of looming conflicts over water in the Middle East. Credit: Khaled Moussa al-Omrani/IPS

By Thomas W. Lippman
WASHINGTON, May 20 2014 (IPS)

The Middle East’s seemingly endless conflicts are diverting attention and resources from a graver long-term threat that looms over the whole region: the growing scarcity of water. And the situation will get worse before it gets better — if it ever does get better.

Years of war, careless water supply management, unchecked population growth, ill-advised agricultural policies, and subsidies that encourage consumption have turned a basically arid part of the world into a voracious consumer of water. The trajectory is not sustainable.

Those were the gloomy if unsurprising conclusions of a three-day conference on the subject in Istanbul last week. From Libya to Iraq to Yemen, too many people and too many animals have stretched water resources beyond their limits. Some countries where the urgency is greatest, including Syria and Yemen, are the least equipped to stave off serious water crises.

Jordan, always short of water, has been overwhelmed by a flood of refugees from Syria. Iraq, which once had ample water, has lost critical supplies to war and to dams built by Turkey upstream on the Tigris and Euphrates.

Egypt has twice as many people as it did 50 years ago, with no additional water resources. The isolated Gaza strip has been grappling with a water crisis for years. And Yemen’s scarce water supply is being gobbled up by the unchecked production of qat, a high-water crop with no nutritional value. Chewing the mildly narcotic qat leaf is Yemen’s national pastime.

“If you give them more water, they’ll just grow more qat,” one gloomy conference participant said.

But not all the news is bad. Stable countries with lots of money, led by Saudi Arabia, are making notable progress in supply, management and consumer education.

Elsewhere, however, the prognosis is grim. No one predicted an outbreak of “water wars,” or armed conflict over water supply, a spectre that has often been evoked but has never materialised.

But at some point in the not too distant future, water shortages could provoke mass migrations, human hardship, crop failures and some form of “triage” among populations as governments are forced to allocate supplies, said conferees, who cannot be named due to conference rules.

It’s not as if all this has gone unnoticed. The Middle East’s water issue has been the subject of news articles, analyses by groups such as the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organisation, and studies by think tanks and humanitarian groups for years.

The Istanbul conference of scientists, policy analysts and academics from eight countries — conducted on an island in the Sea of Marmara under the title “High and Dry: Addressing the Middle East Water Challenge” by the Hollings Center and the Prince Muhammad Bin Fahd Strategic Studies Program at the University of Central Florida — is the latest of many such gatherings.

But little has come of them because the region has never been stable enough for sufficient time to make any comprehensive, multilateral solution possible.
According to analyses by the World Bank, the U.S. State Department and others, a majority of the countries defined as “water-poor” — those with access to less than 1,000 cubic metres per person per year — are in the Middle East and North Africa.

The State Department also predicts that climate change will add to the problem by bringing “consistently lower levels of rainfall.”

No government or international agency can increase rainfall or snow runoff. But the Istanbul conferees heard that the example of Saudi Arabia — the world’s largest country without a river — shows that a great deal can be done in countries with deep pockets and enough time to focus on the issue.

Saudi Arabia reorganised its government in the 1990s to centralise water planning and management. Most of the country’s water for personal and household use is supplied by massive desalination plants. The decision to build them, starting in the 1970s, was an obvious one for the kingdom.

But the plants are expensive to construct and operate, leaving them beyond the financial reach of a country like Yemen.

Saudi Arabia meanwhile leads the region in the recapture and reuse of wastewater. Under a new regulation from last year, for example, its giant dairy farms are required to operate on recycled water purchased from the National Water Company rather than on groundwater as in the past.

Once the world’s fifth- or sixth-largest exporter of wheat — the production of which requires massive amounts of water — Saudi Arabia has banned the cultivation of wheat as of 2016 and is refocusing its agriculture on greenhouse production of vegetables and fruit.

Growing animal fodder crops such as alfalfa has been banned; owners of livestock are required to purchase imported fodder, conference participants said. Plagued by leaks in distribution pipes that drained off as much as 25 percent of the water it had, Saudi Arabia privatised its distribution network and encouraged foreign engineering and management companies to participate.

Saudi Arabia has raised the price of water for businesses and institutions, but it has not yet ended the subsidies for households that make water so cheap; there is little incentive to limit consumption.

Doing so would be politically risky in a country where subsidies for water, gasoline, and electricity are expected by a population that has no vote or other influence over the government.

Egypt, by far the most populous country in the region, has a different consumer attitude problem. Egyptians have taken the availability of water for granted since completion of the Aswan High Dam in 1970. As a result, they use waster casually in the home and pump more irrigation water than is necessary onto their fields.

But Egypt’s biggest concern now is Ethiopia’s plan to construct a giant hydroelectric dam on the headwaters of the Nile, reducing the flow and the amount of water stored in Lake Nasser, behind the Aswan Dam.

Asked recently if negotiations over Nile water allocations were taking place between Egypt and the upstream countries, Foreign Minister Nabil Fahmy replied, “No. I wish they were.”

Participants in Istanbul agreed that there is no single remedy for the water crisis. The available fixes range from the simple and obvious, such as consumer education and the installation of low-flow bathroom fixtures, to the aspirational, such as the development of desalination plants powered by solar energy, which are thus affordable.

As usual with such events, the organisers will prepare a paper outlining recommendations. The fact is, however, that solutions, even if available, will be hard to implement until the shooting stops, refugees are resettled, and governments are sufficiently stable to address them. That won’t be soon.

Thomas W. Lippman is an adjunct scholar at the Middle East Institute and author of Saudi Arabia on the Edge.

If you are confused or baffled by Saudi Arabia’s foreign policy moves over the past month or so, you are hardly alone. It appears the Saudis themselves don’t know quite what to make of the various situations in which they find themselves.

The kingdom’s stated objectives are well known: to get rid of the regime of Bashar al-Assad in Syria, curtail Iran’s nuclear ambitions, put a halt to what they see as Iranian trouble-making around the region, and forge a political union among the six members of the Gulf Cooperation Council.Syria is the biggest and most immediate problem, but hardly the only one. Riyadh’s firm refusal to do business with the Maliki government in Iraq has had the effect of making Iraq more dependent on Iran rather than less.

None of those goals is within reach under present circumstances – Oman publicly rejected the GCC political union proposal and said it would leave the group if it were accepted – and it is difficult to perceive how Saudi Arabia’s recent tactical moves are going to bring them any closer.

At the same time, through intemperate rhetoric and pointless gestures such as rejecting a seat on the U.N. Security Council that they had long sought, they risk undermining their longstanding security partnership with the United States, the only country strong enough to protect the al-Saud rulers from potential predators around them.

“It’s an ad hoc, shoot-from-the-hip policy that has no strategic vision,” one well-connected analyst observed the other day.

Syria is the biggest and most immediate problem, but hardly the only one. Riyadh’s firm refusal to do business with the Nouri al-Maliki government in Iraq has had the effect of making Iraq more dependent on Iran rather than less – the very outcome to which the Saudis say they object.

A strong, prosperous Iraq could again be the buffer between Saudi Arabia and Iran that it was under Saddam Hussein (1979-2003), but the Saudis are doing nothing to help Iraq rebuild. They have left that field to Iran.

In another seeming contradiction, Saudi Arabia has been a shrill critic of the interim nuclear agreement between the West and Iran. But at the recent GCC summit conference, the Saudis signed off on a statement from the group endorsing that deal.

“The Supreme Council welcomed the interim agreement which was signed by the P 5 +1 with Iran on November 24, 2013 in Geneva,” the official communiqué from that meeting said, “as a preliminary step towards a comprehensive and lasting solution to the Iranian nuclear programme that would put an end to concerns on the international and regional level about this programme, and enhance the region’s security and stability…”

That is pretty much the rationale expressed by the United States and the other members of the negotiating group, a rationale the Saudis have rejected.

In Syria, the Saudis have put themselves in an extremely delicate position. They are all in on the ouster of Assad, and yet after three years of conflict the Syrian leader appears to be gaining strength against the fragmented forces of the rebellion.

Riyadh wants to engineer Assad’s departure, mostly because of his alliance with Iran and Hezbollah, without delivering Syria into the hands of Islamic extremists and jihadists who would impose strict Islamic law on the country and then turn their attention to their neighbours. That is a delicate balance that may not be achievable by remote control from Riyadh.

“It seems that any group, however extreme in its Islamism, is an acceptable party for Saudi support, be it private or public, as long as it does not refer to itself as an al-Qaeda offshoot,” observed Jean Francois Seznec, a scholar with a wide knowledge of Gulf affairs.

In an article written for the Norwegian foreign ministry, Seznec said that the Islamist forces Saudi Arabia is supporting may not be affiliated with Al-Qaeda but still “promote a rabid anti-Shi’a and anti-Christian ideology, turning the rest of the world against them and by association against the moderate opposition, and thereby limiting the Saudis’ ability to unite the opposition.”

It may be possible that the groups, backed by enough money from Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states and private contributors, can forge themselves into a coherent rebel force that would decisively turn the tide against Assad and then form an inclusive government in Damascus.

But given that Assad has his own wealthy supporter, Iran, that seems to be a long shot. Saudi Arabia’s real problem, as Seznec noted, is that despite the billions it has spent on weapons acquisition over decades, it lacks the military power to do anything on its own in Syria. The Kingdom has no force-projection capability, and thus must rely on proxies with dubious credentials.

In a recent interview in TIME, Iranian foreign minister Mohammad Javad Zarif seemed to relish taunting Saudi Arabia about the dangerous game it is playing in Syria.

“We are satisfied, totally satisfied, convinced that there is no military solution in Syria and that there is a need to find a political solution in Syria,” he said.

“If you want to prevent a void, the types of consequences that we are talking about, I mean if you want to avoid extremism in this region, if you want to prevent a Syria becoming a breeding ground for extremists who will use Syria basically as a staging ground to attack other countries – be it Lebanon, be it Iraq, be it Jordan, Saudi Arabia, even Turkey – these countries are going to be susceptible to a wave of extremism that will find its origins in Syria and the continuation of this tragedy in Syria can only provide the best breeding ground for extremists who use this basically as a justification, as a recruiting climate in order to wage the same type of activity in other parts of this region.”

He had a point.

An article in the current issue of Masarat, a journal published by the King Faisal Research Centre in Riyadh, said the unwillingness of the U.S. and other Western nations to take the field against Assad has left Saudi Arabia with no choice but to adopt more assertive policies and take on wider responsibility for regional stability.

“The Kingdom and its regional allies will increase their support to the Syrian rebels and prevent the collapse of collateral nations like Lebanon and Jordan,” the article said.

It called for the creation of a regional security alliance – led, of course, by Saudi Arabia.

“It is absolutely vital that a Saudi-led regional project succeed in Syria. The only way the Arab world can make progress is through a collective security framework initially made up of Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, Morocco and the GCC partner nations.” (Note the omission of Iraq from that wish list.)

The article did not mention that those “GCC partner nations” have never been willing to enter any collective security arrangement that would be dominated by the Saudis, or that Egypt, which has its hands full at home, is in no position to take on new commitments elsewhere.

And even if those proposed partners signed on, how long would it take them to put together an operation that could save Syria?

It appears that the Masarat article reflects official thinking because Prince Mohammed bin Nawaf bin Abdulaziz, a grandson of the founding king who is the ambassador to Britain, said much the same thing in a column published by the New York Times.

“We believe that many of the West’s policies on both Iran and Syria risk the stability and security of the Middle East. This is a dangerous gamble, about which we cannot remain silent, and will not stand idly by,” the column said.

The West might cut deals with Assad and with the Iranians, the ambassador wrote, but deals with odious and dangerous regimes such as those are strategically dangerous and morally unacceptable.

Because of its wealth and its position in Islam, the ambassador said, Saudi Arabia has “enormous responsibilities” throughout the region. “We will act to fulfill these responsibilities, with or without the support of our Western partners.”

Negotiations aimed at stabilising Syria are scheduled to begin under United Nations auspices on Jan. 22. If they fail to halt the bloodshed, which seems a safe bet, the rebels will expect Saudi Arabia to deliver on its promise. As Americans like to say, Good luck with that.

Thomas W. Lippman is an adjunct scholar at the Middle East Institute and author of Saudi Arabia on the Edge.

Shortly after President Obama’s startling telephone conversation with Iran’s new president, Hassan Rouhani, a Saudi Arabian journalist wrote that “The phone call between Obama and Rouhani shocked the Gulf states, Jordan, Turkey, Israel, and other countries.” No matter which president initiated the call, he wrote, “What is important to know is what stands behind the conversation and how deep the ties are between America and Iran.”

Never mind that there are no “ties” between Washington and Tehran, let alone “deep” ones. His article reflected concern among Saudis that the United States might negotiate some wide-ranging settlement of its issues with Iran and that any such deal would automatically be detrimental to Saudi interests.

Such anxiety has surfaced in Riyadh many times over the past two decades, dating to Madeleine Albright’s unsuccessful efforts to reach out to Iran when she was secretary of state in Bill Clinton’s second term. No doubt many prominent Saudis share the journalist’s sentiment, not just in the ruling family but in the Sunni religious establishment.

In their short-sighted view, regional security is a zero-sum game: if it benefits Iran, it must be bad for Saudi Arabia. To this group, as the authors of a major RAND Corp. study noted in 2009, “the prospect of U.S.-Iranian rapprochement (or even near-term coordination on Iraq) would appear to jeopardize the privileged position Riyadh has long enjoyed in Gulf affairs.”

Since that study appeared, Saudi antipathy to Iran has only increased. Iran’s growing influence in Iraq, its all-out support for the regime of Bashar al-Assad in Syria and for Hezbollah in Lebanon, and its perceived instigation of civil unrest in Bahrain have exacerbated Saudi anxieties and reinforced the kingdom’s determination to keep Iran isolated and economically constrained.

At the same time, the Saudi perception that the United States abandoned Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak, a longtime ally, and might do the same to them if regional circumstances changed, has led some Saudis to doubt the long-term reliability of the United States as anchor of the kingdom’s security. Their doubts were not alleviated when panelists at a Gulf security conference in Washington earlier this year projected a reversal of the regional alignment over the coming decade, with Iran emerging as more friendly to the United States and Saudi Arabia less so.

The Saudis have also been peeved about the inability of the United States to deliver on its commitment to a two-state solution that would end the Arab-Israeli conflict. That diplomatic stalemate has allowed Iran, which refuses to acknowledge Israel’s existence and openly supports Hezbollah, to present itself to the Arab world as the true champion of justice for the Palestinians, as opposed to the Saudis, who have offered a comprehensive plan for peace with Israel.

Furthermore, the Saudis went all-in to try to engineer the ouster of Assad, believing that they were in tune with U.S. policy. Now they may be feeling exposed as the United States and Russia appear to be pursuing a different course.

And it is certainly true that many of Saudi Arabia’s leading officials, including some diplomats in the foreign ministry, harbor a deep loathing for, and suspicion of, all things Shia. A softer U.S. line on Iran would not make those Saudis more comfortable in the bilateral relationship.

Moreover, the Rouhani initiative, assuming it is genuine rather than cosmetic, coincides with a growing realization in Saudi Arabia that the United States is becoming steadily less dependent on Gulf oil. Could the Obama administration’s announced shift of strategic resources to Asia presage a reduction of U.S. commitments in the Gulf? Senior U.S. officials say no: Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said a few months ago that “You can take it to the bank” that the U.S. will maintain its posture in the Gulf for the foreseeable future.

Thus, recent reports of anxiety in Riyadh about a possible shift in relations between Washington and Tehran were predictable, and may well have some basis in fact.

But there are also Saudis who understand that a better relationship between Washington and Tehran might actually benefit the kingdom. After all, the two countries shared a strategic alignment with the United States before the Iranian revolution.

In that era, Iran was far more powerful than Saudi Arabia militarily and economically, but the Saudis did not perceive it as a strategic threat, partly because it was influenced by the United States and partly because Saddam Hussein’s Iraq provided a protective buffer — a buffer that the United States dismantled with its invasion of Iraq a decade ago.

Even during the past decade, when tensions were high over Lebanon, Bahrain, Iraq and other issues, the Saudis and Iranians found ways to work cooperatively when it was in the interests of both countries. “Such calculations often take place independently of U.S. pressure or encouragement,” the RAND report noted, adding that in past times of tension with Washington the Saudis have been more flexible, rather than less so, in their regional rivalries.

“With the ‘moderation’ discourse strengthened during the presidency of recently elected Hassan Rouhani, pragmatism will be enhanced in Iran’s regional policy,” the columnist Kayhan Barzegar, an experienced analyst of Gulf affairs, predicted in the online magazine al-Monitor after Rouhani was inaugurated.

“This development will weaken the existing ‘mutual threat’ perception between Iran and Saudi Arabia that is rooted primarily in the policies of both countries in response to regional issues. Such a development will also consequently strengthen relations between the two.

“Iran and Saudi Arabia are not interested in an intensification of sectarian or geostrategic regional rivalries. They are well aware that such rivalries will eventually be instrumentalized and used politically, draining energy from both sides. The result will be increased instability and growth of extremist trends in their backyard. Conflict between the two also provides an opportunity for other rival actors, such as Turkey and Qatar, to play an active role in regional issues at their expense, such as happened with the Syrian crisis, which is not currently welcomed by the Iranians or the Saudis.”

In fact, there are several ways in which a lessening of tensions between Iran and the United States could actually benefit Saudi Arabia. To achieve some form of rapprochement with the United States now, Iran would be required to forgo definitively any attempt to build or acquire nuclear weapons — a development that could hardly be depicted as detrimental to Saudi interests.

The United States would also press Iran to curtail the aggressive policies that have destabilised the region for years. If Iran’s leaders truly want relief from international economic sanctions, they will have to persuade the countries that imposed them that they will be good neighbours to Iraq, Saudi Arabia and the smaller Gulf states. Would that not assuage some of the security concerns that have prompted Saudi Arabia to spend tens of billions of dollars on new U.S. weapons?

If Iran were to curtail its support for Hezbollah in order to improve relations with Washington and the West, it might forfeit its position as “more Arab than the Arabs” on the issue of Israel, another development that could be to Saudi Arabia’s advantage.

And Saudi Arabia’s Gulf neighbours such as Qatar might no longer feel the need to hedge their bets by keeping some distance between themselves and Saudi Arabia and maintaining correct relations with Iran, thus facilitating Saudi Arabia’s desire to exert the regional leadership to which it feels entitled.

On a visit to South Asia when she was secretary of state, Albright chided the Pakistanis for opposing a U.S. initiative to expand economic ties with India. The initiative was not aimed at undermining Pakistan, she said, and might actually be helpful if an expanding Indian economy brought greater cross-border trade.

The Pakistanis didn’t buy it, but that did not diminish the validity of her message. It might be useful now for Obama and Secretary of State John F. Kerry to explain to the Saudis that any deal with Iran will be a long time in the making and will not damage U.S. ties with Riyadh unless the Saudis want it that way.

Thomas W. Lippman is an adjunct scholar at the Middle East Institute and author of Saudi Arabia on the Edge.