Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news. A month into the
Speaker 1: Iran war, the costs are mounting, and the Trump administration
Speaker 1: continues to send mixed messages about when and how the
Speaker 1: war will end. Gas prices in the US climbed above
Speaker 1: an average of four dollars a gallon on Monday for
Speaker 1: the first time since August of twenty twenty two. Jet
Speaker 1: fuel has searched, and in a post on truth Social
Speaker 1: this morning, President Trump suggested countries facing shortages buy oil
Speaker 1: from the United States or quote build up some delayed courage,
Speaker 1: go to the strait and just take it. The post
Speaker 1: comes amid reporting from The Wall Street Journal that the
Speaker 1: President has told aids he's willing to end the war
Speaker 1: even if the strait of her moves remains largely closed.
Speaker 1: The US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said today that diplomatic
Speaker 1: talks with Iran are ongoing.
Speaker 2: We would much prefer to get a deal.
Speaker 1: Rom was willing to relinquish material they have and ambitions
Speaker 1: they have.
Speaker 2: Open this great, that's the goal.
Speaker 1: Hexath said he thought the talks were quote gaining strength,
Speaker 1: but that the US would continue it strikes if a
Speaker 1: deal isn't reached.
Speaker 2: We don't want to have to do more militarily than
Speaker 2: we have to. But I didn't mean it flippantly when
Speaker 2: I said, in the meantime, we'll negotiate with bombs.
Speaker 1: The flurry of headlines on Tuesday comes on the heels
Speaker 1: of another threat the President made against Iran. On Monday.
Speaker 1: He posted on truth social that if the Iranian regime
Speaker 1: fails to reach a deal shortly, the United States would
Speaker 1: obliterate all of Iran's electric generating plants, oil wells, carg Island,
Speaker 1: where most of Iran's oil is processed for shipping, and
Speaker 1: possibly all of the country's desalination plants.
Speaker 2: It's an extraordinary threat in truth. Iran's reaction to that
Speaker 2: is likely to cause more problems when it comes to
Speaker 2: desalination plants.
Speaker 1: Peter Martin covers defense, policy and intelligence for Bloomberg. He
Speaker 1: says desalination infrastructure is critical to the countries of the Gulf.
Speaker 2: Tens of millions of people across the region are dependent
Speaker 2: on the desalinization process.
Speaker 1: An American president threatening to destroy desalination plants is unprecedented,
Speaker 1: and if it happened, it could be a violation of
Speaker 1: international law. It could spark a humanitarian crisis.
Speaker 2: I think it's fair to say that it's something that
Speaker 2: no other president within living memory would have done. But
Speaker 2: That's been true of a lot of Trump's actions so far.
Speaker 2: You know, successive US administrations have talked about whether or
Speaker 2: not military action against Iran could work and have decided
Speaker 2: ultimately that it wouldn't the cost would be too high.
Speaker 2: President Trump has made a different calculation, and so I
Speaker 2: think it would be naive to suggest that he might
Speaker 2: not also take surprising and controversial steps in this case too.
Speaker 1: I'm Sarah Holder, and this is the Big Take from
Speaker 1: Bloomberg News today. On the show, we look at the
Speaker 1: vital yet vulnerable infrastructure that makes life possible in the
Speaker 1: Middle East and what would happen if desalination plants become
Speaker 1: targets in the war with Iran. The countries that ring
Speaker 1: the western side of the Persian Gulf, Bahrain, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Qatar,
Speaker 1: and the United Arab Emirates are among the most water
Speaker 1: scarce countries in the world.
Speaker 2: And as a result of that, countries across the region
Speaker 2: are reliant on desalinization to obtain drinking water and other
Speaker 2: water for commercial and industrial uses. To sort of put
Speaker 2: it in context a little bit, around forty percent of
Speaker 2: the water that is used by the UAE comes from desalination,
Speaker 2: about seventy percent the Saudi Arabia and actually ninety percent
Speaker 2: for Kuwait. So it's absolutely crucial to civilian and industrial life.
Speaker 1: Across the Persian Gulf. What are the alternatives to desalination?
Speaker 1: What other water sources are there?
Speaker 2: There's very limited fresh water in the Gulf. There are
Speaker 2: river sources, some countries hold underground reserves which have enough
Speaker 2: water for a few days or a week, but really
Speaker 2: there is no alternative in most of the golf countries.
Speaker 1: So Peter, let's get a sense of the history of
Speaker 1: this technology in the golf. What was it like there
Speaker 1: before desalination and when did the first desalination plants come online?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean the technique has been around for millennia.
Speaker 2: It's just a basic basically, it's the process of removing
Speaker 2: salt from seawater and making that water drinkable. There were
Speaker 2: sort of two techniques which dominated for a long time.
Speaker 2: One was thermal desalination, which I can remember being shown
Speaker 2: as a kid in elementary school, which is where you
Speaker 2: eat water steam evaporates and then you capture the steam.
Speaker 2: And there's another process called reverse osmosis, which is now
Speaker 2: the dominant technology and the one that's spread all across
Speaker 2: the Middle East, which is where you use pressure to
Speaker 2: push seawater through membrane and you remove the salt from it.
Speaker 2: So basically, before the advent of this technology and its
Speaker 2: widespread use, there's no way that golf countries could have
Speaker 2: supported the kinds of populations that they have now. I
Speaker 2: think all of the golf countries are incredibly dependent on
Speaker 2: the technology, and without it, they wouldn't have the kind
Speaker 2: of tourism service financial industries that you see today.
Speaker 1: How reliant is desalination infrastructure on other kinds of infrastructure
Speaker 1: like energy and oil infrastructure, which was also talked about
Speaker 1: in Trump's truth social post as a potential target in
Speaker 1: this war.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so desalination plants have a kind of symbiotic relationship
Speaker 2: with energy and power plants. The pressure that's required to
Speaker 2: push water through those filtration membranes and to remove the
Speaker 2: salt from the water is incredibly energy intensive, so they're
Speaker 2: often built next to power plants. That makes them very expensive.
Speaker 2: Some estimates I've heard put desalinated water at about twenty
Speaker 2: five times more expensive than other sources around most of
Speaker 2: the world, but in the Gulf, the region has a
Speaker 2: huge advantage in that it's endowed with massive amounts of
Speaker 2: oil and other hydrocarbons, bringing down some of those costs.
Speaker 1: So, Peter, I mean you laid out how many people
Speaker 1: across the Gulf States depend on desalination. But this problem
Speaker 1: isn't limited to the Gulf, right. Other countries in the
Speaker 1: Middle East also depend on this technology, including Israel, which
Speaker 1: is an active party in this war. Israel gets about
Speaker 1: seventy percent of its water from desalination plants. So how
Speaker 1: vulnerable is all of this infrastructure in the Gulf in
Speaker 1: Israel to being damaged in this war?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean the infrastructure is vulnerable across the entire region.
Speaker 2: Israel has excellent air defenses compared to many of its neighbors.
Speaker 2: It also has alternative sources of water. There's a major
Speaker 2: lake that it relies on, and it's worked for decades
Speaker 2: really to reduce its vulnerability to water scarcity. So if
Speaker 2: a desalination plant were to be taken offline in Israel,
Speaker 2: it would be a problem, but not a catastrophe. In
Speaker 2: the same way that it might be the say.
Speaker 1: Kuwait, And I feel like this has all been building
Speaker 1: to the question of Iran. Can you walk through how
Speaker 1: dependent Iran is on desalination and on desalination infrastructure.
Speaker 2: Iran is not particularly dependent on it. It has desalination
Speaker 2: plants and it would be disruptive to take them offline.
Speaker 2: The country has suffered from drought in recent months, but
Speaker 2: now as we head to the springtime, there's access to
Speaker 2: fresh water from rain, has multiple rivers, and so I
Speaker 2: don't think that it's an existential threat to you rule.
Speaker 2: Isn't i ran in the same way as it is
Speaker 2: to it's Arab golf neighbors.
Speaker 1: But if President Trump does follow through on his threat
Speaker 1: to possibly destroy Iran's desalination infrastructure, it could trigger a
Speaker 1: dangerous chain reaction, and it wouldn't be the first time
Speaker 1: a desalination plant in the Gulf had been targeted in war.
Speaker 1: After the break, we'll look at exactly what the human
Speaker 1: and economic costs could be if it happened again. Why
Speaker 1: are desalination plants attractive targets for military action? Why have
Speaker 1: they become targets before?
Speaker 2: In theoretical term, they're large fixed targets that are easy
Speaker 2: to locate, They're difficult to replace quickly. They can put
Speaker 2: tremendous stress on any government that's reliant on that technology
Speaker 2: if you remove it, because your civilian population is then
Speaker 2: put at risk. It has happened before. During the First
Speaker 2: Gulf War, Iraq targeted Kuwates desalination plants, taking some of
Speaker 2: them offline, but in truth, they have rarely been targeted.
Speaker 2: The Geneva Convention makes it clear that it's illegal to
Speaker 2: target them because they're necessary for civilians to survive. So,
Speaker 2: you know, they're relatively easy, large targets that are simple
Speaker 2: to hit. It's just that the legality of that is
Speaker 2: very problematic.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I mean you mentioned the Kuwait attack. What
Speaker 1: does the fallout from that tell us about the stakes
Speaker 1: of potential strikes on desalination plants in this war.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Iraq targeted some of Kuwait's desalination plants in the
Speaker 2: First Gulf War, taking some of them offline and reducing
Speaker 2: the access of Quait's population to drinking water. Suppliers were
Speaker 2: then brought in from Saudi Arabia and other neighboring countries,
Speaker 2: and that the US also helped with some of that response,
Speaker 2: But in truth, you know, it's difficult to maintain reserves
Speaker 2: for large civilian populations for long periods of time.
Speaker 1: And if a plant like this is attacked, how long
Speaker 1: could it take to get back online?
Speaker 2: Yeah? So, experts I've spoken to say that, you know,
Speaker 2: minor damage could be repaired in months, perhaps weeks, but
Speaker 2: the larger scale damage would require years to repair.
Speaker 1: What happens if water begins to run out in these
Speaker 1: countries see shortages? What are the humanitarian implications of that?
Speaker 2: Yeah so, I mean the most immediate result would be
Speaker 2: that households would begin to run short on water, and
Speaker 2: that could happen within a matter of days. Typically governments,
Speaker 2: you would expect them to start doing things like rationing
Speaker 2: water use, restricting commercial use, perhaps distributing bottled water to populations.
Speaker 2: And if it were to persist for a long time,
Speaker 2: I think that probably evacuations would be considered.
Speaker 1: And from an economic standpoint, which parts of these Golf states'
Speaker 1: economies are most vulnerable? Again, if a plant like this
Speaker 1: were to be taken out or even damaged, if you.
Speaker 2: Think of somewhere like Dubai with a massive urban population,
Speaker 2: an economy which runs on services finance, tourism, the life
Speaker 2: of the population there would be very difficult to sustain.
Speaker 2: All of the industry surrounding it would be difficult to sustain. Essentially,
Speaker 2: these economies would come grinding to a whole without the
Speaker 2: ability to obtain the water that they need.
Speaker 1: Given the extremely high stakes of keeping these desalination plants running,
Speaker 1: I'm wondering what golf countries are doing to protect their
Speaker 1: water supplies and their manufacturing facilities right now, and how
Speaker 1: well those efforts have been working.
Speaker 2: Experts that I've spoken to say that there's not really
Speaker 2: very much that they can do to protect the facilities.
Speaker 2: They're large, they're exposed, they're quite technically fragile, there's a
Speaker 2: lot of sensitive technology inside, and you know, the countries
Speaker 2: themselves are protected by air defenses. Most of the Gulf
Speaker 2: States have a pretty good record of shooting down incoming
Speaker 2: Iranian missiles and drunes, but it's not a perfect record.
Speaker 2: Lots is still getting through and there's not really much
Speaker 2: that can be done to harden them in the short
Speaker 2: term other than just trying to shoot down missiles and drugs.
Speaker 1: Striking desalination plans would be a violation of the Geneva convention,
Speaker 1: it's a war crime. What would the consequences be if
Speaker 1: a country or a government like the US did target
Speaker 1: desalination plans in this war?
Speaker 2: Think truth is that we don't know. We'd be entering
Speaker 2: uncharted territory from the outset. This war has been, you know,
Speaker 2: questioned by some of the US's closest allies when it
Speaker 2: comes to whether or not American actions have been legal.
Speaker 2: US strikes on desalination plants would certainly invite that kind
Speaker 2: of questioning, as would Iranian retaliation. But you know, I
Speaker 2: think a lot of people feel like we've got to
Speaker 2: a point here where we're kind of an outrage fatigue.
Speaker 2: I'm not sure what would happen in practical terms other
Speaker 2: than a huge international outcry.
Speaker 1: Are there risks that even accidentally or as a symptom
Speaker 1: of this broader conflict in the Middle East, that desalination
Speaker 1: plants might be damaged, whether through strikes from around the
Speaker 1: US or other regional players, And what are the implications
Speaker 1: of that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's absolutely that if energy facilities were to be targeted,
Speaker 2: there's the potential that that damage could take desalination plants
Speaker 2: offline because they're so energy intensive and There's also, of course,
Speaker 2: the possibility of collateral damage. Trust on both sides in
Speaker 2: this war is running pretty low at the moment, and
Speaker 2: so it would be quite difficult for either side to
Speaker 2: convince the other that that kind of damage had been accidental,
Speaker 2: and that raises the possibility of escalation quite considerably.
Speaker 1: Well, We've already seen one example of a desalination plant
Speaker 1: being damaged in this conflict. The Iranian government has said
Speaker 1: that a desalination plant was damaged on Kesum Island in
Speaker 1: the Strait of Hermos, disrupting the water supply to thirty villages.
Speaker 1: How did Iran and the US respond to that incident
Speaker 1: and how much does this raise the risk of future
Speaker 1: attacks on desalination plants in this war?
Speaker 2: I think a lot depends on whether President Trump goes
Speaker 2: through with his most recent threats. Iran said that its
Speaker 2: facility had been hit in early March. The US responded
Speaker 2: by saying that the facility was not deliberately targeted, and
Speaker 2: exactly what happens kind of remains in dispute. But Iran
Speaker 2: did retaliate by hitting a facility in the Gulf state
Speaker 2: of Bahrain and saying subsequently that any further attacks on
Speaker 2: Iranian energy infrastructure could be met by attacks on golf
Speaker 2: desalination facilities. So I think it's something that both sides
Speaker 2: have kind of put in play, but so far on
Speaker 2: the ground there's been a reasonable degree of restraint between
Speaker 2: both sides, precisely, I think because the humanitarian consequences would
Speaker 2: be so grave and the reputational cost to either side
Speaker 2: for actually carrying out activities which is so crucial to
Speaker 2: civilian life, would be pretty high.
Speaker 1: This is The Big Take from Bloomberg News. I'm Sarah Holder.
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Speaker 1: Thanks for listening. We'll be back tomorrow.