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Iraq-Iran: From water dispute to war

The Shatt al-Arab river forms part of the boundary between Iran and Iraq before flowing into the Persian Gulf. Due to its strategic importance, both countries have for centuries defended their sovereignty rights over the river, with tensions escalating in the 1960s. The Shatt al-Arab dispute was, among other drivers, behind the outbreak of the 1980-1988 war between the two countries. Recently, bilateral relations have been normalised and the co-riparians have concluded agreements on both the delimitation and joint management of the river.

Conceptual Model

Climate ChangeEnvironmental ChangeFragility and Conflict RisksIntermediary MechanismsChanging climate leads to decreased water availability.Sea level rise leads to salinization of coastal aquifers.Freshwater becomes scarce as an essential resource.Pollution reduces fish stocks.Decline in fish stocks endangers the livelihoods of fishermen.Water scarcity undermines water-dependent livelihoods.Reduced availability of/access to natural resources leads to tensions between states.Livelihood insecurity leads to interstate tensions.A slow change in climatic conditions, particularly temperature and precipitation.Gradual Change in Temperature and/or PrecipitationAn increase in the scarcity of clean water and/or an increased variability in water supply.A rise of sea-level and the related coastal degradation and change of land and territory.Sea Level RisePollution, and degradation of ecosystems, such as coral reefs.Pollution / Environmental DegradationReduced availability of essential natural resources, such as land and water.Change in Access / Availability of Natural ResourcesA decline in fish populations.Decline in Fish StocksA threat or destruction of livelihoods dependent on the availability of environmental resources / goods.Livelihood InsecurityTensions between states that may but need not escalate into overt violent conflict.Interstate Tensions

Conflict history

Strategic and historical importance of the Shatt al-Arab

The Shatt al-Arab river is formed by the confluence of the Euphrates and Tigris rivers in Iraq. The river constitutes the border between Iraq and Iran on the last 50 miles of the river flowing down to the Persian Gulf (Francona, 2001). Being the only access point of Iraq to the Persian Gulf, the Shatt al-Arab has a strategic importance for the country’s transportation and exports. Moreover, given the arid climate in this part of the Middle East, the water from the river is crucial for agriculture (ICE, 1998).

Although Iran has other accesses to the Gulf, a high quantity of crude oil produced in Iran is transported through the river. Moreover, Iran is highly dependent on the Tigris tributaries for hydropower and irrigation, the developments of which threaten downstream agriculture, fishing and drinking water in the Shatt al-Arab basin (Chomani & Bijnens, 2016).

In addition, the Shatt al-Arab symbolises a cultural and historical line between both countries, being a boundary between Persians under a Shia government and Arabs under a Sunni government (ICE, 1998). It was also a point of contention between the Ottoman and Persian empires for centuries as both empires sought to gain control of the river (Francona, 2001).

20th century agreements and tensions

In 1937, with support of the League of Nations, Iraq and Iran concluded agreements over the delimitation of the Shatt al-Arab (Karsch, 2002). Even though these agreements managed to appease bilateral relations momentarily, they never eradicated tensions present in the region, with both countries engaging in a race for power to defend their perceived rights in the following years.

In the 1960s, Iran started scaling up its military capacities in order to defend its sovereignty rights over half of the river. The country’s military capacity eventually became far superior than that of Iraq, in part because of the latter’s internal political changes around the same period (ICE, 1998). Iran’s growing regional power culminated in its unilateral withdrawal from the 1937 treaty in April 1969, to which Iraq declared a “blatant violation of international law” (Karsch, 2002).

At this point, both countries were on the verge of conflict, particularly as Iran was providing military support for the Kurds who were seeking autonomy in the northern part of Iraq (ICE, 1998). This was averted in 1975 when both countries concluded the Algiers Agreement under the initiative of Algerian President Houari Boumédiène, in which Iraq acknowledged Iran’s sovereignty over half of the river, in exchange for an end to Iranian support for the Kurds (Francona, 2001; ICE, 1998; Karsch, 2002).

By using this strategy of linking the water dispute to the Kurdish issue, Iran succeeded in bringing back Iraq to the negotiation table and to get the latter to recognise Iran’s sovereignty claims (Pipes, 1983). The fact that the 1975 agreement recognised Iran’s co-sovereignty over the river was, however, seen as “humiliating” for Iraq, who eventually withdrew from the treaty in 1979 when Iran’s military was scaled down following the Iranian Revolution (Karsch, 2002; Pipes, 1983). This set the stage for the war between Iran and Iraq that would later erupt in 1980 (ICE, 1998).

The 1980-1988 war

While the Shatt al-Arab dispute was one of the factors that led to the 1980-1988 war, it was not the only one. Iraq had long wanted to take control of the oil-rich province of Khuzestan at the border with Iran. Furthermore, the territorial dispute over three Persian Gulf islands seized by Iran in 1971 and the fear of Iran’s new Islamic revolutionary government fostering rebellion amongst Iraq’s Shia majority contributed to tensions (Pipes, 1983).

During the war, approximately one million people were killed and over a million were displaced (UNEP, 2003). The conflict also inflicted considerable damages to the environment and contributed to destroying livelihoods. The war saw the deployment of chemical and biological weapons, with short- and long-term impacts on both human health as well as on crops, livestock and ecosystems. Moreover, the destruction of date palm forests along the Shatt al-Arab estuary – once the largest in the world – as well as major oil spills in the Gulf due to the targeting of oil infrastructure, have also been attributed to the war, with consequences to both agriculture and fisheries in the region (UNEP, 2003).

Actors

Actor
Participation
Functional group
Geographical scale
Government of Iran
Government of Iran
Participation
Functional group
Public
Geographical scale
Internal national
Government of Iraq
Government of Iraq
Participation
Functional group
Public
Geographical scale
Internal national
Government of Algeria
Government of Algeria
Participation
Functional group
Public
Geographical scale
External
United Nations (UN)
United Nations (UN)
Participation
Functional group
Public
Geographical scale
External
Conflict Party
Conflict Resolution Facilitator

Conflict resolution

Ceasefire despite the unsettled Shatt al-Arab dispute

After eight years of conflict characterised by heavy human, environmental as well as economic consequences, both parties accepted a ceasefire brokered by the UN (UCDP, n.d.). Nevertheless, even though Iraq and Iran put an end to violent hostilities, both parties publicly indicated immediately after the ceasefire that they had not changed their positions regarding the status of the Shatt al-Arab (Wallace, 1988).

The ceasefire did not therefore succeed in settling the Shatt al-Arab dispute. However, in fall 1990, shortly after Iraq invaded Kuwait, Iraq and Iran restored diplomatic relations and began implementing provisions of the ceasefire, including a return to pre-war borders along the Shatt al-Arab (UCDP, n.d.). This move, initiated by Iraq, must be understood in the wider context that, following the invasion of Kuwait, Iraq had lost support from the West – who tacitly supported Iraq during the Iran-Iraq war. On the other hand, by multiplying diplomatic initiatives, in 1989 Iran had succeeded in restoring normal diplomatic relations with France, Italy and Germany, and prospects of improving relations with the United States were boding well (Tarock, 1998). Fearing that such rapprochement could lead to an alliance against itself, Iraq withdrew its troops from occupied Iranian territory – which Iraq occupied despite the ceasefire – and agreed on a division of sovereignty over the Shatt al-Arab with Iran, as well as an exchange of prisoners-of-war (Tarock, 1998). The Algiers Agreement was, however, not reinstated.

Later developments

Although bilateral diplomatic relations improved after the fall of Saddam Hussein in 2003, the following Iraqi governments kept the strong position that Iraq would never reinstate the 1975 Agreement (Hunter, 2014). Tensions also remained over the Shatt al-Arab due to Iran’s water development projects upstream, which were a major water source for Iraq’s agriculture downstream. In 2004, Iraq’s Ministry of Water Resources voiced opposition to Iran’s diversion plans (UN-ESCWA & BGR, 2013).

However, since the beginning of the war in Syria as well as the rise of the Islamic State Group (ISIS) in large parts of Iraq in 2014, relations between Iraq and Iran have considerably improved (Dawood & Geranmayeh, 2019; Hunter, 2014). This has been reflected on the Shatt-al Arab issue. In 2014, officials from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of both countries met to discuss how to delimit the river borders in a mutually acceptable way and to put an end to the status quo, including aspects of water protection and environmental conservation (Iraq Business News, 2014). This perspective of cooperation is very timely, as reports point out worsening water quality levels and their hazardous threats for both health and agriculture (Myers, 2010).

Relations were further strengthened following former Iranian president Hassan Rouhani’s official visit to Iraq in March 2019. During his visit, in addition to signing several preliminary trade deals, both countries announced their “serious intention” to implement the 1975 Agreement on the demarcation of the Shatt al-Arab border (Dawood & Geranmayeh, 2019).

Despite improvements in bilateral relations, upstream development projects in Iran, including dams, river diversions and canals, continue to affect downstream river flow, leading to recurrent diplomatic disputes between the two countries (Adib, 2022; Travers, 2021).

A broader outlook

Future discussions and agreements over the Shatt al-Arab river should make sure they are not restricted to the river itself. Instead, agreements should address the broader impacts of upstream water infrastructure development in other downstream regions in the Euphrates-Tigris basin, and include not just Iran but also Turkey where development projects have also contributed to Iraq’s water scarcity (Pawson, 2021). Such considerations are important as water access - and the severity of water scarcity - of Iraq’s downstream populations heavily depend on future water resource management in upstream countries like Iran and Turkey (Hassan et al., 2018; Mueller et al., 2021).

Moreover, temperatures are expected to rise in the southern part of the Euphrates-Tigris basin where the Shatt al-Arab lies – some estimates project a rise of up to 1.2°C in the next 30 years (Mueller et al., 2021). Rainfall is also expected to decline, along with the growing threat of sea level rise and saltwater intrusion – indeed, the Shatt al-Arab has been identified as one of the world’s deltas most at risk to sea level rise and flooding (Mueller et al., 2021). Hence, water stress along the Shatt al-Arab, which is already extremely high, could worsen under these projections (Mueller et al., 2021).

In the face of such risks, close cooperation on water management of the Shatt al-Arab and the wider Euphrates-Tigris basin is of paramount importance. To date, there are no formal regional cooperation agreements in the basin, with water-sharing issues being addressed on an ad-hoc basis (Hassan et al., 2018). Failure to establish cooperation agreements could revive tensions between the co-riparian states, as well as trigger social unrest domestically, as was seen in 2018 in the southern Iraqi city of Basra where residents protested against poor water quality and service provision (HRW, 2019).

Resilience and Peace Building

4

Treaty/agreement

Agreements signed in 1937 and 1975 temporarily averted tensions that were escalating between Iran and Iraq over the Shatt al-Arab river throughout the 20th century. After the 1980-1988 war, relations between Iran and Iraq have considerably improved, with both countries announcing in 2019 their “serious intention” to implement the 1975 Agreement on the demarcation of the Shatt al-Arab border. However, to date, there are no formal regional cooperation agreements in the wider Euphrates-Tigris basin, with water-sharing issues being addressed on an ad-hoc basis.

Resources and Materials