Fascinating topic and conversation, but I am wondering, could the Soviets get what they want, with a Communist coup in Iran? Because some new SSR are one thing, but if the USSR actually got a seat on OPEC, military access to the Indian Ocean and the Persian Gulf, I feel the USA would go into crisis mode. Massive military build up, at least, and if the USSR doesn't win right off the bat, then funding the Iranian resistance. If the USSR does win, and Iraq goes into Soviet influence, then I think that Saudi Arabia would become closer to the USA. I doubt Iraq would want to mess with the USSR and play the powers against each other; the USSR borders Iraq and can fund the resistance in Kurtistan easy; the USA won't be able to strike Iraq as easily.
Well, we're not talking about an actual Soviet seat on OPEC here.
The Soviets would be hoping that the Iraq/Iran War, combined with their invasion of the north, would put increased pressure on the Islamic regime and cause them to collapse when a Tudeh-inspired coup is enacted.
Then an Iran that is effectively a Soviet client state would give the USSR a seat on OPEC by proxy, with the Iranian government conferring with the Soviets before meetings and what not.
Also, this client state could conceivably give the Soviets basing rights to the large and well proportioned Iranian bases at Isfahan, Shiraz, and Bandar Abbas. This would allow Soviet MiG-25 interceptor/recon planes to range out into the Indian Ocean and over the Persian Gulf.
In regards to Iraq...it was already basically in kahoots with the Soviets. In Osprey's
Iranian F-4 Phantom II Units in Combat, Farzad Bishop and Tom Cooper point out that there were Soviet and East German pilots flying MiG-23s and -25s in the IrAF.
So the chances of them just turning around and giving the middle finger to the Soviets are non-existant.
I've been pushing the whole time that US funding to the Iranians would be remarkably easy: the Shah's orders were frozen (sometimes on the loading ramp) in America and Britain when the coup happened.
Phoenixes, Sidewinders, AWG radars, spare parts for C-130s, F-14s, F-4s, SeaCobras, Iranian mod-Chieftain tanks, everything. All these things were basically sitting in crates at US and UK airports waiting.
There wouldn't be any need to figure out what the Iranians needed for their combat operations: we have the shopping list already.
We just unfreeze the orders and start landing them at Isfahan or Bandar Abbas. If that's politically unfeasible, then we land them in Saudi Arabia, Yemen, or Qatar, and the Iranians can pick them up there.