Water may seem like a dry subject, but it will be attracting more and more attention of Middle Easterners and outside analysts of that region. Putting the issue in perspective, Paul Balta recently wrote in Géopolitique that "if the period 1960 to 1980 was dominated by oil, 1990 to 2010 will be dominated by water." Thomas Naff concurs: "the most important Middle East resource of the twenty-first century will be, not oil, but water." Accordingly, Naff has devoted made water issues the main focus of inquiry of the Associates for Middle East Research, the Philadelphia-based group he heads and the book under review is the first of its many detailed studies on water to be issued.
Kolars and Mitchell deal with the northern half of the Euphrates River basin (the southern half will be dealt with separately), devoting special attention to Turkey's Southeast Anatolia Development Project, the huge irrigation and energy plan which could seriously deplete the amount and quality of water reaching Iraq. The authors see a "general pattern of steadily impending crisis" and offer suggestions to mitigate it. The special virtue of their study lies in their multi-disciplinary approach; with equal facility, they treat the hydrology, geology, history, politics, and international relations of the issue. The result is, to coin a phrase, ground-breaking. Let's hope the companion volumes are as good.
