We need to remind ourselves now that things never had to go this way, this collapse was caused by cruel choice.

also see https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/us-strikes-leave-10000-iranians-without-water-kuwait-desalination-plant-burns

This article from 2019 by CSIS aged with extremely potent notes of bleak, absurdist, unintentional satire.

In 2009, leaked U.S. State Department diplomatic cables suggested that a hostile act against Saudi Arabia’s desalination plant at Jubail would force Riyadh to evacuate “within a week,” as the plant at that time provided Riyadh with over 90 percent of its drinking water.59 Ras al-Khair is now Saudi Arabia’s (and the world’s) largest desalination plant and is also vulnerable to an Iranian attack.

In one assessment, analysts noted that “every desalination plant built is a hostage to fortune; they are easily sabotaged; they can be attacked from the air or by shelling from off-shore; and their intake ports have to be kept clear, giving another simple way of preventing their operation.” 60 Cyberattacks also present a serious threat to Saudi desalination plants like Ras al-Khair. Beyond these types of attacks, Saudi Arabia and its neighbors need to worry about the water quality itself. An intentional (or even an unintentional) oil spillage near Ras al-Khair, for example, would render the water unusable for desalination, a concern which was realized during the Gulf War after Iraq deliberately opened the valves at a Kuwaiti oil terminal and created a massive oil slick in the Gulf.

…

While facilities like Ras al-Khair are vulnerable to an attack, Iran has not significantly targeted desalination plants in the past. This may be because attacking a strategic desalination plant would be a hostile act of war and signify a major escalation in conflict. It might also be because it is a civilian—rather than a military or commercial—target with significant humanitarian ramifications. Still, it is possible that Iran or one of its partners like the Houthis could target a component of the desalination system—such as water pipelines—which causes limited damage but signals Iran’s ability to escalate further.

…

the United States and its partners should focus on deterring Iranian escalation through the threat—and when appropriate—the use of measured offensive actions. As Thomas Schelling argued in his influential study Arms and Influence, “it is the threat of damage, or of more damage to come, that can make someone yield or comply. It is latent violence that can influence someone’s choice—violence that can still be withheld or inflicted, or that a victim believes can be withheld or inflicted.”75 The United States needs to continue to communicate to Iran that major attacks against Saudi and other critical infrastructure—which do significant damage to oil and gas infrastructure, desalination facilities, electricity grids, SCADA systems, or other infrastructure—will be met with a harsh response. Deterring Iran requires signaling the intent and capabilities to strike Iranian targets, including by continuing to have a robust U.S. second-strike capability.

The challenge, however, is that it will be difficult—and perhaps impossible—to deter Iran from some types of offensive cyber operations and irregular attacks from partners, such as the Houthis. This is the nature of irregular warfare. The U.S. diplomat George Kennan referred to this type of routine warfare as “the perpetual rhythm of struggle” between states. 76 Consequently, the United States should focus on deterring escalatory missile and cyberattacks against oil, desalination, electricity, SCADA, and other infrastructure.

https://www.csis.org/analysis/irans-threat-saudi-critical-infrastructure-implications-us-iranian-escalation

Also see this article from March https://attheu.utah.edu/law-politics/gulf-desalination-plants-in-irans-crosshairs/

As I worked through the end of that project, I collected a variety of Ottoman, British, American and Arabic-language materials on desalination. I decided that my next project would tell the story of the Gulf inside out. Don’t focus on the oil. It’s important, but I wanted to reframe these petrostates as what I call “Saltwater Kingdoms.”’ They produce the most man-made fossil-fueled water in the world.

Everybody starts with the basic equation: the Gulf equals oil. We think of these oil-wealthy Gulf monarchs as petro-states. Fair enough. Prior to oil wealth, these were sparsely populated Bedouin territories, by modern standards, destitute. No material wealth. The transformation is quite obvious. What I think people tend not to understand is the interconnection between oil wealth and this water infrastructure. The 20th century is also a story of the installation of massive desalination units all across the Gulf. This process started even before the discovery of oil. The steam and coal-powered British Empire, as it moved between the Mediterranean and India, for example, they realize, “We don’t have enough water resources to support industrialization, new labor flows, the kinds of business that we want to do.”

Another from March

https://fortune.com/2026/03/08/iran-war-persian-gulf-saltwater-kingdoms-desalination-attacks-infrastructure-evacuations/