Contributing to Babylon’s unparalleled wealth and creating an agricultural bounty, the land was irrigated through a latticework of waterways that joined the Euphrates and Tigris rivers, where other great rivers of Iraq flowed. Steep embankments provided protection from seasonal flooding on both sides. The archaeologist, Fadel, told me in the torpor of a July afternoon, while wiping his forehead, “The boats brought down the building material for the promenade along the river.” The high fifteen-foot mud-brick walls, dating back 2,600 years, lined both sides of the crumbled thoroughfare, ornamented with original friezes of snake-dragons and lions, carved with cuneiform inscriptions of Marduk. We walked along the Processional Way and descended a stone staircase. Along the main promenade of ancient Babylon, we walked along the Processional Way and descended a stone staircase. Fadel Mohamed led me through the Gate of Ishtar, a replica of the original made of blue enamel-glazed bricks, depicting reliefs of bulls and dragons, soaring blue in the 110-degree heat.
The Greek historian Herodotus proclaimed, “No other city can compare to Babylon in terms of grandeur.” Babylon, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, was the birthplace of the Hanging Gardens, which were designed with tiered terraces and abundant water. This led to the famous verse from the 137th Psalm: “By the rivers of Babylon / There we sat down and wept / When we remembered Zion.” Nebuchadnezzar II, arguably the most influential ruler of the city, conquered Jerusalem in 597 B.C. And forced the Jews into captivity. Mesopotamia, known as the “land between the rivers,” was unified by King Hammurabi 3,770 years ago. During this time, magnificent temples were constructed, colossal walls were erected, and one of the world’s earliest systems of laws was codified.
According to most ancient authors, the canals that were cut between the Euphrates and Tigris rivers, in order to circulate the waters of the Management water, came from the “melt snows the upon mountains Armenian the when country adjacent the all drown otherwise would which latter the of waters the the as well watered not was which country entire the of corner a scarcely was There streams two the connecting valley the intersected others of scores and Euphrates the and Tigris the with parallel ran rivers as large as canals great that noted 1913 in Babylon ancient of writing archaeologist and diplomat American an Banks J. Edgar.” Furthermore, these canals served as waterways for the transportation of crops, as stated by American archaeologist and diplomat J. Edgar Banks in his 1913 writing on ancient Babylon.
It is not good for navigation. The water level is low and it is not clean. Rais Oday, a major in the Iraqi River Police, steered us towards the center of the stream as he revved up the motor of his 15-foot patrol boat. He said there is garbage and bridges in the river. Although there is barely enough water to float a canoe, these days.
The confirmation of an escalating crisis was striking. With the exception of India, the Tigris-Euphrates basin is depleting its groundwater at a faster rate than any other location on the planet, as revealed by a recent study conducted by a joint NASA-German government satellite project. Iraq has been categorized by the World Resources Institute, a U.S.-Based environmental organization, as one of the nations expected to experience “extremely high” water scarcity by 2040, indicating that over 80 percent of available water for agricultural, domestic, and industrial purposes will be extracted annually. Moutaz Al-Dabbas, a professor of water resources and the environment at the University of Baghdad, warned that the Euphrates will completely run dry during the summer months by the 2020s, leading to an environmental catastrophe.
During the past few decades of dictatorship, conflict, and extremism, it is simple to overlook that Iraq’s destiny has relied on the Euphrates River for countless years. The Euphrates, which is progressively plagued by significant challenges, is given minimal consideration as though they were insignificant troubles that could be addressed at a later time, once the warfare concludes. Nevertheless, the fundamental historical fact remains unchanged: Iraq’s future still hinges on the Euphrates.
Water resources make up 35 percent of the nation’s assets, and the Euphrates river supplies 30 percent of Iraq’s power, with the Haditha Dam situated near the border of Syria. Similar to Syria, Iraq heavily relies on the Euphrates for its agriculture, water, and manufacturing. Aaron Wolf, a water management specialist at Oregon State University who frequently visits the Middle East, suggests that a revolution was triggered by frustrated, jobless men. This was a result of farmers from the Euphrates Valley in Syria moving to urban areas due to a devastating drought that began in 2006. Many argue that this migration fueled opposition against Bashar al-Assad and ignited the civil war, causing the deaths of almost 500,000 individuals. Environmental issues, particularly water shortages, not only escalate conflicts but can also serve as their root cause, as exemplified by the Euphrates. Recognizing this reality is becoming the new frontier in political science.
I decided to use the Euphrates River as my guide, taking me through the key cities of Basra, Babylon, Fallujah, Kufa, Karbala, and Najaf, which have literarily shaped the holy Shia cities and the history of our nation in the past. This summer, I went to Iraq to find out what kind of shape the people and the nation were in after ISIS was pushed out of Mosul, the last major stronghold in Iraq.
What did the decline of the United States mean for the future of the nation if the conflict and economic stress resulting from the deteriorating Euphrates continues, but all are certain to draw dislocations and stress? The more I traveled, the more I asserted the importance of the river. It might seem impossibly distant to question what it meant for Americans.
I started haunting the city of Fallujah, and in that city, the memory of mine began. From the border of Syria to the nearly 100-mile stretch of the dangerous territory harboring ISIS cells, the Euphrates River winds through Iraq for 660 miles. It runs for 1,700 miles from the eastern mountains of Turkey to the Persian Gulf, making it the longest waterway in Western Asia.
In 1995, Saddam Hussein, the Iraqi despot, constructed an artificial lake near the Euphrates river in Fallujah, overlooking Iraq. He also built palaces and villas for his sons Qusay and Uday near the Euphrates river. In the third century A.D., Fallujah was attacked by the Romans, who drew water from the river for their camels on their way to Fallujah. This strategic position on the river has been the identity of Fallujah for millennia, drawing invaders from Persians to Romans.
During the U.S. Marines’ invasion of Fallujah, which lasted for eight months, the city experienced extensive destruction and resulted in hundreds of casualties. The photographs depicting the victims were widely distributed, symbolizing the American quagmire. At least two bodies were burned and dragged through the bridge girders spanning the Euphrates, while their vehicle was attacked by a mob. On March 31, 2004, four American contractors from the military security company Blackwater were killed when they lost their way in the city while escorting a food convoy. Fallujah, a deeply religious city with a population of 300,000, located 40 miles west of Baghdad and 200 miles southeast of Syria, became a stronghold for the anti-U.S. Insurgency in the heartland of the Sunni religious community, after the U.S.-Led invasion of Iraq.
I learned that my Iraqi fixer and driver, who knew close relationships with the insurgents, vouched for me with my captors. After nine hours, the Palestinian journalist and I were forced to bathe in preparation for their executions. I was warned that if they found out about me, they would slaughter me and the terrorists in the neighborhood. I was interrogated and driven from safe house to safe house, as the militants in the city were outraged by the civilian deaths resulting from American military operations. Later, I foolishly returned and was seized at gunpoint, accused of being a CIA agent. I was returned a week later, after being warned by my driver that there were insurgents in the area. Several minutes after I visited the bridge where the lingering murders took place, I met a correspondent from Newsweek.
Thirteen years later, I walked along the riverbank at sunset, before the end of Ramadan day, and saw the same scene that has haunted my nightmares countless times. Dozens of tranquil boys and teenagers were leaping into the olive-green Euphrates, letting the water sweep them downstream, as I climbed atop the bridge and looked on.
During the final stages of the battle, a number of individuals drowned and numerous Iraqis braved the strong current in order to flee from ISIS. Eventually, in the summer of 2016, Iraqi security forces, supported by Shia militias, successfully expelled the Islamic State from Fallujah. However, throughout their occupation, the terrorists did discover various purposes for the river. They closed off a dam located 30 miles upstream to deprive the rest of Anbar Province of water, and later opened the dam to flood fields and inflict punishment on civilians. The young boy described the river during that time as a prohibited area: “Daesh [a derogatory Arabic term for the group] considered swimming to be a waste of time, a distraction from God.” He mentioned that they were unable to find his uncle, so they found him instead, and the boy revealed scars on his back from the beating he had received because his uncle was a police officer. He inquired about life during the two and a half years when the city was under the control of the Islamic State, which seized Fallujah in January 2014, executed soldiers and police officers, and enforced Sharia law. I engaged in conversation with a 12-year-old and posed the question to him.
Sheik Abdul-Rahman al-Zubaie, a tall and distinguished-looking Sunni leader in Fallujah who fled when ISIS took over and returned this past April, informed me that the quality of life has significantly improved. “The people are out in the streets, the children are leaping into the river. This transformation is immense and cannot be compared to Daesh’s time,” he stated while observing the boys playing on the riverbank during sunset. However, al-Zubaie still possesses a deep sense of distrust towards the government, which is predominantly Shia and has neglected Fallujah while mistreating its residents. “We are striving to achieve this rebirth on our own,” he expressed. “We are not receiving substantial assistance from Baghdad.”
Islamic State sleeper cells have the potential to carry out a surprise assault from the river, as the soldiers are concerned about the continued closure of the Euphrates to boat traffic, even a year after the Islamic State left the city. The Iraqi security forces, predominantly consisting of Shia personnel, also do not feel at ease in guarding the town.
Ali Imam declared, “From now on, the Euphrates is considered the master river in this world and beyond.” Kufa, located on the banks of the Euphrates in Babylon’s south, was rich with fertile fields of various crops, including rice, date palms, and wheat. In 656 A.D., Abi Talib, the son-in-law of the prophet Muhammad and the caliphate’s leader, moved his capital from Medina to Kufa. This river served as a crucial channel for the religious warriors who spread Islam across the Middle East.
He told me apologetically that he dropped me off at the dock by the river. I don’t trust the river anymore because he said, “I used to serve as a merchant marine officer in Iraq, piloting big ships that were stopped at all ports in Europe over those Saddam-era vessels in ruins now, and he has been eking out a living in a stream that has been drying out.” Shukur recalled, “I remember the better times before the First Gulf War in 1990 when I served as a marine merchant officer. After docking the boat, he said, “I could go anywhere freely, I remember it being a lot deeper and clearer in the past.” As he neared the concrete bridge supports, the river’s flow became weak and the river around the boat turned abruptly. But here, if anything, the river’s flow is weak, even though it joins the two branches of the Euphrates a few miles upstream from here. He steered his outboard boat into the Euphrates towards the Imam Ali Bridge, and along the river, there are only a handful of villages. I met Mahmoud Shukur Mohammed, a former grizzled marine merchant, who now operates a water taxi among these villages in Kufa.
Since the operating of the Syrian and Turkish dams began, two-thirds of Iraq’s water flow has dropped. Meanwhile, in the 1970s, Syria built the Tabqa Dam upstream from Raqqa, and added a few more dams on its tributaries and the Euphrates before the onset of the civil war. The ongoing scheme in Southeastern Anatolia aims to build 19 hydroelectric plants and 22 dams on both the Euphrates and Tigris rivers, with a budget of $32 billion. The Turkish government has been on a dam-building spree, aiming to create arable land and generate electricity for generations to come. However, the problems for the Euphrates begin more than 1,000 miles upstream, below the Taurus Mountains in eastern Turkey’s catchment area.
Decades have passed, and Iraq has been dependent on its upstream partners, Turkey and Syria, for water resources. However, the quality of water has not been the same as before, according to experts from the University of Baghdad. The spill-off from irrigation and wastewater has caused the river to dry up, leading to the construction of a series of canals to connect the Euphrates River to the Tharthar Lake in northwest Baghdad. Talks have been ongoing for a long time, but a resolution has not been reached.
The researchers stated that there is a need for significant investments and interventions, as services like power and drinking water distribution are likely to be at risk. According to the World Resources Institute’s 2013 study, Iraq’s water situation is projected to be “exceptionally more stressed” by 2025. Iraqis living along the river have been complaining about the increasingly unbearable summers, with midday temperatures rarely dropping below 111 degrees Fahrenheit between June and September. Some climate models suggest that if the average temperature in the river basin rises by 5 to 7 degrees Fahrenheit by the end of this century, there would be higher rates of evaporation and a 30 to 40 percent decline in rainfall. Decreased rainfall has already been observed in the Euphrates Basin, exacerbating Iraq’s challenges with global warming.
We were not far downstream from where the boat docked, and Ali Imam was killed. While Ali was saying the dawn prayer in Ramadan at the Grand Mosque of Kufa, an assassin from the Kharijite sect cleaved his skull with a poisoned sword. Hussein, the son of Ali, insisted that the right to lead the caliphate belonged to the descendants of the prophet, but the aging scion of the Umayyad clan, Muawiya, claimed the power of the new caliph in Damascus. This conflict, which has divided the Middle East and Iraq since that day, continues to this day. The Sunnis, loyal to the caliph in Damascus, and the Shias, loyal to the descendants of the prophet, have been in conflict ever since.
On the first morning of Eid al-Fitr, the multi-day celebration marking the end of Ramadan, I arrived in Najaf, one of the holiest cities in the Shia world. Presently, Najaf prominently displays widespread remnants of its violent history, situated three miles southwest of Kufa. Almost every utility pole is adorned with posters commemorating Shia militiamen who lost their lives in battles against the Islamic State. These posters are accompanied by hanging placards honoring spiritual leaders who met their martyrdom: Muhammed Bakr al-Sadr, a prominent clergyman executed by Saddam Hussein in 1980; his cousin, Grand Ayatollah Mohammed Sadeq al-Sadr, assassinated along with two of his sons while driving through Najaf in 1999; and Ayatollah Mohammad Baqir al-Hakim, who perished in an Al Qaeda car bombing along with 100 others in front of the Imam Ali Shrine in August 2003.
On one of the most sacred days of the Muslim calendar, as I strolled through the bustling crowds in the scorching heat, a terrorist attack appeared to be an attractive target for the holiest Shia city in Iraq. Just beyond the shrine, there were hundreds of people waiting to see Ayatollah Sistani, whose residence is located there; women dressed in black abayas and men dressed in white dishdashas were eagerly drinking water from roadside stalls. We ventured into the old city, a labyrinth of narrow streets filled with pilgrims en route to the shrine. With the temperature reaching 115 degrees, a Daesh suicide bomber had been killed at a checkpoint just before I reached Najaf.
I rushed to our relieved car that had gone off without incident, and as I stepped back into the street, I cast a wary eye around me. Hundreds of worshipers pressed their faces against the screened crypt, raising their hands in supplication and murmuring prayers. The silver-and-gold crypt contained his marble coffin, which cast a dazzling light on the crystal chandeliers. I walked across the inner courtyard, filled with resting pilgrims, and removed my shoes. As I looked up, I could see the gold-covered dome and minaret of the tenth-century shrine of Imam Ali looming in front of me. I passed through another archway into the complex adorned with blue mosaics, known as the Al-Kibla Gate in Moorish style.
In the early 1800s, the men of holy significance began to assert the power of Shia Islam in Najaf, which is considered one of the most important centers. They restored the city’s fortunes and redirected the Hindiya Canal, which was used to channel the river back to Najaf. However, in the 17th century, the course of the Euphrates shifted and Najaf was nearly abandoned by the Ottoman rulers of Iraq.
The river had many irrigation channels running dry. It plummeted by almost 60 percent from the previous year, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture in 2015. Now, the rice dependence in Najaf is increasingly looking like a bad bet as the river declines. “The farmers have ignored him,” says Al-Moutaz Dabbas. But the Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi’s government has begged the farmers around the holy Shia city to stop planting rice, which requires three times the water used for barley and maize and grows in flooded fields between November and June. Some blame the dangerously diminished condition of the river on Iraq’s own wasteful water practices, lessons from the Euphrates in Najaf.
In Iran and cities in southern Iraq, the populace fled, relocating after the 1991 Shia uprising. In retaliation, Saddam constructed dams that redirected the flow of the Euphrates, resulting in the deprivation of the marshes. He depicted scenes of “stars mirrored in the obscurity of water, the croaking of frogs, canoes returning home at dusk, tranquility and continuity, the serenity of a world untouched by machinery.” This refers to the Al Hammar Marsh, an expansive aquatic region spanning 7,700 square miles within the desert, which was vividly portrayed by the esteemed British travel writer, Wilfred Thesiger, in his renowned 1964 masterpiece, The Marsh Arabs. Situated south of Nasiriyah, the location of a brutal confrontation between Saddam’s fedayeen and U.S. Forces in March 2003, the Euphrates river branches out into numerous narrow streams.
In 2003 and 2006, I visited the marshes in Britain and the U.S., Which were dangerous to travel through due to the declared war led by Sadr al-Sadr, the son of the murdered Ayatollah Grand Muqtada. During that time, the Shia militia, the Mahdi Army, organized by Muqtada, controlled the nonexistent infrastructure and the low water level. However, when I revisited the place, the water had started flowing again and the locals had removed the obstructions that were left after the fall of the dictator.
I wanted to see if anything had improved, a decade later. Now, we were greeted by a large poster showing the head of Imam Hussein, blood-soaked and decapitated. As we entered the town of Chibayish, in the heart of Marsh Hammar Al, we arrived at the main canal marking the eastern border town. A local official named Khalid al-Nasiri told me, “It’s now four meters deep, and you can walk across it. This channel was dry before 2003.”
African warblers, sacred ibises, and darters exploded out of the foliage as our boat skipped past. On both sides of the narrow channel, thick groves of reeds rose, hiding the settlement. The fisherman, casting his net, looked up in surprise as he asked, “Where are you going in this heat?” Underneath a bridge, we passed by milky water where buffaloes were lolling. Then, we picked up speed and set out from the dock in two 20-foot-long motorboats, accompanied by al-Nasiri and two other municipal officials.
After five days in the dry and dusty landscapes of central Iraq, I was elated to be in this seemingly lush and pristine water world. We followed channels through tall marsh grass for an hour, briefly stopping in a cul-de-sac lagoon-like swim. Alongside the muddy shore, a cluster of slightly curved mudhifs, woven from reeds, appeared, resembling marsh dwellings. Submerged nearly in the water, next to a snorting herd of buffalo, clambered out and moored boats awaited us. In the shadeless and still 120-degree heat of the afternoon, a blast of heat assaulted me from a furnace-like furnace.
They drive on a rough asphalt road to their settlement, selling water buffalo that they raise in the marsh. Hamid and his four brothers were raised by their mother after his father, a Shia activist, was killed by a Saddam hit squad while praying in a mosque. They moved to Amarah after Saddam dried up the marshes when Hamid was 5 years old. He later changed his mind and said he was too tired to talk initially, but wiped the perspiration from his face as he stood on the shore observing our arrival, a thin man in a white dishdasha named Haider Hamid.
In this remote area of Iraq, progress was gradually making its way. A refrigerator buzzed next to the back wall, below a vibrant Imam Hussein poster. A TV show was playing on a modern television, which was being operated by a generator. Several boys, seated on the ground, were sharing a plate of rice and buffalo meat, while gentle illumination passed through the thatch inside the mudhif.
The development of Hamid’s fell short of expectations. There were no boys in this small settlement who attended school; the nearest school, located in Chibayish, was an hour away, and they had no way of reaching it. “Life conditions here are very difficult,” he stated, “because the people who joined the al-Shaabi Hashd in the marshes left their government jobs.”
Al-Nasiri, the regional delegate, explained that the community residing in the wetlands was too scattered to make it possible to provide electricity and establish schools at a local level.
Moutaz Al-Dabbas, the environmental specialist, had informed me that there is no consistent water flow, which is necessary. However, during the summer, there is barely any water, despite people stating that they have an abundance of it. The opening of the Mosul Dam last year has significantly decreased fishing supplies due to unpredictable water currents. The marshes were almost completely dried up during severe droughts in 2008 and 2015, and this continues to be a problem. Although the marshes had recovered 75 percent of their original surface area in the five years following Saddam’s downfall, it has now reduced to around 58 percent. The condition of the river itself poses a greater concern for the sustainability of this way of life.
The wetlands are being endangered: The rise in salinity levels caused by evaporation and the discharge of irrigation runoff into the river has significantly depleted the nutrients in the marsh grass, leading to a decline in the productivity of water buffalo, which is a crucial source of income for a large portion of the population here. Moreover, various other issues have emerged. Notably, valuable fish species like gatans have disappeared. Instead of using water directly from the marshes, numerous local residents now rely on bottled water for cooking and drinking.
We are doing our best to keep it alive. “Although he told me, ‘I moved to the city after Saddam drained the marshes,’ Hamid was determined to stay,” Chibayish said as we boarded the boats for the journey back. “This is how we grew up, raised by our father.”
Saleh often cruised downstream to the mouth of the river, but he told me that making long journeys upstream on the shrinking Euphrates was impossible. In the 1970s, my father used to take a big metal boat to transfer seeds and wheat from Baghdad to Basra. In the city, Saleh Ali, our boatman, would race and gun the engine between the new concrete bridge supports, often waking up the sand-colored illuminated gate of Saddam’s riverfront palace, which was controlled by the powerful al-Shaabi al-Hashd force, the most dominant force in Iraq’s second city. As we passed through the gate, the water reflected the multicolored lights of Basra’s sheeshah bars, and it was dusk. I sat on the deck of a slender wooden skiff, motoring down the quarter-mile-wide waterway, enjoying the pleasure craft and fishing boats that passed by. The river here is where the Tigris meets the Euphrates, in the dusty town of Al-Qurna, about 30 miles east of the Chibayish marshes, where the two great rivers become the Arab al-Shatt, gaining breadth and force as it flows towards the Persian Gulf.
I told Dabbas Al- that the whole environment has changed when the salinity has changed in the Arab al-Shatt, where a coral reef has grown at the entrance. The fish species have changed in the river as well. The saltwater has destroyed millions of date-palm trees and henna plantations, which were once a major source of income in Faw Al-. The saltwater has dramatically raised the river’s salinity and blocked both tributaries that used to prevent saltwater from washing out fresh water from the gulf, a few years ago in Iran. However, the relative health of the river here is deceptive.
The head of the gas and oil committee in the provincial Basra council, Fares Al Shadad Ali, said that there is a liaison with the big oil producers and things are being improved. He also mentioned that billions of dollars are not just being wasted, but millions and tens of millions are being wasted. The government has tightened security and hired extra guards to prevent the theft of oil. According to watchdog groups in Basra, a few years ago, 62 floating docks in the Basra port were being used by mafia groups to steal oil and loot half of the total oil production. Crime syndicates tied to Shia militias and political parties have been siphoning off billions of dollars by extorting bribes and taking kickbacks on contracts. Corruption is endemic and the gap between the poor and the wealthy is widening. However, the oil boom has financed the construction of McMansions, shopping malls, and hotels. British Petroleum, Royal Dutch Shell, and other small oil service firms are doing business here, with Iraq ranking second among OPEC countries. The province’s oil wells are currently pumping more than three million barrels a day, but Basra presents a disquieting picture as well.
Recent years have seen countless migrants flooding into Basra in search of economic opportunities, only to be disappointed by the makeshift settlements called “Basra” that the taxi driver who took me there in the past referred to as the richest town in the world. The city’s outskirts, once covered in squatter camps and garbage-strewn canals, are now filled with endless rows of cinder-block huts, all baking under the summer heat and regularly plagued by power cuts.
Iraq’s struggle will never be healed as long as this fact is challenged: the power struggle between Sunnis and Shias is Iraq’s problem. In his office in the back alley of Najaf, the Shia leader al-Bedeiri al-Fadel told me that it was an “ideological battle under the name of Islam” to destroy their holy sites and eliminate the Shia. The Shia tend to view the entire Sunni population as complicit in the war against Daesh, fearing that the Hashd al-Shaabi, also known as the Shaabi, has been given unchecked power to commit abuses against Sunnis in the war against Daesh. As I walked past the Shia martyrs’ placards in Basra, I realized that the war against Daesh had caused a trauma to the entire country. These same squatter camps provided cannon fodder for thousands of frustrated young Shias, inspired by Ayatollah Sistani’s call for jihad against the Islamic State.
His close call with an assassination attempt proved prophetic, as he had been warned by sources that he was targeted because of his opposition to the deal between Syria and Hezbollah, which involved the hand-over of ISIS prisoners in exchange for a safe passage to a sanctuary near Syria’s border with Iraq. This deal was seen as a reminder of the ongoing violence and sectarian strife in the region, with the potential to endanger Iraq’s security. The attack on his convoy by unidentified men with hand grenades, while he was leaving evening prayers, was another reminder of the turbulence and sectarian violence that continues to plague Shia-on-Shia violence.
The USA needed a third party, like Syria and Turkey, to help with the equitable distribution of upstream water and bring it to the bargaining table. He told me that good enforcement and legislation management were needed to save the Euphrates. It was time for the government to take action. As we sat in the air-conditioned sanctuary of my hotel lobby in Baghdad, with the temperature reaching 123 degrees, Al-Dabbas sadly acknowledged that people are thinking about the war but not thinking about the water. The seemingly endless fight against ISIS and the massive physical and psychological damage inflicted on Iraq over the years of conflict likely means that urgent challenges are being neglected.
He said that this is a crisis, and nobody is paying attention to it. Countless Iraqis, who depend on it for their survival, will soon find their lives jeopardized and the Euphrates, a dusty and barren riverbed, will be reduced to without these things, he fears.