[jessaustin]

Do you realize that this is basically just apologetics for the reign of W? The reason that there are armed conflicts in Iraq is because USA broke that nation, and the decades it will take to heal have not yet elapsed. The reason there are armed conflicts in Syria is because it's next to Iraq, and also various parties have schemed to weaken the (admittedly awful) incumbent regime. The desert isn't new. It's not as though fifty years ago these places were covered in rain forests. It's not as though ISIS have less need for water than whomever they've replaced.

[w84t1me]

Because the middle east was a sea of peace, social stability and contentment beforehand? The Iraq war was a disaster, but let's not kid ourselves about a simplistic root cause.

[kafkaesq]

Because the middle east was a sea of peace, social stability and contentment beforehand?

Straw man arguments don't help, either.

[markdown]

> Because the middle east was a sea of peace, social stability and contentment beforehand?

Relative to now, yes it most certainly was.

[bprieto]

Except for the Kuwait invasion and Gulf War, and between 500.000 and 1.5M people dead in the 9 years of Iran-Irak war in the 80s, and tens of thousand palestinians killed by jordanians in the 70s, and several Israel-Arab wars since 1947, and Lebanon civil war.

[jeremysmyth]

Time at war isn't the only measure of peace, social stability and contentment in a country.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wars_involving_the_Uni...

[markdown]

There was a decade of relative peace in that region before the US went on the warpath.

[modoc]

Ignoring Saddam deciding he could just invade nearby countries?

[dragonwriter]

No, that was outside of the decade in question. So it's not being ignored so much as excluded by definition.

Of course, the time when Iraq did that shortly before the decade in question, he had just spent nearly a decade involved in another invasion of a neighboring country -- with the full support of the US, which even rushed to publicly support Iraq when international pressure arose over their use of chemical weapons. So, its not exactly a mystery where he got the idea he could just invade neighboring countries with no consequences.

[arethuza]

Perhaps worth noting that when Saddam invaded Iran he was presented very much as the "good guy" in Western media.

[danudey]

Not rain forests, but you don't need to be a rain forest to have a water supply.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_crisis_in_Iran

[PhantomGremlin]

I think this chart https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Iran_Population_%281880-2... might have a tad to do with it.

More people means more demand for water.

[philipov]

And "climate change" is a misleading word to call resource exhaustion caused by human populations outgrowing the carrying capacity of their environment. It's as if the humans are simply passive victims of external circumstances.

[7952]

Syria is a mix of different factors. It has a large proportion of subsistence farmers who are disproportionately effected by climatic conditions. It is reasonable to suggest that food shortages and rising poverty could exasperate other sources of insecurity.

[jessaustin]

Most parts of the world (i.e. outside western europe and certain Pacific Rim nations) have a large proportion of subsistence farmers. Most of those parts do not have Iraq and Syria's problems.

ps. you may have meant "exacerbate".