War with Iran

The Buildup to a US-Iran War

I found this article mildly surprising, but the implications of another war with Iran are incalculable. I found the most surprising passage from this article to be:

The final factor moving us closer to war with Iran is the fact that we are already fighting a proxy war with Iran inside Iraq. The most under-appreciated passage from General Petraeus's congressional testimony was his description of the role of Iran:

In the past six months we have also targeted Shia militia extremists, capturing a number of senior leaders and fighters, as well as the deputy commander of Lebanese Hezbollah Department 2800, the organization created to support the training, arming, funding, and, in some cases, direction of the militia extremists by the Iranian Republican Guard Corps' Qods Force. These elements have assassinated and kidnapped Iraqi governmental leaders, killed and wounded our soldiers with advanced explosive devices provided by Iran, and indiscriminately rocketed civilians in the International Zone and elsewhere. It is increasingly apparent to both Coalition and Iraqi leaders that Iran, through the use of the Qods Force, seeks to turn the Iraqi Special Groups into a Hezbollah-like force to serve its interests and fight a proxy war against the Iraqi state and coalition forces in Iraq.

To pursue this proxy war, the US is arresting Iranian operatives and building outposts on the Iranian border for the purpose of interdicting weapons smuggled to Iran's agents in Iraq.

This doesn't exactly pertain to the current environment, but it begs to question what would happen, at an environmental level, to the area if it was burdened with another war? 

My apologies, as this posting is going to address last week's country, as well as this week's. I am fighting off a sickness that the more paranoid part of my psyche is almost entirely convinced is the Swine Flu.

Afghanistan

http://www.salaam.co.uk/themeofthemonth/december01_index.php?l=7

This link gives a brief summary of all of the environmental challenges facing Afghanistan today, and reveals that essentially the bulk of the environmental damage the land of Afghanistan has occured within the last two decades. Besides opium production, which has been going on for centuries, the majority of Afghanistan's problems, including chemical weapon production, land mines, and a decline in the amount of land used for agriculture. The wars that have wracked Afghanistan have been severely detrimental to their Eco System, and this is particularly poingnant because the conflicts in Afghanistan have been almost entirely no fault of their own. First idependence from the Soviet Union, next the American invasion into Afghanistan. The challenges they face have been caused by outside influences, and now they need the resources to fix them. To whom does that responsibility fall?

Iran

http://www.sfcg.org/programmes/iran/iran_environment.html

This article refers America's collaboration with Iran on issues involving the environment, particularly the ones that effect Iran the most, including air pollution and deforestation. It discusses past collaboration efforts between the two countries. Again, like Saudi Arabia, where the United States cannot work together on one arena, such as at the political level, they can find common ground on another level, like the environment.

Iran, with more than 65 million people, is one of the driest countries in the world. Urbanization, industrialization, and agriculture have increased demand for water while sapping the county’s scant supplies. Only 10 percent of the country receives adequate rainfall for agriculture. Water scarcity is a national concern and creates pressure to construct large infrastructural projects to transport water to drier parts of the country. A water tunnel has recently finished construction linking the Dez River and the central desert province Qom. Called the largest water tunnel in the Middle East, the project took five years to complete. At 27.3 miles long, the tunnel will move 120 million cubic meters of water each year.
Much of Iran's water is stored underground. Iranians centuries ago developed man-made underground water channels called qanats which are used more than wells to access those supplies. A qanat taps water that has seeped into the ground and channels it via straight tunnels to the land surface. Flood control and management of water resources have made dams popular projects in Iran since the Islamic Revolution in 1979. The 42 dams are used for irrigation, flood management, hydropower, and in some cases drinking water. In numerous localities, there may be no precipitation until sudden storms, accompanied by heavy rains, dump almost the entire year's rainfall in a few days. Often causing floods and local damage, the runoffs are so rapid that they cannot be used for agricultural purposes. The dangerous relationship with water supplies in Iran poses many challenges for the future. Sudden innundation following drought make agriculture and safe water more unreliable and difficult.

When Development is a Step Backward

The following is a link to an article entitled Iran: Environment Takes a Back Seat to Development Plans from an online news analysis site:

http://www.rferl.org/content/article/1078370.html

The author, Vahid Sepehri, uses the example of the Kavir National Park in north-central Iran to illustrate how development in the interest of oil and an industrial economy is endangering safe spaces and the environment they protect. Kavir is home to several rare native and endangered species including the Persian leopard and the Asiatic cheetah. The area was declared a national park and biosphere reserve in 1976 by the Iranian monarchy.

Since then, however, two oil projects have been pushing for expansion, which would entail blasting, digging wells, and the building of pipelines and saltwater canals underground through the Kavir. As of now, construction is awaiting approval, but the threat still looms.

These actions would threaten the park not only in disturbance, but it would also ruin the soil and thus vegetation because “the injection of 4 billion cubic meters of gas under the national park would force large amounts of saltwater to the surface.” In an area that is already arid, this is extremely dangerous.

Kavir National Park is only a case study in the many hazards posed to the environment in Iran. It has been noted that the environment has already experienced degradation for military development. Several dams, chemical plants, and refineries have already been constructed, all of which “might generate jobs and money for some, but it would destroy the local environment and lead to long-term and more generalized poverty and sickness for locals.” This quote by Etemad-i Melli points to the human factor that is connected to environmental degradation. There has been a rise in birth defects in Iran, which have been traced to pollution from oil and production effluent into the Persian Gulf.

Once again, all of these negative environmental impacts are a result of so-called development. This may be an assumption, but I feel that it is a commonly held opinion in our class that military expansion is not necessarily progress. At what point does the security of a country overrule food security for its people? So often, the military and production of oil are used to protect a nation’s geographical and economic place, but if the actual land and resources are destroyed through environmental degradation, doesn’t this seem counter intuitive?

Approximately 4,000-5,000 Tehran residents are estimated to die every year from air pollution

I found this article about environmental issues in Iran and there are plenty to go around with!
I was just astounded by some claims that around 5,000 people in Tehran alone die from air pollution.

One can clearly see that the problems of a relatively successfully developing country are depicted in Iran as well. High levels of pollution, huge increases in population, higher energy consumption and the increase in CO2 emissions. Between 1980 and 2000, the CO2 emissions doubled from 30 million metric tons of carbon to over 80 million and, according to Wikipedia, in 2004 the levels are around 433 million, which is 5 times more than in 2000, and 14 times more than 1980. I just find those number to be very impressive!


Oh, and I found an interesting video about the largest and most important river of Iran and the pollution. It is clearly very biased, claiming that the Iranian government is not doing anything to prevent the pollution because there is a large number of Arabs living in that area, which is bordering Iraq.
I just found it interesting to see how people would assume such things (which might or might not be true) and actually see the pollution on video... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v3ix4_NsqI8

Gulf War Oil Spill Pictures

The deliberate oil spill of 1991 in the Persian Gulf negatively impacted those waters, as well as the coastal ecosystems of Iran, destroying wildlife and plant habitat, as well as contaminating the water source. 

Here are some photos of the largest oil spill ever (1,450,000), some of them are better than others: 

i got these from this website: http://rpitt.eng.ua.edu/Class/EffectsandFates/Module7/Module7.htm, which also has photos from other big oil spills. some of these photos are closer up and show how the oil in the water looks and bubbles up and just sits on top of the water. it's disgusting, and it makes me think of Free Willy 2 when Willy is dying because an oil spill and they just can scrape the oil of of him. That wasn't even real and its horrifying. This oil spill was HUGE, real, and intentional. I think that the environmental impacts of our actions are disregarded in much of our development as nations, but especially in war.

Potential impacts of an Israeli attack on Iran

Times Article

While this does not directly address the environment and how it may be impacted by an Israeli strike on Iran's nuclear facilities. I do not know the details of nuclear radiation, nuclear power, and precision airstrikes but it seems as though this could create some major problems. Would there be a more serious explosion if a location with nuclear research going on? It seems as though this could be dangerous because of the unknown potential affects of this action, and any possible reprisals by the Iranians or other Islamic countries of the area.


And while it does not really apply to this week's topic this blog is quite interesting