Water war between Turkey, Syria and Iraq 1990

Use of the Euphrates and Tigris rivers has always been a point of potential conflict between Turkey, Iraq and Syria.

What would have happened if the diplomatic hostilities turned into open warfare between the three countries over use of Euphrates and Tigris water beginning after the Iran-Iraq war had ended but before Gulf War 1, say beginning 1990?

 

But who would have been allied to whom?


As Turkey is a NATO member, it would have had NATO support had Syria or Iraq been the agressor.
But even without NATO, I think the turks would have rather easily wiped out any armed forces the syrians or iraqis concentrated on their northern border.In training and equipement, the turkish army simply plays some leagues above the syrians or iraqis.

The turks surely even would have been able to go for Damascus or Bagdad, but I think western pressure(afraid of the stability in the region, and afraid that the Mullahs could be the laughing fourth) would have prevented them from doing so.
Plus, after occupying great areas of those countries, the turks would not have known what to do of them.
So I think such a conflict would have stayed somewhat in the area of northern Syria+northern Iraq.

After a victourious war, Turkey would have tried to annex the kurdish territories of Iraq, to make sure no kurdish independence movement can develop there.

 

There is also the question of what does Greece do, do it try to take advantage of the situation.

It has been pointed out on another board that there is a legal loophole in this particular case to the effect that NATO might not have been legally required to come to Turkey's aid. The treaty says that all member states must defend all other member states in the event of aggression against them "whether it be in Europe or North America." In this particular case, the aggression would have been on Asian soil.

Does the NATO Treaty say this?

 

Hmmm - interesting scenario.

If Iraq and/or Iran had invaded Turkey, it is likely that at least some NATO members would help out.

However, I don't reckon that the NATO allies would support anything Turkey did outside of her borders (if she counter-attacks into Iran/Iraq, or if she is the aggressor).

And could Turkey simultaneously invade Iran & Iraq with chance of success?

 

NATO has always been fond of its Turkish ally because of the strategic position and large army of the country. This popularity hardly diminshed after the fall of the Warsaw Pact because the US realized that Turkey was the key to the world's main source of energy: Caucasian and Middle Eastern oil. I think they would have given Turkey a lot of latitiude to improve its position in these ever shaky areas.

 

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I think they certainly could, altough going for one after the other would be cleverer....

Turkey has a very large army(second largest in NATO if I am not mistaken), equipped with modern western equippment.
It also has a rather developped economy able to sustain it's military.


Despite being helped by the west and by the USSR with equipment, training and intelligence, the iraqi army had not been able to defeat the underequipped and hopelessly outdated iranian army in 1980-88.Actually in 1988, the iraqis even were loosing that war when peace was settled...
So I don't think they would have had any sort of a chance against the turks.

The syrian army is similar to the iraqi one in equippment and training, but it is a lot smaller.


As I already said, international pressure and simple caution would have prevented the turks from occupying considerable areas of syrian or iraqi territory.
Given the context of water war we're speaking about here it would have been enough for Turkey to occupy the northern parts of those countries and so be able to dictate some favourable peace terms.

 

Hello castellot , a side issue ,
the turks owned syria , lebanon ,irak ,palestine ,saudi arabia and a few
other dusty corners, ...... they lost them , to the french and english
The great attaturk , turned its face away from those places and as he did
so, all turks must do , for a good turk ,those are shameful places ,were
the past like a snake will drag them backward and away from progress .
the water is in turkey it is turkish water ,how much they let go unto the
lowland is up to their benevolence ,if the arabs are upset , so be it ,
turkey will be magnaminous but not treatened by ex subjects .they would occupy the upland maybe up to mosul but they would inherit a plenty of
kurds of wich they have to much already