{"id":1313,"date":"2003-02-04T21:30:00","date_gmt":"2003-02-05T01:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.meehawl.com\/Blogfiles-wp\/?p=1313"},"modified":"2003-02-04T21:30:00","modified_gmt":"2003-02-05T01:30:00","slug":"its-all-about-the-water","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.meehawl.com\/Blogfiles\/2003\/02\/04\/21\/30\/its-all-about-the-water\/","title":{"rendered":"It’s All About The Water?!?"},"content":{"rendered":"

So someone else reminded me that Iraq controls the largest single source of above-ground fresh water in the Middle East<\/a>: the confluence between the Tigris, the Euphrates, and the Greater and Lesser Zabs. This once-super-fertile region<\/a> is where agriculture began and also where one of the earliest human-created ecological disasters<\/a> of deforestation, salination<\/a>, and over-grazing led to a massive population collapse during the first phase of human city building. And this accounts for the persisten of the Eden myth in Semitic-influenced cultures. Simply put, Iraq was the<\/a> Garden of Eden<\/a>. You’ve come a long way, baby. Anyway, Iraq still has all this water and Saudi Arabia and Israel<\/a> have, well, almost none left. And their situation is getting worse. I remember back during the first Gulf War at a peace rally I said the next war would be fought over water, not oil, and I think it will be interesting to see if Halliburton gets the Iraq-Israel canal contract if and when Iraq is subdued.<\/p>\n

I note that in 1953 under the Johnston Plan<\/a>, the US proposed that Israel should receive just under 40% of the Jordan River water, with various Arab states receiving shares. Although this arrangement was rejected by all countries but Israel, Jordan has tacitly allowed Israel to drain this proportion of water from the river.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

So someone else reminded me that Iraq controls the largest single source of above-ground fresh water in the Middle East: the confluence between the Tigris, the Euphrates, and the Greater and Lesser Zabs. This...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1313","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t