Implications of a Soviet Invasion of Iran post-1979?

After having a discussion about how would a Soviet invasion of Iran after the revolution effect the Persian Gulf and the USA, I thought about how it would spark a potential hotspot in the Cold War.

Yet, I feel like it would have greater implications upon the world other than just the USSR, Iran, and Iraq, so I wonder how would this invasion affect the world?
 
IIRC, the Chinese get quite a bit of their oil from Iran. Dont know about then but if so, the Chinese are going to have some issues. Not sure how this affects Afghanistan. They might still invade there as well.
 
IIRC, the Chinese get quite a bit of their oil from Iran. Dont know about then but if so, the Chinese are going to have some issues. Not sure how this affects Afghanistan. They might still invade there as well.
Likewise, a couple countries like India and Japan had investments into Iran when the Iran-Iraq war broke out, most likely for oil; in fact a Soviet invasion of the country would disrupt the oil flow and could potentially effect those countries in question negatively.
 
True, but I'm asking for how it would effect the world without necessarily erupting into WWIII.
Well, the problem is the US is just not going to like it and will insert itself and those dick measuring contests can get very dangerous very quickly...
 
Merely threatening shipping through the straits of Hormuz would terrify all the other gas-guzzling countries on the planet!

Would the Soviet Union export its petroleum via Iranian ports?

If Russia invaded Iran ..... how many more years until the Iranian Army re-equips with Soviet-made tanks, aircraft, warships, etc. Would Sviet weapons on both sides change the outcome of the Iran/Iraq War?
 
Well, the problem is the US is just not going to like it and will insert itself and those dick measuring contests can get very dangerous very quickly...
Or at least be backing anti-Soviet insurgents there the same way the US had in Afghanistan; in fact it might be considered another Contra thing there considering the massive interest in the gulf region.
 
After having a discussion about how would a Soviet invasion of Iran after the revolution effect the Persian Gulf and the USA, I thought about how it would spark a potential hotspot in the Cold War.

Yet, I feel like it would have greater implications upon the world other than just the USSR, Iran, and Iraq, so I wonder how would this invasion affect the world?
Probably quite badly. I recall open speculation in that era of the U.S. using tactical nuclear weapons to stop the Soviet Union from seizing Iran.
 
Panic. A huge proportion of the world’s oil passes through the Straits of Hormuz, and if the USSR should end up controlling Iran, it is de facto controlling oil supply to the rest of the world. We saw the panic in the early 1970s through the OPEC oil embargo, and in this situation, it’s the USSR calling the shots.

Pakistan is not going to be a happy bunny. It was on good terms with the USSR, and in 1979, the US embassy in Islamabad had been burned to the ground. If the Soviets control Iran, then Pakistan military government can expect destabilisation efforts from the USA, and uninvited support from the USSR, turning Pakistan into a proxy battlefield. Relations between India and Pakistan, dodgy already, will nosedive. It’s only a few years ago that India intervened in Bangladeshi independence, when East Pakistan decided it would change its name, and the Pakistan Army tried to restore order and prevent Bangladeshi independence through terror tactics against the local populace. When this violence threatened to spill over into India, the India army came and unceremoniously kicked the Pakistan army out. This soured relations between the countries.

God knows how the Iran/Iraq conflict develops. One of the many reasons for the start of this war was Iraq wanting to supplant Iran as the dominant regional power. How that plays out if the USSR is controlling Iran is anybody’s guess, but I doubt it will be stable.

Another factor is the unbalancing of the Sunni/Shia relations. USSR controlling the dominant Shia power will change the power balance. One could argue that by removing Iran’s influence over the Shia, there will be less conflict. More likely, in my opinion, is that we would get Shia Muslims adopting traditional asymmetric warfare techniques.

And this presupposes the USSR is successful. This is not a given. The USA is likely to back resistance, just as it did in Afghanistan. The USSR had a few problems in Afghanistan alone. Now it’s having to deal with Afghanistan and Iran, and is likely to suffer from overstretch. It’s also likely to have problems with its own Muslim population, many of whom have Shia affiliations.

Just for added complications, the Kurds in Turkey, Iraq, and Syria are now sitting in land right next to a trouble spot, and this could easily blow up into something unpleasant.

Those people with investments in Iran (China and India being of greatest interest) are likely to get very twitchy.

Israel is involved in Lebanon at this time, and I suspect it would be really unhappy about the USSR trying to take over Iran. The Bushehr Nuclear Power Plant was well under construction. In OTL, this construction was disrupted by the Iran/Iraq war, but I’m not convinced outside parties would be quite so keen to bomb property of the USSR, so the plant, after a hiatus, probably gets built.

Just to add to complications, in Saudi Arabia in OTL in 1979, the Grand Mosque in Mecca had been seized in an attempt to overthrow the House of Saud, hostages taken, hundreds killed, and the Saudi military made numerous unsuccessful and unprofessional attempts to retake the Mosque, until Pakistani Special Forces dealt with the issue. In OTL, this led Saudi Arabia to adopt a less tolerant view of things, and religious laws became severe. If the USSR is active in Iran, it is likely that Pakistani Special Forces won’t be involved, it seems improbable that the Saudi military would make much headway, and Saudi Arabia couldn’t allow the occupation to continue. Which probably results in them asking for US Special Forces to do the job. In OTL, even the rumour of US involvement caused anti-American outrage in much of the Muslim world. If US troops were actually involved in an attack on the Grand Mosque in Mecca, things might spiral out of control very quickly.

Other than that, I don’t think there would be much effect.
 
I thought of Threads too. In that film, the scenario presented was that a US-backed coup overthrows the then-young Islamic revolutionary regime and prompting the Soviets to intervene in the hopes of restoring the Ayatollah and preventing the Shah's return to power. Unfortunately, both sides bite off more than they can chew. Comments?
 
I thought of Threads too. In that film, the scenario presented was that a US-backed coup overthrows the then-young Islamic revolutionary regime and prompting the Soviets to intervene in the hopes of restoring the Ayatollah and preventing the Shah's return to power. Unfortunately, both sides bite off more than they can chew. Comments?

Given the poor relationship the Soviets had with Iran, I doubt they would look for the return of the Ayatollah. More likely to back the Tudeh Party (or the remnants of it).
 
I should mention that it's implied in Clancy's Red Storm Rising the Soviets wanted to invade Iran too but had to start a war with NATO before doing so, but we didn't get to see it happen in the book.

But anyway, I just thought of a way of what would it take for the Soviets to invade Iran in the early 80's, yet I wonder how plausible for this to happen:

In December of 1980 the Soviet Politburo decided to intervene in Poland to uphold the Brezhnev Doctrine regardless of international opinion much to the dismay of the Polish government. In this direction, the Soviets planned to invade Poland in the guise of a Warsaw Pact military exercise within a year; they still pressure the Polish government to enact a state of emergency and the whole resistance by anti-communist Solidarity continues. But there’s no avail by the Polish government to defeat Solidarity on its own and by the night of November 30th, 1981, the Soviets and their Warsaw Pact allies invade Poland under the cover of the “Soyuz 81” exercise and proceed to put the whole county under occupation. Witnessing the invasion and the causalities from the protestors and resistant civilians caused from it, the Western bloc began to enact sanctions on not only Poland but to most of the Warsaw Pact nations themselves, including the Soviet Union. These sanctions, including the oil ones, would put more strain on the Soviet economy that some speculate would case the nation to fall by the end of the 1980’s, so henceforth the Politburo decided to settle its issue by seizing resources to pay off its debts, even if it would risk war with NATO. So henceforth, they looked to conquering Iran which was already in a stalemate against the invading Iraq by that time and began to prepare to intervene in the conflict for the sake of the oil supply. The timing was getting ripe for the Soviets as Iran was on its way to invade Iraq to oust the pro-Soviet Ba’athist regime by May of 1982, it was at that moment that the Politburo offered to help the Ba’athists in not only repelling the Iranians but also invading the country in conjunction; Baghdad gladly accepted it given its long sought objective to seize Iran’s Khuzestan province. So on October 9th, 1982, just after Iran seized some of its land back from Iraq, the Soviets invaded the country from the north . The Iranian nation quickly fell to a multi-pronged invasion by the Soviets and a renewed Iraqi offensive that would see the Islamist regime collapse into chaos by a coup on November 2nd, 1982 despite fierce resistance by the IRGC. This would quickly involve the US and Saudi Arabia, of which neither of them would want to see Iraqi and Soviet dominance of the Persian Gulf, so the former of which sent naval warships to deter the aggressor powers while aiding the remnant Iranian forces of which are led by the once exiled Banisadr who seeks friendly relations with the West just to counterbalance the invading Soviet forces (there was also the remnant Islamist forces led by the Ayatollah himself who was in hiding for a long time). Constant guerrilla warfare waged by Islamist organizations is being inflicted upon the occupying Soviets and Iraqis and constant naval tensions are putting the trade routes in the gulf at risk, thus putting harm to the global economy.
 
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