How do you avoid the Iranian revolution of 1979.

[jmc247]

Don't have Carter send a 4 star to Iran to tell their army ready to coup to stay in their barrack and let change happen peacefully. It didn't work out well for the Iranian officer corps who were tortured and killed in a massive purge by the Mullahs.

Which of course Saddam saw as a sign of weakness and attacked leading to 2 million dead.

But, as for earlier I would have slowly had Iran on the path to democracy starting in the 60s. A slow step by step path would have worked.

 

[Alternatehistoryguy47]

Don't have Carter send a 4 star to Iran to tell their army ready to coup to stay in their barrack and let change happen peacefully. It didn't work out well for the Iranian officer corps who were tortured and killed in a massive purge by the Mullahs.

Which of course Saddam saw as a sign of weakness and attacked leading to 2 million dead.

But, as for earlier I would have slowly had Iran on the path to democracy starting in the 60s. A slow step by step path would have worked.

The Iranian Army was ready to launch a coup? When?

 

[Dfront21]

The Iranian Army was ready to launch a coup? When?

There were at least two coup attempts that I am aware of, which led directly to the purges. The first one was where a fighter pilot volunteered for a suicide mission to fly his jet into the Air France plane that was bringing Khomeini back to Tehran. The second one, and it's a bit more conspiratorial, where Army officers were working with Saddam. Saddam would invade Khuzestan, and the idea was that this would lead to the collapse of the revolutionary government, and the military would step in. The army told Saddam he would be able to keep Khuzistan, but the real plan, after gaining control of the government, was to launch an offensive and recapture Khuzistan. Of course this was discovered, officers were executed, Saddam still invaded, and the revolutionary government fell into the hands of the clergy. Not sure if this idea had any CIA backing.

 

[Lt.Gen 767]

I think no coup in 1953. Tran becomes a constitutional monarchy. With a Democracy there is much less frustration.

I think that this is the way to avoid the revolution of '79. Khomeini and the religious conservatives might still end up in power through the ballot box but I think that a slower and more democratic modernization could leave Iran in a similar situation to Turkey.If this does happen then America would probably ally its self with Iran. This could lead to an Iraq-Iran war between an American backed Iran and a Soviet backed Iraq.

 

[Kishan]

Shah should have been less despotic and more liberal much earlier. He should have allowed Mossadegh to continue and favored democracy to develop. Steps should have been taken to secularize the society and neutralize the Ayatollahs without overt suppression. Had he taken such progressive measures, a democratic and secular Iran would have emerged. Though Shah might have continued, he would have become a constitutional monarch rather than an absolute dictator. Then an Islamic Revolution could have been avoided.

 

[Karelian]

First possible early POD could be this:
Major oil fields of the southern and western side of the Persian Gulf are discovered just in time in 1914 so that Edmund Slade's comission report recommends their utilization as the future source of fuel for the Royal Navy over his OTL preference of the prospects of Anglo-Persian Oil Company in 1914.

Thus Anglo-Persian Oil Company remains a minor private firm, and Iran doesn't become a resource colony for British Empire. Consequently Truman feels less cocksure and doesn't use nuclear blackmail to force Soviets to leave their occupation zone in Northern Iran after WW2. With Iranian Kurdistan and their Azeri territories as Soviet puppets, the appeal of Soviet system is much lower than in OTL, and an outside threat helps to unify the fragmented political field somewhat - in addition Western powers are more inclined to support Mossadegh and give him a chance.

You really have to convince Britain that Iranian oil reserves aren't worth it to avoid them and the US from messing the situation further.

 

[NKVD]

I think not having a CIA-backed coup in the 1950s is all you need.

 

[M. Adolphe Thiers]

The Iranian Army was ready to launch a coup? When?

I think there was plans for a coup when the provisional government with Shapour Bakhtiar, or maybe early on when Mehdi Bazargan was in place. The problem was like in one of my previous posts, the Shah dithered about authorizing it, and as such the officers that were to be relied upon became imprisoned as the situation on the ground deteriorated.

Shah should have been less despotic and more liberal much earlier. He should have allowed Mossadegh to continue and favored democracy to develop. Steps should have been taken to secularize the society and neutralize the Ayatollahs without overt suppression. Had he taken such progressive measures, a democratic and secular Iran would have emerged. Though Shah might have continued, he would have become a constitutional monarch rather than an absolute dictator. Then an Islamic Revolution could have been avoided.

Ok, how exactly could Mossadegh could have continued to do what he did without leading to a crisis? First of all, he pushed Iran into an idiotic economic crisis by being too bold over oil royalties. While it was totally unreasonable for the British to NOT split the revenue 50/50 like ARAMCO was already doing with the Saudis, all he did was cause Iran's economy to collapse by calling out the British who were more than happy to embargo their petroleum exports on the world market. Then of course, you have the extralegal behavior of Mossadegh himself, with his refusal to obey a constitutional dismissal from office by the Shah, and dissolving parliament in a illegal manner.

If you want a scenario where the Shah and Mossadegh get along, then you're going to need a POD like Karelian suggested where the British aren't going be complete dicks about exploiting them, or at least a change in personality that makes Mossadegh less of a stubborn and tragic figure. Unfortunately, as somebody once said about Iranians involved in politics, that "they have a small chip in their brain that suddenly goes off and tells them that THEY are the one true and rightful ruler of Iran."

 

[Cook]

The first one was where a fighter pilot volunteered for a suicide mission to fly his jet into the Air France plane that was bringing Khomeini back to Tehran.

Take stories like this with a pinch of salt; said pilot would obviously not be a religious fanatic and, quite simply, why wouldn’t he just shoot down the airliner instead of trying to collide with it?

 

[TheMann]

Having Mossadegh and Pahlavi come to terms is a good start. That needed to happen for the Shah to have real legitimacy, any possibility of which was scotched thanks to the coup engineered by Langley and London. If they had gone the ARAMCO route, the problems massively go away and London still has a steady oil supply. Considering Britain's economic state at the time, though ought to have known better than to push their luck.

And keeping Khomeini down is an important part of the job, too.

 

[patch_g]

Know very little about Iran but how about this:
The Shah's cancer is more aggressive and works faster on him. It's made public and his son takes over many of his duties while the very publicly dying Shah continues to work "for the advancement/benefit of the country" (or something like that). Other posters have said the son was more liberal/less autocratic. There's a public succession going on, and that, coupled with the sympathy 'vote' because of the Shah's illness, might defuse/dilute the opposition.
Of course, the opposition might decide "the cancer is God's vengeance on the heretic, let us strike now while they are weak/in disarray".
So, yeah. How's that?

 

[TheMann]

Know very little about Iran but how about this:
The Shah's cancer is more aggressive and works faster on him. It's made public and his son takes over many of his duties while the very publicly dying Shah continues to work "for the advancement/benefit of the country" (or something like that). Other posters have said the son was more liberal/less autocratic. There's a public succession going on, and that, coupled with the sympathy 'vote' because of the Shah's illness, might defuse/dilute the opposition.
Of course, the opposition might decide "the cancer is God's vengeance on the heretic, let us strike now while they are weak/in disarray".
So, yeah. How's that?

If you do it a few years earlier than OTL, then you might get this to work, preferably if you do not have the SAVAK do some of the stupid things that followed. A major program to advance the interests of the lower parts of the population would help this, as Iran's late 1970s economic issues were making things problematic for the country. If the son can get something of a "benevolent ruler" image, you might be able to keep the revolutionaries down, particularly Khomeini.

 

[brick24alpha]

There are a few ways to bind the religious establishment to the state, one way has been state control over official religious institutions both by appointing the religious officials and by controlling institutions finances. While state funding of religious organizations is in some ways contrary to a goal of secularization it is one of the things 'secular' Turkey has done which might serve as a model for Iran.

When you control the appointment and funding of a organization it is much easier to keep the organization itself in line

 

[Alternatehistoryguy47]

I think there was plans for a coup when the provisional government with Shapour Bakhtiar, or maybe early on when Mehdi Bazargan was in place. The problem was like in one of my previous posts, the Shah dithered about authorizing it, and as such the officers that were to be relied upon became imprisoned as the situation on the ground deteriorated.



Ok, how exactly could Mossadegh could have continued to do what he did without leading to a crisis? First of all, he pushed Iran into an idiotic economic crisis by being too bold over oil royalties. While it was totally unreasonable for the British to NOT split the revenue 50/50 like ARAMCO was already doing with the Saudis, all he did was cause Iran's economy to collapse by calling out the British who were more than happy to embargo their petroleum exports on the world market. Then of course, you have the extralegal behavior of Mossadegh himself, with his refusal to obey a constitutional dismissal from office by the Shah, and dissolving parliament in a illegal manner.

If you want a scenario where the Shah and Mossadegh get along, then you're going to need a POD like Karelian suggested where the British aren't going be complete dicks about exploiting them, or at least a change in personality that makes Mossadegh less of a stubborn and tragic figure. Unfortunately, as somebody once said about Iranians involved in politics, that "they have a small chip in their brain that suddenly goes off and tells them that THEY are the one true and rightful ruler of Iran."

That begs the question of why the US didn't initiate the coup in the Shah's name?

 

[M. Adolphe Thiers]

That begs the question of why the US didn't initiate the coup in the Shah's name?

Why did the Carter Administration do pretty much anything they did about the Iranian Revolution? The Shah was weak and wanted a clear message from Washington saying, "Go launch a coup and stop this". Since no such message was ever made, it didn't happen.

American policy on the turmoil was as wishy-washy as it was with Egypt and the Arab Uprisings in the present.

 

[Alternatehistoryguy47]

Why did the Carter Administration do pretty much anything they did about the Iranian Revolution? The Shah was weak and wanted a clear message from Washington saying, "Go launch a coup and stop this". Since no such message was ever made, it didn't happen.

American policy on the turmoil was as wishy-washy as it was with Egypt and the Arab Uprisings in the present.

So if Carter had told him "go launch a coup right now!", the Shah would have done it?

 

[Blackfox5]

There's a few points I want to make because I'm not sure all posters are aware of them.

1) The initial Iranian Revolution was not Islamic in nature. Khomeini hijacked the revolution to establish an Islamic state. Only a minority of Iranians wanted this in 1979. Khomeini was embraced as a symbol of resistance to the Shah, but he was in exile in Iran, and very few people were actually bothering to know what Khomeini was advocating. Khomeini was able to seize power by cunning and a series of fortuituous events - much like how Hitler or Castro seized power.

So if you want to avoid the Islamic Revolution, you should be clear whether your goal is to keep the Shah in power, or if you merely want to prevent Khomeini from gaining power. There is a scenario where the revolution happens, the Shah topples, but Khomeini does not gain control.

2) The 1950s CIA coup can be summarized as "Kermit Roosevelt spreads some money around to rent some mobs who act thuggish and say some bad things about Mossadegh so Mossadegh resigns." It's farcical. There was little resistance to the coup. Mossadegh didn't try to stay in power and crush the coup. Mossadegh had popularity, but the people against him were very widespread, and at the time the coup didn't seem to generate much resentment.

It was only much later int he 1970s as the new middle class was attempting to get political power that the Mossadegh era was seen as some kind of golden age where democracy was smashed by the evil CIA. It was primarily a myth.

Mossadegh was certainly a secularist who had said good things about democracy, and probably meant them. But his actions did not support his words. At the end of his term, he was ruling by decree and accumulating more and more power to himself. He was a charismatic demagogue, and was doing nothing to establish constitutional authority or the rule of law. We see this in many figures in history like Porforio Diaz in Mexico, leaders sympathetic to democracy, who accrue absolute power, neuter the legislature, and always seem to think that people are not ready for democracy.

Personally, I don't see Mossadegh as a real democratic figure, although I do see him as well-intentioned. He certainly wasn't a good leader and positioned Iran in a very dangerous position. Mossadegh made a good myth though, but that Iranians in the 1970s believed the myth was true doesn't make it so.

 

[M. Adolphe Thiers]

So if Carter had told him "go launch a coup right now!", the Shah would have done it?

I think it would have been a lot more likely that the regime used a lot repressive measures than it did OTL. If the Carter Administration didn't keep switching back and forth from deciding to press human rights and democratic reforms to ambiguous statements of encouragement, then things could have turned out pretty different.

Of course, whether or not this would work in stopping things in motion is completely different. Its probable that things could look like what Syria or Libya look like today, or maybe even back when Hafez Assad shelled Hama in 1982.

 

[Stormy Sky]

I think no coup in 1953. Tran becomes a constitutional monarchy. With a Democracy there is much less frustration.

Or have it fail. Britain and the US get political blowback similar to the Suez Canal Crisis, and Mosaddeq gets enough political capital that he becomes the Nasser of Iran, and hopefully manages to do away with the Shah altogether allowing the creation of a secular Iranian republic and democracy.

 

[M. Adolphe Thiers]

Personally, I don't see Mossadegh as a real democratic figure, although I do see him as well-intentioned. He certainly wasn't a good leader and positioned Iran in a very dangerous position. Mossadegh made a good myth though, but that Iranians in the 1970s believed the myth was true doesn't make it so.

My God, ANOTHER person is out there who has rationally analyzed the Abadan Crisis without resorting to talking points proclaiming the Shah or Mossadegh a living saint?!

And here I am despairing at how the entire debate about AJAX has been distorted without any chance of serious discussion of the events. There may be hope just yet!