A professor specializing in engineering and international relations has issued a cautionary assessment regarding the strategic implications of targeting water infrastructure, particularly desalination plants, in any potential military confrontation within the Persian Gulf region. The warning highlights the critical dependence of key U.S. allies on such facilities.

Professor Najmedin Meshkati of the USC Viterbi School of Engineering underscored that the Persian Gulf hosts the world's largest concentration of desalination capacity, accounting for approximately 40% of the global desalinated water supply. He noted the profound reliance of several Arab Gulf nations on these plants for potable water. For instance, Kuwait reportedly derives nearly 90% of its drinking water from desalination, Bahrain 88%, and Qatar, which hosts the largest U.S. military base in the Middle East, depends on desalination for more than 99% of its needs. Saudi Arabia relies on it for 60%, and the United Arab Emirates for 42%. These countries, according to Meshkati, typically maintain only a few days' worth of water reserves.

Meshkati articulated a "strategic irony," suggesting that America's regional allies in any confrontation with Iran are acutely vulnerable due to their reliance on this infrastructure. He argued that any military action targeting desalination facilities, whether Iranian or belonging to other nations, risks initiating a severe escalatory cycle. Such an escalation, he warned, would disproportionately impact these allied nations.

The engineering expert contended that striking power and desalination plants would be counterproductive, failing to achieve strategic objectives or subjugate a regime. Instead, he predicted it would provoke a humanitarian catastrophe of immense scale, destabilize the region's partners crucial for any post-conflict order, and potentially hand a propaganda victory to adversaries. Meshkati referenced historical observations about the unpredictability of war, cautioning against actions that could lead to "unforeseeable and uncontrollable events" and "awful miscalculations." He emphasized that these facilities are not merely incidental civilian installations but indispensable "lifelines" for the populations in the region.