DBWI: No 1979 Soviet Embassy Massacre

Most plausible alternate scenario


  • Total voters
    45
I mean, all of this threw Jordan, Israel and Egypt closer together in the face of the Iran-Afghanistan Axis.

Lebanon too, after all Tehran is Hezbollah's #1 backer. Even Pakistan is trying to forge closer ties with the Israelis - the same country that smuggled arms and supplies into Afghanistan (on behalf of Uncle Sam) and trained Taliban and other Mujahideen within their borders.
 
Tough one. Be interesting to see how revolutionary Iran would hash out without Soviet tanks rolling through Tehran. My guess is messy, ugly and altogether worked out of its system within a decade into something more stable.

Considering what happened to Iran post-war, I have a feeling that it would basically be OTL's fundamentalist regime only lacking the devastation brought on by the Soviet Invasion and with a surviving Ayatollah Khomeini at the helm. Certainly much more dangerous than today's rogue state.

On the other hand, without a common enemy in the form of the Soviet invaders/occupiers, there would be very little to unite the then fractured Iranian populace, so perhaps there is indeed a chance of Khomeini's Islamic Republic falling apart (especially with the Tudeh communists and the pro-Shah people still running about).
 
I don't know. If anyone could avoid war there, it would be a Democrat like Carter. The Vietnam War was fresh in the minds of many, so Carter imposes sanctions, says a few tough words and lets the impossible happen.

I doubt that even Carter would stand by and allow the murders of multiple Americans and an Ambassador to go unpunished. That's about as likely as FDR ignoring Pearl Harbor and letting Japan go on a rampage in the Pacific. Retribution in the event of a massacre would have been inevitable.
 
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