What would have been the blood price of keeping Khomeini's movement out of power in Iran?

raharris1973

Gone Fishin'
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Monthly Donor
In discussion of the Iranian revolution a few things come up over and over again. One was that the Shah did not want to go down in history as a bloody tyrant (although if he had qualms about blood on the streets, he had no problem with blood in the prisons), others point out inept handling of the regime's instruments of oppression in the face of the growing Khomeini movement. These remarks imply, and people like Zbigniew Brzezinski maintain, that a sufficiently competent, and forceful (and thus brutal) crackdown by the Shah against the movement could quite likely have preserved the Iranian regime and stopped Khomeini's takeover. Others point to social changes in Iran and backlash they caused and the genuine popularity of Khomeini to pretty much imply or say that once Khomeini was able to communicate with the media from Paris and circulate his sermons on cassette tapes, the old regime did not have a chance.

By regime surviving, I don't necessarily mean the Shah himself (although a cancer-free Shah may well act differently), but ensuring continuity of government under a regency with possible evolutionary but not revolutionary political change in Iran's government, society and foreign relations.

Assuming a Shah and circle of loyalists willing to do whatever it takes, could they crush the revolution?

Would the cost in Iranian lives have been more or less than the cost in lives of the Hama massacre in Syria in 1982, or the Algerian civil war, or the Syrian civil war of the 2010s?

Or would harsher repression still fail within a year or so, allowing the revolution to proceed as OTL just slightly delayed?

I also humbly request participants in this thread do *not* branch this out into a discussion of impact on the US election in 1980. That's been talked to death.
 

oberdada

Gone Fishin'
Shooting the plane down might have been enough.

If the regime is willing to kill all those international journalists on board.

Once Khomeini is unharmed on the ground and millions take the street to great him it is to late.

But maybe shooting down the plane might have set the country on fire.
 
In my opinion, given the unprecedented size and scale of the revolution - between six and nine million people took part in anti-Shah demonstrations by December of 1978 (which accounting for a total population of 37 million and subtracting from that those below the age of fourteen, well you get the idea) - and the near-universal contempt which the Shah’s regime had earned among his subjects, it would take several tens of thousands murdered in an attempt to squash the anti-Shah revolution, and even then you’re counting on the loyalty of ordinary conscript soldiers who have far greater affinities with those they’re ordered to fire on that they do with that decadent tyrant relaxing in Saadabad Palace.

There are certainly ways to avoid the Khomeinist revolution/counter-revolution (though most involving him being whacked). But after the Black Friday massacre, the Shah is DOA as far as I believe.
 

Khanzeer

Banned
Soviets invade Iran in 1978,leftist parties side with them and Islamist alliance is split
Shah fleds from country but starts a govt in exile and rallies all Patriots to his cause and denounces all opponents as traitors.
 
Soviets invade Iran in 1978

If they do, Moscow becomes roach city.

Leaving aside the domestic factor that Tudeh was already branded and dismissed as being a Soviet puppet by broad swaths of the Iranian populace for decades, including by much of the Iranian left (hence where groups like MEK come out of), there's no way that the U.S., even under Carter, is going to let the Soviet park their tanks on the Persian Gulf. Afghanistan was bad enough, Iran is unacceptable.
 
In my opinion, given the unprecedented size and scale of the revolution - between six and nine million people took part in anti-Shah demonstrations by December of 1978 (which accounting for a total population of 37 million and subtracting from that those below the age of fourteen, well you get the idea) - and the near-universal contempt which the Shah’s regime had earned among his subjects, it would take several tens of thousands murdered in an attempt to squash the anti-Shah revolution, and even then you’re counting on the loyalty of ordinary conscript soldiers who have far greater affinities with those they’re ordered to fire on that they do with that decadent tyrant relaxing in Saadabad Palace.

There are certainly ways to avoid the Khomeinist revolution/counter-revolution (though most involving him being whacked). But after the Black Friday massacre, the Shah is DOA as far as I believe.
This nobody liked the Shah and the ayatollah capitalized it, if they are sidelined, them a more secular presidential styel Iran wil be on the center..and still hating the guts of Soviets and US
 
Reagan elected in 1976. Khomeni killed in Paris by a CIA hit. Shah still hated, and his son gets overthrown after he dies, by some other fundamentalist group or by the MEK.
 

kernals12

Banned
Soviets invade Iran in 1978,leftist parties side with them and Islamist alliance is split
Shah fleds from country but starts a govt in exile and rallies all Patriots to his cause and denounces all opponents as traitors.
That is literally the plot of the movie Threads.
 

kernals12

Banned
Reagan elected in 1976. Khomeni killed in Paris by a CIA hit. Shah still hated, and his son gets overthrown after he dies, by some other fundamentalist group or by the MEK.
Why Reagan? Why couldn't Nixon or Ford do that with Kissinger at helm, the guy who encouraged the Argentine junta's dirty war and Turkey's invasion of Northern Cyprus?
 
Since when did Iran have a nuclear arsenal comparable to the USSR ? Or any weapons at all ?
Short of messing with NATO, no nuclear warhead would be used against the Russians.
Yeah, invading Iran won't cause things to go nuclear directly.

Problem is, a full-on invasion of Iran is nothing short of a global incident. Invading Afghanistan in 1979 was one thing; it was supposedly in support of a local ally that went bad, and for the most part it remained confined to landlocked, semi-isolated Afghanistan.

Iran, OTOH, is going to be a BIG issue. Its position on the Gulf and in the Middle East make it way too valuable to ignore, it's a major oil-producing state, and it has a larger impact on the global strategic situation. NATO might not immediately invade, but you can bet all across Western Europe and the Middle East, America and its allies are going to start building up defensively. Tensions are going to skyrocket, and we move a minute or two closer to midnight on the Nuclear Clock.

Of course, the USSR invading Iran is a recipe for disaster. If Afghanistan turned sour quickly, imagine how a hostile, much larger and more populated nation like Iran would be for Soviet troops. It will destroy the USSR as a nation. NATO need not get involved.
 

Zen9

Banned
When the revolution hit, it caused a major panic in Washington. As they thought this was a prelude to a Soviet invasion/takeover.
They feared Moscow would gain the warm water ports on the Gulf and exert it's influence into the Arabic Peninsula. Cutting out Saudi oil....

Plans were laid for a massive movement of forces into Iran to prevent this. They expected to have to stop a large movement of Soviet armour rolling towards the Persian Gulf.
This is also why Zia Al Haq got the green light for a Pakistani Bomb.
And why The West Backed Saddam Hussein.

It all got uncomfortably close to WWIII, and is part of the context in why confronting Argentinian aggression over the Falklands had geopolitical consequences.


So a way to keep a pro-western regime in Tehran was upmost in Western minds.
 

kernals12

Banned
I have not seen it , but I was thinking like a limited invasion like Soviets did in 1940s
Britain's population falls to less than 10 million, hospitals have to amputate limbs without anaesthesia, kids can't speak proper English, it snows in the middle of July, tennis courts are turned into internment camps, it's pretty bad.
 
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The military could have forced the Shah to abdicate and, then, established a military dictatorship, leading to an Algerian-style Civil War.
 

Khanzeer

Banned
When the revolution hit, it caused a major panic in Washington. As they thought this was a prelude to a Soviet invasion/takeover.
They feared Moscow would gain the warm water ports on the Gulf and exert it's influence into the Arabic Peninsula. Cutting out Saudi oil....

Plans were laid for a massive movement of forces into Iran to prevent this. They expected to have to stop a large movement of Soviet armour rolling towards the Persian Gulf.
This is also why Zia Al Haq got the green light for a Pakistani Bomb.
And why The West Backed Saddam Hussein.

It all got uncomfortably close to WWIII, and is part of the context in why confronting Argentinian aggression over the Falklands had geopolitical consequences.


So a way to keep a pro-western regime in Tehran was upmost in Western minds.
I always thought this warm waters argument was totally irrational ,
let says the soviets do occupy karachi and bandar abbas , then what ? they cannot move any meaningful naval units there and even if they do USN and RN can blockade them for ever

Controlling the ME oil grab though would have been worthwhile as soviets would not need "warm water ports" to move that inland into Eurasia
 

Zen9

Banned
Firstly the Gulf is not that big. Just consider how Iran made life harder for Tankers moving in and out of the Gulf.
Secondly access to the Arabian Sea is not easy to contain.
Thirdly blockade is an Act of War......
 

Khanzeer

Banned
Firstly the Gulf is not that big. Just consider how Iran made life harder for Tankers moving in and out of the Gulf.
Secondly access to the Arabian Sea is not easy to contain.
Thirdly blockade is an Act of War......
And soviets would not want to provoke a war with the west that they are almost assured to lose
blockade of persian gulf will be seen as an act of war by NATO soviets would not be stupid enough to provoke a nuclear holocaust for the sake of more oil
the real danger of soviet influence in A-stan /arabia and Iran was not to western interests but to the local dictators /military regimes as the leftist ideologies were a hugh threat to the generals /landowners and mullahs of the middle east
 
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