"A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again. I don't want that to happen, but it probably will,"

> "just any act of war, which naturally causes some amount of terror among civilians"

I think we just may be working with totally different perspectives on this since I'm struggling to see this the same way as you.

I agree, but want to add that the threat of hitting civilian targets is itself a war crime, so there's a pretty solid case that we already did over the last few days:

"Acts or threats of violence the primary purpose of which is to spread terror among the civilian population are prohibited." -Article 51(2) AP1 to Geneva Conventions

A mandate is an authoritative command, order, or authorization to act, typically given by a higher authority, such as voters, a court, or a governing body .

So in the sense that a mandate is passed by government, and governments are sometimes authoritarian? If your logic is stronger than that you'll need to explain it to me. I'm not saying Asian countries are not authoritarian, I take no stance on that, I just genuinely don't understand how mandates imply authoritarianism.

"Take desalination plants as an example. Yes Iran has those too but Iran also has significant snow melt as a source of water, Mountains, remember? Iran has ski resorts they have that much snow."

Iran is in a dire situation with its water supply. It used to rely on an ancient system of ancient Qanat wells that only provide a fixed amount of water that can't be overdrawn, but in their quest to be self sufficient in terms of food they have gone to groundwater instead. The Qanats haven't been maintained so their output has reduced, probably permanently to some extent, and the ground water table is running dry to the extent that they are considering moving their capital.