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Hatred of Israel Caused Iran's Water Crisis
(Wall Street Journal) Seth M. Siegel - After a devastating earthquake in 1962, Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi quietly invited Israeli experts to advise Iran on modernizing its water infrastructure. Hundreds of Israeli water experts worked on Iran's water restructuring and rethinking of agricultural practices. By the time the shah fell, Iran's water systems were flourishing. The country had productive water-focused agricultural planning, major cities' plumbing upgraded to reduce leaks, and several desalination plants designed, built and operated by Israelis, in partnership with Iranian experts and engineers. After the revolution, the Israelis left quickly and many of the Iranian engineers who had worked with them were exiled or executed. The regime's religious leadership largely outsourced water issues to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, whose engineering and construction companies handled Iran's hydrological problems, enriching its leadership with billions of dollars. Nik Kowsar, an exiled Iranian journalist, described billion-dollar "dam and transfer schemes" that were adopted "not because they worked, but because they meant massive commissions."