Iran in the MoS TL
Iran in the MoS TL
Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn't pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same, or one day we will spend our sunset years telling our children and our children's children what it was once like in the United States where men were free!
- Ronald Reagan.
The bravest thing you can do when you are not brave is to profess courage and act accordingly!
- Corra Harris.
Ever since the discovery of oil in the early 1900s Britain had held a keen interest in Iran. For a long time they fought first Russians, then Germans and finally Russo-Americans for power and influence over the oil-rich Gulf-nation. In 1919, Iran made a trade agreement with Britain in which Britain formally reaffirmed Iran's independence, but actually attempted to establish a complete protectorate over it. After Iranian recognition of the USSR in a treaty of 1921, the Soviet Union renounced czarist imperialistic policies toward Iran, canceled all debts and concessions, and withdrew occupation forces from Iranian territory. In 1921, Reza Khan, an army officer, effected a coup and established a military dictatorship.
Reza Khan was subsequently elected hereditary Shah in 1925, and thereby founded the new Pahlevi Dynasty. The new Shah abolished the British treaty, reorganized the army, introduced many reforms and encouraged the development of industry and education. In August, 1941, two months after the German invasion of the USSR, British and Soviet forces occupied Iran. In September, the Shah abdicated in favor of his son, Mohammed Reza Shah Pahlevi . American troops later entered Iran to handle the delivery of war supplies to the USSR.
At the Teheran Conference in 1943 a declaration was signed by the USA, USSR and Britain that guaranteed the territorial integrity and independence of Iran. However, the USSR soon forstered a revolt in northern Iran, which led to the establishment of the Soviet controlled People's Republic of Azerbaijan and the Kurdish People's Republic in December 1945. When Soviet troops remained in Iran following the expiration of the wartime treaty, Iran protested to the the Americans and British, who still had troops in the area. The Americans were busy pulling their troops home from nearly everywhere, but Churchill saw Iran as being of vital interest for his post-war reconstruction of both Britain itself and the Commonwealth, and therefore sent his Foreign Minister, Anthony Eden, to Teheran to calm the Shah and put some pressure on the Soviets. After intense British and some American pressure, the Soviets finally withdrew in late 1946. The fact that the USA at the time were the only nuclear-armed power had no doubt its effect on the Soviets leadership. In London, this was noted, and both the British nuclear and missile programmes were accelerated further. The Soviet-established governments in the north, lacking any true popular support, were deposed by a joint British-Iranian military operation in early 1947. In the spring of 1949 the last British troops left Iran, for the time being.
A setback for the British in Iran came with the election of Mussadegh as Iranian Premier in 1951. Mussadegh headed the National Front movement, a extremely militant grouping of nationalists. The new Iranian government soon began to nationalize the oil industry. Although a British blockade led to the virtual collapse of the oil industry and serious internal economic troubles, Mussadegh continued his nationalization policy. Openly opposed by the Shah, Mussadegh was ousted in 1952 but quickly regained power. The Shah fled Iran, but returned when Monarchist elements within the Iranian Army forced Premier Mussadegh from office in August 1953. Covert British activity was largely responsible for Mussadegh's ousting and the safe retutn of the Shah. One of the most well-remembered pictures from that time is of a just returned Shah standing misty eyed with his wife on the stairs of a BOAC de Havilland Comet C/III jet-liner in Teheran International Airport.
In 1954, Iran allowed an international consortium of oil companies from the Commowealth nations to operate its oil facilities, with profits shared equally between Iran and the consortium. After the British lead Coup d’Etat in 1953, a succession of Premiers restored a measure of order to Iran and in 1957 martial law was finally ended after 16 years in force. Iran established even closer relations with the Commonwealth, and received large amounts of military aid from the British in particular, but also from other Commonwealth nations. The Shah fx had a Rhodesian personal security detail from his return in ’53 til his death.
Starting in the late 1950s and continuing into the 1970s, the Iranian government, at the Shah's initiative, undertook a broad program designed to improve economic and social conditions. Land reform was a major priority. In an effort to transform the feudal agricultural system, the government purchased land and sold it to the peasants, while distributing large tracts of crown land. In several elections between 1957 and 1972, the Iranians overwhelmingly approved the Shah's extensive plan for further land redistribution, compulsory education, and profit sharing in the growing industry. Eventhough the Shah an absolute monarch, he nonetheless steadily moved towards democracy. A new government-backed political party, the Iran Novin party, was introduced at the first Iranian General Election in 1957 and won an overwhelming majority in the parliament and subsequent General Elections. Women received the right to vote in the General Elections in 1962. The many reform programmes were financed by selling government-owned factories to private, mostly Canadian and South African, investors and by the huge oil revenue generated by the consortium.
The Shah's various reform programmes alienated and angered religious leaders and some of the major political groups, notably the Soviet-backed Communists in the Tudeh-party. Riots occurred after the General Election of 1967. The political instability was reflected by the assassination attempt on the Shah himself (only prevented by the self-sacrifice of one of the Rhodesian bodyguards) and on Premier Hassan Ali Mansur from the Novin Party. Not wanting another Egypt, British Primeminister MacMilland sent Royal Marine Commandos to secure British interests in the country. The Marine Commandos soon got company from Canadian and South African military detachments. Iran's pro-Western policies continued into the 1970s, however, the Islamic clergy and the Communists was in strong opposition to the growing Westernization, secularization and the presence of foreign troops on Iranian soil.
In the 1960’s and ‘70’s relations with Iraq deteriorated. This was partly due to a simmering conflict over the Shatt al Arab waterway. A number of armed clashes took place along the entire length of the border. Up to the General Election in 1972, Iran scrapped the 1937-treaty with Iraq on control of the Shatt al Arab and demanded that the treaty, which had given Iraq virtual control of the river, be renegotiated in Iran’s favour. For along time Iraq had been a pro-Soviet state, so the Commonwealth decided to back the Iranians, and Commonwealth troops began to arrive in the region, together with numerous naval vessels, among them at least one Ballistic Dreadnought-submarine. The Soviets, not wanting a repeat of the Pakistani revolt, withdrew support from Iraq. A coup soon followed and a Monarchist took control after the pro-Soviet Baath Party in Iraq.
Troubles in Iran, however, soon arose when the Novin-Premier wanted to make good on the Iranian claims to Bahrain at election-time in 1977. Severe Commonwealth pressure got the Iranian to back off, but this course of action gave the Opposition new air!
The failed grap for Bahrain, together with religious agitation from the Islamic clergy and political ditto from Tudeh caused widespread unrest respectively among the still poor peasantry in the overcrowded urban areas. The religious-based rural protests were conservative in nature, directed against the Shah and his close relationship with the morally corrupt Commonwealth, where the Communist urban portests where directed more at the Shah’s economic policies, that had created a very wealthy upper-class. In the run up to the General Election, Ayathollah Khomeini, who had been in exile for nearly 12 years, called for the abdication of the shah. Martial Law was declared and the elections postponed. As governmental controls begun to falter, the Commonwealth reacted swiftly and the United Commonwealth Command got the go-ahead for an intervention in Iran. The British PM, Alec Douglas-Home, needed to boost his popularity and, besides orchestrating the intervention, ordered the SAS to liquidate Khomeini before he became a threath to British and Commonwealth interests! In the long run, however, the otherwise successful operation backfired, and Douglas-Home declined to run for another term, when the SAS’s participation in Khomeini ‘s death was leaked in late 1977. The assasination also caused a great amount of trouble with France, on whoes soil the Ayathollah was killed, and the pro-French US-government. Nonetheless, the intervention succeded, and Iran stayed in the Commonwealth’s sphere of influence. Later, in mid-1980, Iran became an associated member of the British Commonwealth of Nations, and is at present a respected and well-liked nation!
