"Not Western, Not Eastern" An Alt-Iranian Revolution and Beyond TL

Autumn, 1978:

The phone rings in the main office of the Presidential Palace in Baghdad. Newly inaugurated President Saddam Hussein, who had assumed the presidency following the pressured "resignation" (i.e. coup) of former president Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr, answers the phone.

“Hello”?

Salaam Saddam, it’s me”.

Saddam instantly recognizes the soft spoken voice, and tries to conceal his annoyance.

“What can I do for you, Mohammad Reza”?

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Iran and Iraq had been in strained relations throughout the sixties and seventies, largely over disputed claims regarding the Arvand Rud/Shatt al-Arab waterway. The two had strategically backed armed insurgent groups against each other, with Iran supporting the Iraqi Kurdish Peshmerga and Iraq supporting Arab separatists in the Iranian province of Khuzestan. In 1975, Saddam personally met with the Shah in Algiers to sign a diplomatic treaty to end informal hostilities, and the two now have ostensibly a more amicable relationship. Yet in secret, Saddam has not taken his eyes off the “Persian menace”.

The Shah answers.

“You’ve probably seen the news the past few months. Thing are getting worse here, and for the first time, I’m not sure if I have the ability to control the demonstrations breaking out across the country. They’re all chanting for that bearded rat Khomeini! I know he’s there in Najaf making his seditious speeches about me”.

Saddam senses where this conversation is headed.

“Can you get rid of him for me, Saddam”?

“You want him dead”?

The Shah suddenly hesitates. Initially, he meant for Saddam to exile him out of Iraq. Somewhere far away, where he wouldn’t be as much a nuisance. But now he begins to consider the thought of having him dead entirely. If he kills him, he’ll likely turn Khomeini into a martyr, a new Imam Hussein to his treacherous and corrupt Yazid, and may only inflame the revolutionary agitation inside his country. But if he doesn’t, there’s the chance that Khomeini may one day return to Iran and seize power for himself and his Velayat-e Faqih. The Shah takes the plunge.

“Yes. Can you make it happen”?

Saddam believes the final days of the Shah’s regime are counting down, and that he’ll pick up the pieces from a crumbling Iran.

"Don't worry, he's as good as dead. I'll send a Republican Guard agent to terminate the man from Qom, immediately.

The phone conversation ends.

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Confession: this is my first attempt at making a timeline, and I'm a little nervous to say the least, given the amazing work put out by a lot of people on this forum. As such, this TL will probably be streamlined a bit, not hyper-focused on minute details. I'm trying to craft an interesting narrative of Iran's alternate political and civic development without Khomeini and the Islamic Republic, while not trying to paint an unrealistic or overly idealized picture. Please don't hesitate in giving advise on where I may have went wrong on or what should be done instead.
 
What would be Saddam's motive to kill Khomeini?

He thinks that the Shah's regime is running its course and will soon implode. And believes that once that happens, without an ostensibly unifying figure such as what Khomeini was during the anti-Shah revolution throughout 1978, Iran will inevitably descend towards civil war. Secular democrats vs monarchists vs Islamists vs communists. And that he'll be able to regain full control of not just the Shatt al-Arab/Arvand Rud waterway, but possibly also conquer the oil-rich and Arab populated province of Khuzestan in the fallout.
 
He thinks that the Shah's regime is running its course and will soon implode. And believes that once that happens, without an ostensibly unifying figure such as what Khomeini was during the anti-Shah revolution throughout 1978, Iran will inevitably descend towards civil war. Secular democrats vs monarchists vs Islamists vs communists. And that he'll be able to regain full control of not just the Shatt al-Arab/Arvand Rud waterway, but possibly also conquer the oil-rich and Arab populated province of Khuzestan in the fallout.


Oh OK. I'm interested to see where this one goes.
 
Yo, I'm in on this. Alternate Middle Eastern scenarios are intriguing because there are always so many moving parts!
 
The whole context of Saddam expelling Khomeini was that Iranian agents exposed a pro-Soviet coup in Iraq and in order to show some reconciliation Saddam expelled Khomeini, so the first part doesn't make sense in the context of OTL. Even aside from that, I have a question - IOTL Khomeini's eldest son died in Najaf IOTL in 1977, and while SAVAK and Iraqi government said the cause was a heart attack it lead to massive protests in Iran. So why would the Shah try to push his luck by telling Iraq to kill Khomeini? Guess he doesn't want to be Shah anymore.
 
The whole context of Saddam expelling Khomeini was that Iranian agents exposed a pro-Soviet coup in Iraq and in order to show some reconciliation Saddam expelled Khomeini, so the first part doesn't make sense in the context of OTL. Even aside from that, I have a question - IOTL Khomeini's eldest son died in Najaf IOTL in 1977, and while SAVAK and Iraqi government said the cause was a heart attack it lead to massive protests in Iran. So why would the Shah try to push his luck by telling Iraq to kill Khomeini? Guess he doesn't want to be Shah anymore.

He's not going to be Shah for very longer either way. Between his cancer (He died in 1980) and the already poor state of affairs of Iran of 1978, he be leaving soon. (OTL, or close to it.)

Offing Khomeini is overall the best way of saving Iran from pretty much everything OTL. ( Islamic Republic, the Iran-Iraq War, etc.)

Besides, Saddam can always have Khomeini 'disappear' to ease the results.
 
He's not going to be Shah for very longer either way. Between his cancer (He died in 1980) and the already poor state of affairs of Iran of 1978, he be leaving soon. (OTL, or close to it.)

And how will he know that? The Shah was not an intelligent man, to say the least.

Offing Khomeini is overall the best way of saving Iran from pretty much everything OTL. ( Islamic Republic, the Iran-Iraq War, etc.)

If you want to write a "Khomeini dies" TL, fine, but this context is not plausible. It would be a lot easier to have Khomeini's plane crash as he is returning to Iran crash rather than engaging in this scenario.

Besides, Saddam can always have Khomeini 'disappear' to ease the results.

Saddam didn't have too much love for the Shah to go through such lengths to make him happy. He always considered the Algiers declaration to be temporary.
 
The whole context of Saddam expelling Khomeini was that Iranian agents exposed a pro-Soviet coup in Iraq and in order to show some reconciliation Saddam expelled Khomeini, so the first part doesn't make sense in the context of OTL. Even aside from that, I have a question - IOTL Khomeini's eldest son died in Najaf IOTL in 1977, and while SAVAK and Iraqi government said the cause was a heart attack it lead to massive protests in Iran. So why would the Shah try to push his luck by telling Iraq to kill Khomeini? Guess he doesn't want to be Shah anymore.

I'm aware of that, but by all apparent accounts, the Shah was offered by Saddam the choice of having Khomeini clipped instead. So, for this POD the Shah make the alternative split-second decision to have Khomeini killed, weighing in the cost-benefits of that and going in favor of it. And I'm also aware of Mostafa Khomeini's untimely death in Najaf in 1977, where foul play has been deeply suspected, though never fully proved, by Iranian opposition. Ruhollah Khomeini's assassination, whether made to look like an "accident" or not, will certainly add to mounting antipathy towards the Shah and, more consequently for this alternate Iran, the Saddam regime.
 
I'll probably update this sometime in a few days, but I just wanted to offer my deepest condolences to the families of the 29 people who were killed in the gutless terrorist attack in Ahvaz, capital of Khuzestan province. Many of the victims were disabled veterans of the Iran-Iraq War, who endured horrors unimaginable to preserve the territorial integrity of Iran.
 
I'm aware of that, but by all apparent accounts, the Shah was offered by Saddam the choice of having Khomeini clipped instead. So, for this POD the Shah make the alternative split-second decision to have Khomeini killed, weighing in the cost-benefits of that and going in favor of it. And I'm also aware of Mostafa Khomeini's untimely death in Najaf in 1977, where foul play has been deeply suspected, though never fully proved, by Iranian opposition. Ruhollah Khomeini's assassination, whether made to look like an "accident" or not, will certainly add to mounting antipathy towards the Shah and, more consequently for this alternate Iran, the Saddam regime.

As said, offing him the best choice. OTL, when Khomeini came back, he poisoned the relationship between the Westernized elite, anti-Shah activists, and the conservative Muslims.

Another thing is before 79, Israel and the Shah's Iran in fact had close military and intelligence ties. Israel and Iran would continue to maintain their good working relationship with Iran not going off the deep end. (More so if Iraq send big reinforcements to Syria. And so Iran can beat the Hades out of Iraq.)

Going back to the 1980, Carter is going to lose re-election regardless as mention before, but what you could do is not have Reagan as the GOP candidate. You could have Howard Baker, Edward Brooke, Charles Percy, John Anderson, Bob Dole, Elliot Richardson, Charles Mathias, and maybe John Danforth running. ( Brooke would be a bold choice for the GOP in 1980, an African-American GOP ex-Senator.)

On the other, Reagan does still has a strong chance of becoming President (he nearly unseated a sitting president in the 1976 primaries in OTL as it was.) This is about Iran, but how it affects the greater (America most of all.) is just as interesting to look at. (Go for Brooke, have the USA have it first black President in 1980 and with the GOP.)

I'll probably update this sometime in a few days, but I just wanted to offer my deepest condolences to the families of the 29 people who were killed in the gutless terrorist attack in Ahvaz, capital of Khuzestan province. Many of the victims were disabled veterans of the Iran-Iraq War, who endured horrors unimaginable to preserve the territorial integrity of Iran.

The same here. My deepest feelings to the people of Iran and the victims.
 
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