"I think it's fair to say this is a third Gulf war, isn't it?" Economist defense editor Shashank Joshi wrote on X.

Beyond the ongoing exchange between U.S. and Israeli forces striking Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps military targets and IRGC retaliation strikes against U.S. and allied bases across the Gulf and into Europe, including Cyprus, an increasingly uncomfortable reality is beginning to emerge: civilian and commercial targets do not appear to be off limits.

Developments we've been following today include drone strikes on Saudi Aramco's Ras Tanura complex, the largest refinery in the country. Then, drone strikes on a commercial data center run by Amazon AWS in the United Arab Emirates (first-ever in modern warfare), as well as countless videos of IRGC missile and drone strikes on condo towers and other civilian soft targets.

Bloomberg commodity analyst Javier Blas wrote on X, "A lot of attention about 'soft targets' like hotels and airports. And about oil/gas facilities."

"But please keep an eye on what may prove the most strategic asset for Persian Gulf countries: water desalination plants," Blas warned.

Desalination plants are critical infrastructure for many Gulf states because almost all freshwater in the region comes from either desalinating seawater or pumping deep aquifers. The highest dependence on these plants includes 90% in Kuwait, 86% in Oman, 70% in Saudi Arabia, and 42% in the UAE, coming from desalination.

Power plants are not off limits. 

Under international humanitarian law, attacks may only be directed at military targets, not civilians or civilian objects as such. But as shown above, the IRGC's targeting has proved otherwise.

Perhaps that's why some Gulf states that have been on the fence about the war have chosen to join forces with the U.S. and Israel.

So if major desalination plants, or the transmission systems tied to them, were knocked offline in wartime, the result could quickly become a humanitarian emergency, especially in dense coastal cities. Let's hope Blas did not give the IRGC any ideas on X.