Dams Diplomacy between Iran and Iraq

Settled Communities in the Middle East have historically been at loggerheads over water resources. Therefore, controlling and diversifying the ways of exploiting these resources has always been one of the pillars of states policy-makings in this region. For this reason, after the Second World War, modern dam-building, as the most important new way of exploiting water, has attracted the attention of these states, including Iran and Iraq, and has become one of the most important development programs of them. The growing attention to this policy has led to the formation of disputes between two countries. In this article, we intend to answer the key question: what are the threats of dam building policies in Iran and Iraq? And these threats has led (or will lead) to what diplomatic disputes and cooperations in the field of dam diplomacy between them? To answer these questions, we will first propose a special theoretical framework for dam diplomacy. Then we will deal with the dam-building policies and data related to the dams of Iran and its neighboring countries. In the following, we will say that these policies and dams have led (or will lead) to formation of what diplomatic threats, conflicts and cooperations between Iran and Iraq as one of these countries. Here, our approach has been based on the green theory of international relations and according to the subject, we have used exploratory, documentary based and conceptual-rational modeling methods.