Water Iraq and Security Planning

14 | Introduction to the Expanded Edition CHAPTER 1 The Euphrates - Tigris Basin and Its History This chapter outlines the impact of civilization on the Euphrates - Tigris basin and how people affect both the rivers and the surrounding areas.1 Early empires and later the Arabs and Ottomans built irrigation and water management systems that made the lower basin the breadbasket of the Middle East. [...] Some be- lieve it to be the location of the biblical Garden of Eden, and this region is often referred to as the “cradle of civilization.” As early as the fourth millennium BCE, agricultural settlements and basic irrigation networks were part of the Mesopotamian landscape.5 The Sumerians and Babylo- nians used the water of the Euphrates, and documents from the time of the Babylonian lawgiver Hammu. [...] The story of the contest between the good god Apsu and the evil goddess Tiamat is related in the Enuma Elish (the Seven Tablets of Creation), the Babylonian equivalent of the book of Genesis. [...] The final destruction of the Abbasids came in the late 1250s at the hands of the nomadic Mongol leader Hülegü, a grandson of Genghis Khan.20 The fury of the Mongolian conquest was unmatched historically in the Euphrates - Tigris basin, and many cities were burned to the ground and destroyed as the Mongols swept into the area. [...] The outbreak of the First World War saw the Ottomans poorly po- sitioned to defend the region, and in November 1914 the British occupied the Shatt al - Arab, or the outlet of the river system into the Persian Gulf.27 British interests concerned maintaining access to the oil reserves of the Anglo - Persian Oil Company, on which the British Royal Navy was in- creasingly dependent.