Like California drying up from human's overuse of the land, does the arid geography in the Middle East (the hub of humanity) have anything to do with the generations of empires that have worked that land?

Thanks for asking here. There have historically been incidences of humans causing or contributing to desertification. I'm not qualified to explain them. Still the single largest contributor to the Middle East's Arid Geography is Earth's geography A great askscience post regarding why