With constant media coverage over the years, the country of Iraq and the fights between the peoples of Iraq has been front and centre in most people's living rooms for over a decade.  With the current plans to drop the international military presence in Iraq being planned, one might assume the problems have been solved or at least lessened.  But this may only be a switching of players.

What is now looming is another fight.  This one is over water.    Throughout the conflict times and previous, there have been dams put on the rivers by neighbouring states drastically reducing the flow of the Tigris and Euphrates through Iraq and helping to turn once-fertile plains into desert.   This is not unique.  There have been fights between Israel, Palestine and Jordan for decades.  The Dead Sea is being drained.

As the bombs continued to fall in Iraq, the environmental and social crisis began to raise its ugly head.  Since Desert Storm in the early 1990's, the ability of the land to support ife, families and agriculture have been going down.  These two great rivers of civilization have been feeding the lush plains south of Bagdad for centuries.  These are the historic lands of Mesopotamia, the cradle of the civilizations that we, as children, read about in our history books.  It is currently being drained of its life blood.

Said, one member of the country's parliament, "The new war on Iraq is a war of water." 

The rivers are being starved of water.  The old fertile agricultural heart of Iraq is being cut out.  What is to become of a country that cannot feed itself?    Will this war on water leave this land in the hands of nomadic bands of rebels and be of no use to anyone?  Not likely.  With the great reserves of oil under this country, the conflict over control will likely contine.  Who then will retain the control over this land?  Those that want the oil or those that want to return the country to a simple agricultural existance and have the rivers just left to flow as they have done for centuries.  Or will the oil reserves continue to be occupied by the oil barons of the world protected by the mercenaries of the world with the rest of the country left to die a slow death?  Only time will tell.

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