President Donald Trump has threatened to attack Iranian desalination plants, while repeating earlier warnings that the United States might bomb Iran’s energy and electricity infrastructure. If the United States or Israel follow through on these attacks, it will harm Iran’s critical infrastructure and civilian population, while doing little to harm the Islamic Republic’s military capabilities. There are few good options in the war being waged by the United States and Israel against Iran, and striking Iranian energy and water-related infrastructure is not one of them.
Striking Iran’s electricity infrastructure would have little impact on its military capabilities
While Iran’s civilian population would face grave dangers if the electricity grid—and thus water infrastructure—and refineries are destroyed, the ruling regime’s military would face few direct setbacks. Outside of some grid-connected manufacturing facilities—which can be targeted independently, without destroying the entire power system—the Iranian military has only limited ties with the national electricity system. Instead, like most militaries, the Iranian military primarily uses middle distillates, especially diesel and jet fuel (but Iran effectively no longer has an air force, and so has curtailed jet fuel consumption). Not only can diesel be stored for months, but the military accounts for a small fraction of Iran’s total consumption of this product.
The US experience in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars in 2008 serves as a rough point of reference. This period saw ultra-high military tempos and depressed civilian demand due to high oil prices and, later, the Great Recession. Still, total US distillate demand—which is largely composed of diesel—was overwhelmingly in the civilian sector: Military distillate annual demand in 2008 of 67,000 barrels per day reached just 1.7 percent of total US distillate demand. Iran’s total diesel consumption in 2024 stood at 684,000 barrels per day. Iranian forces will almost certainly continue to have ample access to diesel for military operations and will be able to fight on.
Attacks on the energy-water carries high risk
The 92 million individuals who live in Iran rely on electricity for life-sustaining services, including cooling, hospital operations, and more. Furthermore, electricity is critical for powering Iran’s groundwater wells that provide sanitation services, along with water for food and drinking. Accordingly, striking Iran’s water-related infrastructure will immediately spark a crisis of disease, hunger, and thirst among Iran’s civilian population. Children and infants will be most at risk. During the 1991 Gulf War, blackouts and resulting water outages in Iraq led to epidemics of typhoid, cholera, gastroenteritis, and malaria, while some estimates hold that 100,000 Iraqi individuals died due to health consequences from the war. Child mortality more than tripled.
Leaving aside the moral and potential legal consequences of airstrikes against Iranian water infrastructure in the absence of a proportionate threat, these attacks would be counterproductive to US war aims. Destroying Iran’s water infrastructure would severely damage goodwill toward the United States. Many Iranians—including those who bravely protested against the regime—might regard the United States as a threat instead of an ally to their cause.
The United States might also stand to lose support from Gulf allies. The region, not only Iran, is vulnerable to the water-electricity nexus. Desalination plants require large amounts of energy, including natural gas and oil; Saudi Arabia uses around 300,000 barrels of oil per day for desalination. Because the process is energy intensive, around three quarters of GCC desalination plants are integrated into national electrical grids—meaning water and electricity are produced simultaneously. Just as striking Iranian natural gas production or even refineries would destabilize the country’s water supply, any attacks against regional states’ electricity assets could also trigger a water crisis. With just fifty-six plants responsible for more than 90 percent of the Gulf’s desalinated water, Iranian strikes could plausibly cause severe pain across the region.
In the immediate term, if multiple or large-to-mega-sized desalination plant processes were significantly disrupted, impacts would be felt within forty-eight to seventy-two hours. Emergency response and resiliency capabilities vary among the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states, with water storage reserves possibly lasting sixteen to forty-five days in the United Arab Emirates; Saudi Arabia’s water reserves are far less developed, and vary across the country—lasting from a few days to two weeks. Qatar, Kuwait, and Bahrain all possess less than a week of water.
Assuming Iran quickly engages in tit-for-tat retaliation against regional states after an attack on its own electricity and water infrastructure, the Middle East could see millions of people facing life-threatening dangers related to severe shortages of potable water and electricity.
Though the GCC states would be most acutely affected, Israel and Iraq will also suffer if their energy or water infrastructure were damaged. Iran already targeted Dimona and Arad, cities close to Israeli nuclear assets, reportedly injuring hundreds of civilians. If its desalination infrastructure is hit, Israel could risk losing 80 percent of its drinking water. Attacks on Iran may indirectly jeopardize Iraq: Iran supplies its neighbor with about a third of its natural gas and power needs. In southern Iraq’s Basra governorate, electricity powers upwards of 72 percent of water treatment infrastructure, so outages could trigger a water crisis.
Destroying energy and water resources
Striking Iranian electricity, water, and energy infrastructure will not achieve the military campaign’s stated goal of degrading the Iranian military, which would face only minor disruptions. However, it would greatly harm Iranian civilians. It would also plunge the region into an unprecedented crisis of water shortages, while the world would see the gravest global energy crisis in living memory. Instead of ending the war, destroying Iran’s civilian energy and water infrastructure would likely only serve to prolong and escalate the conflict.
Joseph Webster is a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Global Energy Center and the Indo-Pacific Security Initiative; he also edits the independent China-Russia Report.
Ginger Matchett is an assistant director with the GeoStrategy Initiative in the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security.
This article reflects their own personal opinions.
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Image: A drone view shows a water desalination station established for the first time, that uses groundwater, which aims to fight water scarcity among residents and in agriculture, in Basra, Iraq March 27, 2024. REUTERS/Mohammed Aty