As predicted the Iranians aren’t backing down to Trump’s threats. They threaten to attack energy and water infrastructure amongst their gulf neighbors.
https://www.reuters.com/world/middle...es-2026-03-22/
Iran threatens to retaliate against Gulf energy and water after Trump ultimatum
TEL AVIV/JERUSALEM/WASHINGTON, March 22 (Reuters) - Iran said on Sunday it would strike the energy and water systems of its Gulf neighbours in retaliation if U.S. President Donald Trump follows through with a threat delivered a day earlier to hit Iran's electricity grid in 48 hours, escalating the three-week-old war.
The prospect of tit-for-tat strikes on civilian infrastructure could further rattle global markets when they reopen on Monday morning, and threaten the livelihoods of millions of civilians in the region who rely almost exclusively in some cases on desalination plants for water.
“If Iran’s fuel and energy infrastructure is attacked by the enemy, all energy infrastructure, as well as information technology...and water desalination facilities, belonging to the US and the regime in the region will be targeted pursuant to previous warnings,” Iranian military spokesman Ebrahim Zolfaqari said, according to state media.
But while attacks on electricity could hurt Iran, they would be potentially catastrophic for its Gulf neighbours, which consume around five times as much power per capita. Electricity makes their gleaming desert cities habitable, in part by powering the desalination plants that produce 100% of the water consumed in Bahrain and Qatar. Such plants use seawater to meet more than 80% of drinking water needs in the United Arab Emirates, and 50% of the water supply in Saudi Arabia.
Iran's Parliament Speaker Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf doubled down, writing on X that critical infrastructure and energy facilities in the Middle East could be "irreversibly destroyed" should Iranian power plants be attacked.
Iran's powerful Revolutionary Guards said they would also mean the shipping lane where a fifth of global oil and liquefied natural gas normally transits along Iran's southern coast would remain shut.
"The Strait of Hormuz will be completely closed and will not be opened until our destroyed power plants are rebuilt," the Guards said in a statement.
More than 2,000 people have been killed during the war the U.S. and Israel launched on February 28, which has upended markets, spiked fuel costs, fuelled global inflation fears and convulsed the postwar Western alliance.
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