Crystal unclear: the challenges of water politics in the Middle East.

Due to its importance, water is a double-edged sword. In addition to water's life-giving properties, it acts as a major source of conflict in areas that have a limited supply. Middle Eastern countries have had to divide water sources while ignoring all political boundaries, which has generated a great deal of hostility. Turkey, Syria, and Iraq, which share the Tigris-Euphrates water, and Israel and Palestine, which share the Jordan River basin, are cases illustrative of the relationship dynamic among riparian states and of the effect a scarcity of water has had in the greater Middle East.

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Although cooperation of the riparian states is crucial in settling water conflicts in the Middle East, inequalities among the involved states render successful cooperation a difficult process, especially when the countries are left to their own accord. Still, sharing water through multilateral agreements would provide the simplest solution to the disputes over water. While incorporating technology is another possible solution to the water problem, almost all technological solutions to water scarcity are either too expensive or too risky, due to the potential for water shortage. Four individual inequality types amongst riparian countries--geography, resources, economy and military capacity--have kept fair water-sharing agreements from becoming a political reality. Some of these inequalities can and should be addressed.

Inequalities in Geography

There are many inequalities among the disputing riparian states that make cooperation between the stronger and weaker states difficult. One of these inequalities is that of geographic location. Usually the upstream riparian has advantages over the lower riparian states. This is clearly seen in the case of Turkey, Syria, and Iraq. Turkey is the upstream riparian of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers to Syria and Iraq, meaning that Turkey controls the headwater of the two rivers. This significantly boosts Turkey's political position, since Ankara has a say in how much water will flow down to the lower riparian states. With the ability to decide the amount of water that will be distributed among the three neighboring states, Turkey's regional influence increases drastically.

Geographic location affects more than just the political positions of the riparian states. Downstream riparian states are greatly affected even by projects that take place outside of their borders, since those projects might decrease the amount of water that flows into their lands. Starting as early as the 1970s, Turkey, Syria, and Iraq have had major difficulties in designing a working solution to sharing the Tigris-Euphrates water. The most recent and enduring problem has risen from Turkey's ambitious project called the Southeastern Anatolia Project (GAP), which plans on building 22 dams and 19 hydroelectric power stations and irrigation systems on the Euphrates. Eight dams were completed by 2005. Additionally, Syria is also taking on an extensive irrigation project to cover almost 773,000 acres of land. Such projects have devastating implications for Iraq, the downstream neighbor. After the completion of these projects, it is expected to receive almost 50 to 80 percent less water. Not only will Iraq see a reduction in its quantity of water, but it will also face a reduction in water quality due to field drainages and industrial pollution in the upper states. Because of its advantageous geographic location, Turkey can use the Tigris-Euphrates water without much concern for its downstream neighbors. Encouraging cooperation in such an unbalanced context is difficult, as Turkey wants to maintain its regional influence and ambitious damming projects.

In the Jordan River basin, Israel also exercises political supremacy over other riparian states due to its superior geographic location. According to Frederick Frey and Thomas Naff, Israel uses water as an instrument for "establishing and maintaining control over a majority population in the interests of a minority group." Israel enforces exact water restrictions on Palestine, allowing Israel to enjoy more water from the Jordan basin than Palestine. An example of Israel's strictness is in its policy regarding the wells of that region. While Israeli wells are 300 to 400 meters deep on average, Palestinian wells are only about 70 meters deep. The tremendous difference in depths results in Israeli wells having less salinity and more production capacity than Palestinian ones. Another result of this difference is the drying-up of Palestinian wells when an Israeli well is in its proximity. Because Israelis forbid Palestinians' creating of new wells or repairing of old ones, Palestine faces serious challenges of water supply. From these strict policies, Israel's per capita use of the Jordan basin water has become five times greater than that of the West Bank Palestinians.

Inequalities in geographic location result in a superior state gaining control and influence over the water policies and usages in that region. The superior states also earn more political power from their strategic locations, ultimately resulting in reluctance to cooperate with other riparian states. The current system is unhealthy in that Turkey and Israel wield a disproportionate amount of power in their respective regions in the water-sharing process. Realistically, these states will not change their behavior without some form of outside intervention. Because all concerned nations belong to the UN, the creation of a non-partisan group within the frameworks of this organization might be a viable solution. Such a group would divide water based on objective criteria such as population count and ensure that the lower riparian states receive a livable water supply.

Inequalities in Available Water Resources

In addition to their geographic advantages, Turkey and Israel enjoy more natural sources of water than their neighbors do, creating yet another inequality. Syria and Iraq depend only on the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers for water, whereas Turkey has a number of other resources from which to retrieve water. In contrast to Syria and Iraq, which are composed mostly of deserts, Turkey's borders lie on the coasts of the Black Sea and the Mediterranean Sea. Even the driest regions of Turkey receive a greater amount of rainfall than do Syria or Iraq. Additionally, many rivers besides the Tigris-Euphrates run throughout Turkey. These rivers, including the Coruh and the Sakarya, are independent of the Tigris-Euphrates basin. In contrast, both Syria and Iraq depend almost completely on the Tigris and Euphrates, making this water supply more significant.

A similar dynamic exists in the Jordan basin. According to 1985 statistics, Israel received a significant amount of water--40 percent of its annual need--from the West Bank aquifer. Unlike Israel, however, Jordan has no watershed to rely on besides the Jordan River. It must depend on methods like rain catchment and underground or out-of-basin transfers to meet almost 54 percent of the nation's water needs. For a country like Jordan that frequently suffers droughts, methods like rain catchment provide a very risky, unstable solution. The 1999 drought in Jordan and Syria further illustrates that neither country has sufficient irrigation to reduce their dependencies on rainfall. States like Syria, Iraq, and Jordan have a more dire need to share the Tigris-Euphrates or Jordan River basins than do Turkey or Israel, yet they do not have sufficient access to these supplies. This imbalance of water among the riparian states renders the entire water dispute uneven, with some nations in desperate need of the river basin water to survive and other nations with more flexibility in their water resources. Furthermore, the countries for which water resources are plentiful are coincidently also the upper-riparian countries that enjoy geographic advantages. Under the current system, influence is too heavily concentrated in one group of states. A more equitable distribution would guarantee a livable supply of water to nations without geographic advantage or resource flexibility.

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Inequalities in Economy

Inequalities in economic positions among the riparian states produce fundamentally different qualities of regional development. This relationship can clearly be seen in the cases of Turkey, Syria and Iraq. While all three countries have experienced economic difficulties, Turkey has emerged with the strongest economy among the three.

Since the mid-1990s, Syria's economy has been marked by unpaid debts and falling oil exports. In 1997 Syria fell behind in its payments of external debts, accumulating deficits nearing US$1.15 billion in that year alone. The future of Syrian oil looks dim, as older oil fields have reached maturity and oil companies are pessimistic about finding new oil reserves. The US has also applied strict economic sanctions under the Syria Accountability Act. The sanctions, which started in May 2004, ban most US exports to Syria, prohibit Syrian aircraft from taking off or landing in the United States, and ban the Commercial Bank of Syria from transactions with its US counterparts.