Communist Iran

The Tudeh (the Iranian Communist Party) was one of the stronger political factions in Iran during and immediately after the revolution. IOTL, they allied with Khomeini until he turned on them in 1982 and arrested most of their leadership.

But lets say that due to some POD (Khomeini has a car accident, doesn't really matter what), they manage to take over, such that the 1979 revolution ultimately results in Iran becoming communist rather than Khomeinist. What happens? How might this affect the Cold War? Does the US pour money into anti-communist groups the way we did in Afghanistan?
 
Thers no way the US would tolerate a communist Iran.

I know, but what would the US do about it? If it happens due to internal Iranian politics, then, well, its happened. The US can threaten to invade, but the Soviet Union would probably take exception to that.

My personal opinion is that the US would find some anti-communist rebels (which, given Iranian society and the 1970's Iranian political landscape, would pretty much be inevitable) and shower them with funds, and the Soviets likewise shower the official communist government with funds, but there would be a tacit agreement that neither would send troops in. Wondering what everyone else thinks.
 
Thers no way the US would tolerate a communist Iran.

Beyond a certain point there is really nothing the US can do. This is just after Vietnam, intervention is politically as well as militarily unfeasible. It's a strategic country perched right on the Persian Gulf with a bevy of rich resources to match. The Soviets by the time of 1979 are getting into Afghanistan right next door. It was pretty much an unspoken rule of the Cold War that nobody puts boots on the ground in the Persian Gulf. Confrontation and quite possibly worldwide nuclear war are a strong possibility otherwise.

The revolution was anti-Shah, and as a consequence was pretty much anti-American. The Iranian people weren't idiots, they saw the writing on the wall and realized who was keeping their unpopular, despotic monarchy afloat. People who were pro-American had all of zero political credibility with the Iranian populace circa 1979. And it really only got worse after the Americans refused to return the Shah.

Iran had a strong and rather active leftist element to the revolution. The problem was twofold: they were disparate, with people running the gamut from democratic socialists to something that would be more amenable to the Muscovite brand of leftism. But with numbers and political organization alone, Iran should have been a leftist state after the revolution, but Khomeini and his supporters were a small, tightly-packed minority. They had a consensus and a singular purpose. And they also realized that if the leftists were going to fight the Shah, they would spend all their strength and leave themselves weakened for Islamist takeover in the aftermath.

The effects of this on the rise of Islamism as a viable political force would be enormous. Groups like the various chapters of the Muslim Brotherhood in the Middle East predate the Iranian Revolution by decades, but Iran was the first case where a group like this had successfully taken power. All the others were little more than theories: political entities of varying degrees of tolerance, but in the most prominent Arab countries were strongly suppressed or were simply co-opted by the state ideology, particularly in Syria and Egypt. Iran would still be regionally-isolated and seen as a threat: it's both revolutionary as well as ruled by the dreaded Persian tyrants. An Iran-Iraq War of similar but not altogether the same circumstances as OTL is not beyond the realm of possibility.
 
A commusit iran would have warm realtion with the USSR but early in the cold war it was agreed somewhere that Mideast was US sphere of influence and USSR gets Eastern europe
 
A commusit iran would have warm realtion with the USSR but early in the cold war it was agreed somewhere that Mideast was US sphere of influence and USSR gets Eastern europe

...The modern histories of (to various degrees admittedly) Egypt, Syria, Iraq, and Yemen would disagree with you.
 
A communist Iran would have warm relations with the USSR but early in the cold war it was agreed somewhere that Mideast was US sphere of influence and USSR gets Eastern Europe

No it wasn't.

I don't necessarily think a communist Iran is going to throw off one parasitic foreign influence just to readily embrace another. It'll of course find the USSR a cushy ally in a time that is likely to be uncertain for it, but I really doubt that any Iranian regime is just going to fall into that black and white category of either American ally or Soviet client-state. Iran has oil and a strategic location, it can afford to leverage its position and resources.

...The modern histories of (to various degrees admittedly) Egypt, Syria, Iraq, and Yemen would disagree with you.

Agreed with that.
 
I don't necessarily think a communist Iran is going to throw off one parasitic foreign influence just to readily embrace another.

This. The situation wasn't as simple as "America screwed us, now we're allies with the USSR"; which is why the communists and the Islamists worked together during the revolution. It wasn't about ideologies, it was about the right to self-determination.
 
This. The situation wasn't as simple as "America screwed us, now we're allies with the USSR"; which is why the communists and the Islamists worked together during the revolution. It wasn't about ideologies, it was about the right to self-determination.

Iran's in a good position to leverage what it has. Rich resources, large population, strategic location. Neither of the superpowers can really actively involve themselves in Iran without risking a major confrontation (and once again, the Iranians aren't stupid, they will know this perfectly well).

Very few states or organizations during this time period became puppets of either Moscow or Washington entirely by choice. Iran is going to want to focus on Iran and disengage itself from the Cold War, in other words fairly similar to what happened historically: Iran didn't actively join the Soviet camp, it went its own way.
 
The Tudeh lost a lot of strength after 1953, mainly because the Shah was afraid of the Soviets trying to take over Iran as a client state. They still were a major opposition force, but SAVAK was fixated primarily on them, which is why Khomeini took over and the leftists were weakened.

I think 1953 or prior would be a better opening for a Communist Iran, as the Tudeh were already starting to jockey for power by ditching Mossadegh. This gets ignored a lot because of the CIA's heavy-handedness and subsequent spinning trying to make Mossadegh look like a Communist himself.

I think in any case, the Soviets will try to turn Iran into a loyal client state. It was the biggest prize in the Middle East and would severely strengthen their influence in the region. Of course, plenty of Iranians won't be happy, but the Soviets have less scruples about forcing client states since they don't have public opinion to answer to back home. Of course in 1979 this could just lead to a Super-Afghanistan conflict with them having to prop up two client states.
 
Top