"Syria's Looming Water Calamity" – Pipes in NRO, #1334

Homepage    |     Articles    |     Blog

You can follow Daniel Pipes and the Middle East Forum on their Facebook and Twitter pages.

Please take a moment to visit and log in at the subscriber area, and submit your city & country location. We will use this information in future to invite you to any events that we organize in your area. Syria's Looming Water Calamity by Daniel Pipes Jun 1, 2014 Cross-posted from National Review Online, The Corner http://www.danielpipes.org/blog/2014/06/syria-looming-water-calamity Print Send Comment RSS Share: Be the first of your friends to like this. Two reports from Beirut's Al-Akhbar point to potentially catastrophic water problems about to affect Syria. The lesser concerns Aleppo, where mortar shells and barrel bombs have slackened off but Islamist rebels have shut down the city's potable water supply, forcing Aleppan residents in government-controlled areas to depend on wells and trucks for limited, contaminated, and expensive water. Lines of women and children "have become ubiquitous in front of mosque fountains and government wells in order to fill small containers such as cooking pots, teapots and plastic bottles as well as small barrels." According to an official at the Syrian Red Crescent, "The situation signals a humanitarian and health disaster." The greater problem concerns the Euphrates River, the second longest waterway of the Middle East. Nearly all its volume originates in the Republic of Turkey, from which it flows into Syria and Iraq, ending in the Persian Gulf. It provides about one-third of Syria's water supply. In the last few weeks, the Turkish government completely stopped Euphrates waters from leaving Turkey and flowing into Syria, something made possible by the enormous reservoir behind its Atatürk Dam. Two massive dams along the Euphrates River have created two huge reservoirs, one behind the Atatürk Dam in Turkey (upper right) and one behind the Tabqa Dam in Syria (lower right). This action threatens Syria and also Iraq with water crises. As one indication, the water level in Lake Assad, Syria's largest body of water, has gone down by about 20 feet. Within days, some 7 million Syrians could be left without water as well as electricity. Al-Akhbar notes that "A halt to the water supply is now inevitable and can't be resolved unless the Turkish government takes the decision to resume pumping Euphrates water." To make matters yet more worrisome, the fanatic Islamic State in Iraq and Syria group controls the Tishrin Dam, one of Syria's three dams on the Euphrates. A photograph from Al-Akhbar shows the severe drop in height of Lake Assad behind the Tabqa Dam in Syria. Comments: (1) The Syrian civil war keeps getting more ferocious, vicious, and barbaric – not a surprise given that Islamists, both domestic and foreign, dominate the fighting on both sides. (2) The Euphrates River contains some of the world's most volatile and fearsome waterworks; the Mosul Dam in Iraq, for example, could collapse, killing millions. Again, given the three states involved (Turkey, Syria, and Iraq), this also ranks as less than a surprise. (3) Should terminal dehydration kill massive numbers of Syrians, this will likely prompt Western opinion to call for intervention. (4) Turkey's AKP government has already shown itself callous about loss of life (recall the Soma coal mine disaster). But is Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan really about to commit what appears to be genocide? (June 1, 2014) Related Topics:  Syria, Turkey and Turks This text may be reposted or forwarded so long as it is presented as an integral whole with complete and accurate information provided about its author, date, place of publication, and original URL.

To subscribe to this list, go to http://www.danielpipes.org/list_subscribe.php Sign up for related (but non-duplicating) e-mail services:    Middle East Forum (articles and event reports)    Campus Watch (articles, blog posts)    Islamist Watch (articles, blog posts)    Legal Project (articles, blog posts) at http://www.danielpipes.org/list_subscribe.php DanielPipes.org