Iran’s Oil Wealth: A Catalyst for Change
Without its oil, pouring from the ground at a rate of 1,000,000 barrels a day and earning the nation an estimated $250 million this year, Iran would simply be another semi-arid pastoral and agricultural nation like its neighbor Afghanistan. The oil wealth has allowed Iran to embark on an ambitious $1.1 billion development program. This program, made possible by oil revenues, includes regional schemes that will supply irrigation, fertilizer, electric power, and light industry. The Khuzistan project in southwestern Iran, under the able guidance of a U.S. firm headed by David E. Lilienthal and Gordon R. Clapp, who pioneered the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA), is a key example. However, despite large oil revenues, the Iranian economy has been crucially dependent on more than $300 million in aid pumped in by the U.S. since 1951.