WI: Imperial Iran Goes Rogue

[Delta Force]

What would happen if Imperial Iran were to decide to flex its muscles and resolve some of its many border disputes with overwhelming military force starting in the mid-1980s? Unlike Iraq, Imperial Iran would have a well equipped and trained military, in some cases better equipped than the militaries of the countries it purchased equipment from, and it would likely also be quite close to having nuclear weapons (if it were so inclined). You can read below for specifics on equipment numbers.

Under the Shah, Imperial Iran was well on the way to having one of the most powerful militaries in the world (click here for Wikipedia source). By 1985, it would have had a very impressive military, as well as a strong nuclear infrastructure. Apart from aircraft carriers and supporting equipment, Imperial Iran would have at least a quarter the equipment levels of the United States in most areas. It would be closer for the ground forces.

The Imperial Iranian Army would have 2000 Challenger 1 main battle tanks, supported by hundreds of older M60 Patton and Chieftain tanks, as well as hundreds of M551 Sheridan, FV101 Scorpion, and BMP-1 light tanks. Thousands of M113 and BTR-40s, BTR-50s, and BTR-60s would be in service as APCs and IFVs.

The Imperial Iranian Air Force would have the following aircraft:

150 F-14 Tomcats
90 F-15 Eagles
250 F/A-18 Hornets
240 F-4 Phantoms
300 F-16 Falcons
181 F-5 Freedom Fighters
70 A-10 Warthogs
10 E-3 Sentries
12 KC-135 Stratotankers
12 P-3 Orions
AH-64 Apaches and AH-1 Cobras
UH-60 Black Hawks and CH-47 Chinooks

The Imperial Iranian Navy would also be very well equipped:

3 light aircraft carriers
-- 3 Invincible class
11 cruisers
-- 2 Ticonderoga class
-- 9 Belknap class
21 destroyers
-- 4 Kidd class
-- 6 Spruance class
-- 6 Type 42 class
-- 2 Gearing class
-- 2 Allen M. Sumner class
-- 1 Battle class
22 frigates
-- 8 Kortenaer class
-- 10 Knox class
-- 4 Alvand class
14 corvettes
-- 8 Bayandor class
-- 6 Grisha class
15 submarines
-- 6 Type 209 class
-- 6 Type 206 class
-- 3 Tang class
4 amphibious assault ships
-- 2 Tarawa class
-- 2 Iwo Jima class
28 fast attack craft
-- 12 La Combattante IIa class
-- 16 Osa class

In addition to this, Iran would have an extensive network of Patriot ABMs, P-15 Termit and Exocet ASMs, and Tomahawk missiles.

 

[Captain Jack]

I'm not quite sure what the purpose of the thread is? I'm not trying to be rude; the information is fascinating but I think you might have left off the part about your question/proposition.

 

[Delta Force]

I'm not quite sure what the purpose of the thread is? I'm not trying to be rude; the information is fascinating but I think you might have left off the part about your question/proposition.

Fixed the ordering of it, the question is now at the top of the OP.

 

[Pangur]

How come there is some Soviet kit in the mix?

 

[Delta Force]

How come there is some Soviet kit in the mix?

No idea, but this is what Imperial Iran actually purchased (or planned to purchase) in real life. Saudi Arabia purchases non-Western equipment from time to time, but that's not really comparable to Imperial Iran's situation.

 

[DValdron]

Who or what would Iran go rogue on?

I don't see it picking a fight with the Soviet Union.

So.... Iraq? Saudi Arabia? The Persian Gulf and states?

What's the Shah's ultimate motivation?

 

[Delta Force]

Who or what would Iran go rogue on?

I don't see it picking a fight with the Soviet Union.

So.... Iraq? Saudi Arabia? The Persian Gulf and states?

Its neighbors in the Persian Gulf.

Iran has claimed Bahrain at least as recently as 1971, and maintains claims on UAE administered islands in the Persian Gulf. The Shatt al-Arab has been a historical source of tension with Iraq (it was one of the major issues in the Iran-Iraq War), as it Iraq's only outlet to the Persian Gulf. Additionally, southern Iraq has a large Shia population, which Iraq historically hasn't treated too well. Iran and Qatar both share the world's largest natural gas field, South Pars/North Dome, and while it may never have been a historical source of tension, it could be depending on the outcome of other events. That, and Iran is already behaving aggressively in this PoD, so why not dispute the gas field too? They're armed to the teeth, possibly with nuclear weapons, and without Iran-Iraq they are going to be an important source of petroleum exports.

 

[ggarner57]

On the one hand, no Oil Embargo!
On the other hand, Oil Fields burning beyond Saddam's wildest dreams

 

[Simon]

How come there is some Soviet kit in the mix?

Well they shared land and naval borders with the Soviets, were more of a non-aligned state than pro- or anti-Soviet one and by spreading their equipment base it means they're not reliant on only one or a few suppliers that can suspend supplies of spares and technical support if they don't agree with their policies.

 

[Kalki]

Well if that was Iranian military strength by '85 then you pretty much butterflied away any adventurism on Saddam's part, including the Iran-Iraq war. Maybe it does happen, but it results in Iraq getting pwned instead of the bloody stalemate. I wonder what can lead to a Iran-Iraq war in this TL. A war between Iran and the Gulf states seems unlikely to me as afaik weren't the gulf states allied to the US somewhat back then. I know the whole gulf states staunchly allied with US happened post-Iranian revolution and the whole alliance was kinda tied together by the threat from a Shia theocratic Iran and Iraq.

A bigger question is, is there any way for Imperial Iran to avoid the revolution altogether. Maybe reform and continue to survive? Don't mean to hijack the TL, just want to ask you guys.

 

[burtledog]

Wow.

I think the problem may be that if the Shah (I guess the last Shah's son) continued this buying spree without really developing the infrastructure in the hinterlands...transportation, utilities, education so the Persians can do it themselves, even if the 78 revolution doesn't happen, something else will. If he can improve the majority of Irananians lives and develop some loyalty, then the world will look signifcantly different. Would the Soviets still feel free to get involved in A-stan? If so would Iran openly or clandestinely fight them?

 

[DValdron]

I suppose that's a good point. Lots of punching power on paper. But if the underlying economy and infrastructure is not there, then basically the Shah blows his wad pretty fast, and then it all stalls out, as he outruns his logistics, his fighter jets run out of jet fuel or spare parts, or the mechanics are overwhelmed by a war service schedule.

What it would take is immense luck. So Iraq falling into paralysis, turmoil or civil war as a result of a leadership vacuum, which allows Iran to do a blitszkrieg/Anschluss.

Or a lot of toe sucking, where the US gives Iran a green light to gobble up Persian Gulf principalities.

 

[Delta Force]

I think the problem may be that if the Shah (I guess the last Shah's son) continued this buying spree without really developing the infrastructure in the hinterlands...transportation, utilities, education so the Persians can do it themselves, even if the 78 revolution doesn't happen, something else will. If he can improve the majority of Irananians lives and develop some loyalty, then the world will look signifcantly different. Would the Soviets still feel free to get involved in A-stan? If so would Iran openly or clandestinely fight them?

The 1980s would likely have looked very good for Iran seeing how well it did in the historical situation. The Iran-Iraq War seems to have given an artificial boost to the Saudi Arabian economy, while crippling the Iraqi economy. Ironically, Iran did quite well economically during the war, even though it was a pariah state with massive damage to its economic infrastructure. The Iran-Iraq War also had a heavy economic and human toll, costing the region trillions of dollars and killing or wounding millions of people.

Here are some interesting graphs from World Bank information:

Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia GDP per capita (current dollars)
Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia GDP per capita growth rate
Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia GDP
Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia GDP growth rate
Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia population
Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia population growth rate

 

[Delta Force]

I suppose that's a good point. Lots of punching power on paper. But if the underlying economy and infrastructure is not there, then basically the Shah blows his wad pretty fast, and then it all stalls out, as he outruns his logistics, his fighter jets run out of jet fuel or spare parts, or the mechanics are overwhelmed by a war service schedule.

What it would take is immense luck. So Iraq falling into paralysis, turmoil or civil war as a result of a leadership vacuum, which allows Iran to do a blitszkrieg/Anschluss.

Or a lot of toe sucking, where the US gives Iran a green light to gobble up Persian Gulf principalities.

The Wikipedia information indicates that Iran purchased tens of thousands of bombs and aerial munitions throughout the 1970s, including thousands of laser guided munitions. In real life, Iran has also done a rather good job keeping its equipment functioning decades after being cut off, and it doesn't have the spare parts and infrastructure base that Imperial Iran would have had by the mid-1980s. They are so adept at reverse engineering and otherwise illegally acquiring replacement parts that the F-14s that didn't go to museums were fed into a massive shredder to prevent parts from leaking out to them. Only Iran and the United States have ever flown F-14s, so that means we were worried they would someone get them right out from under our nose at AMARC, which is run by the United States military itself.

All of the other equipment would have spares and other support spread across the world, so it could be fairly easily maintained. If Israel decides to keep supporting Imperial Iran, then they would basically be able to maintain anything. By the 1980s Israel could design and build radars, missiles, and tanks, and it has access to Western supply chains. If Iran can't get spare parts or doesn't want to be tied down to them, the Israelis might be able to help them replace major subsystems. That's assuming Iran doesn't have a factory making spare parts anyways by the mid-1980s.

 

[burtledog]

My assertion was that if the Shah did not begin to win his people over, some sort of revolt would have happened. The educated western leaning people actually had alot to do with the revolt, but were then superseded by the Islamicists.

 

[katchen]

The Shah's big mistake was not realizing that Americans selling him arms were about as friendly to him as realtors selling a subprime loan to an African-American family who qualifies for a 30 year fixed loan. The US basically played the Shah for a sucker and never intended Iran to become a developed nation. The US never really intended Japan, Thailand, South Korea, Taiwan or Malaysia or even Israel and certainly not China to become developed nations either but those countries saw through the US Government's game and learned how to win by avoiding the dependency trap. Unfortunately, the Shah didn't, any more than Boris Yeltsin didn't. And the US government played them both for suckers.
What the Shah needed to do was to not buy so many weapons that would soon be obselete and invest Iran's sovereign wealth, not only in infrastructure (ports at Abadan, Khorramshahr, Bushehr, Bandar Abbas, Chah Bahar, and Pahlavi on the Caspian Sea and freeways and railroads between them and to the USSR and Turkey and Pakistan and Iran's other cities), but the kind of industry that can employ large numbers of Iranians fresh from the countryside as well as in the countryside. And that means starting at the bottom with cheap textiles like South Korea at that time and working up to higher end textiles and garment manufacture and electronics assembly and diversifying to other minerals besides oil and gas.
And all the while, building schools to educate a generation of Iranian people to be literate and have the skills for a modern economy. And keep the bazaari merchants happy with low interest loans so that they can expand into the new economic opportunities that are becoming available. They will be the new textile and garment entrepreneurs. Kept busy and prosperous, they will not be a focus for discontent against the regime.
Iran actually has a lot more going for it than a country like South Korea. Besides oil for export, Iran produces both cotton and wool as well as being able to feed itself with wheat and rice, as long as it's water holds out. Refined, petroleum +cotton=cotton-polyester, something both Japan and South Korea must import or make from imported precusors. And iran also has large deposits of iron, coal, copper, gold, silver and other minerals, just as Afghanistan does, making a consumer electronics industry and eventually a motor car industry feasible. And if you have consumer electronics and motor cars, you're not very far from producing a lot of your own military hardware, state of the art, as China and Brazil do.
The trick for the Shah is to pay attention to East Asia and learn the right lessons from Japan more than South Korea, where Pak Chung Hee has just been overthrown. Avoid the temptation to keep the wealth in the hands of a few Chaebol or Zaibatsu (as in prewar Japan) families; that will only breed resentment. There can be no place for "I'm not rich unless you're poor!" Rather, spread the wealth around the way it is being done in Japan after WWII. And while military expenditures are necessary, given the part of the world Iran is in, keep them at a minimum. And build SAVAK into a police and investigative force that relies more on modern investigative methods and computerized surveillance than it does on torture. It will get more reliable information, make better cases and get fewer people angry that way.

 

[Alamo]

I'm seeing an awful lot of "citation needed" markers in that section on the Shah's pre-revolution purchasing plans.

 

[Delta Force]

What the Shah needed to do was to not buy so many weapons that would soon be obselete and invest Iran's sovereign wealth, not only in infrastructure (ports at Abadan, Khorramshahr, Bushehr, Bandar Abbas, Chah Bahar, and Pahlavi on the Caspian Sea and freeways and railroads between them and to the USSR and Turkey and Pakistan and Iran's other cities), but the kind of industry that can employ large numbers of Iranians fresh from the countryside as well as in the countryside. And that means starting at the bottom with cheap textiles like South Korea at that time and working up to higher end textiles and garment manufacture and electronics assembly and diversifying to other minerals besides oil and gas.

Iran purchased something like $20 billion (likely not adjusted for inflation) of American arms throughout the 1970s, becoming the largest importer of military equipment (both for America, and the world). A major issue is that in the post Vietnam reality, there wasn't too much military funding to go around in the United States, so missing a major contract could very well doom a company. Think about all the aircraft in the 1950s and 1960s (F-100, F-101, F-102, F-104, F-105, F-106, F-111 just for the USAF Century Series), and then think about how many there have been since (the F-14, F-15, F-16, F/A-18 were the only American fighters of the 4th generation). If you couldn't sell America on a new product or an upgrade, you could always try to bounce it off the Shah.

And all the while, building schools to educate a generation of Iranian people to be literate and have the skills for a modern economy.

That actually wasn't a problem for Iran, the issue was when they left university and the jobs they trained for didn't exist yet.

Iran actually has a lot more going for it than a country like South Korea. Besides oil for export, Iran produces both cotton and wool as well as being able to feed itself with wheat and rice, as long as it's water holds out. Refined, petroleum +cotton=cotton-polyester, something both Japan and South Korea must import or make from imported precusors. And iran also has large deposits of iron, coal, copper, gold, silver and other minerals, just as Afghanistan does, making a consumer electronics industry and eventually a motor car industry feasible. And if you have consumer electronics and motor cars, you're not very far from producing a lot of your own military hardware, state of the art, as China and Brazil do.

The Shah was more of a modernizer than many in the Middle East, but he failed to keep things growing in proportion. Iran was very strong in some areas, and weak in others. A major issue was how many Iranians trained for jobs that didn't exist yet. The Shah turned his back on the religious and landowning elite to try to build a base with the middle class, but he left the middle class disappointed, angered the elite, and angered the rural people.

And build SAVAK into a police and investigative force that relies more on modern investigative methods and computerized surveillance than it does on torture. It will get more reliable information, make better cases and get fewer people angry that way.

One of the interesting things about the Wikileaks documents is that SAVEK is criticized by an American official (I forget, either State or CIA) for being thuggish and unprofessional, despite being intensively trained by the CIA.

I'm seeing an awful lot of "citation needed" markers in that section on the Shah's pre-revolution purchasing plans.

It would be quite a feat to put together all the citations, but there are several parts of the plan that I have seen on more reliable websites. The Challenger 1, Kidd class, and F-16 information is all widely known. Ironically, the F-16s ended up serving with Israel. The Invincible class, desire for cruisers, and A-10s (a proposed two seat variant) are also rather widely known. Some of the other equipment was either already in Iranian service or some of the order had been received before the Shah fell. That would be the F-4s (minus 16 dedicated reconnaissance variants), F-5s, and AH-1 Cobras, as well as some naval ships.

 

[DValdron]

The Wikipedia information indicates that Iran purchased tens of thousands of bombs and aerial munitions throughout the 1970s, including thousands of laser guided munitions. In real life, Iran has also done a rather good job keeping its equipment functioning decades after being cut off, and it doesn't have the spare parts and infrastructure base that Imperial Iran would have had by the mid-1980s. They are so adept at reverse engineering and otherwise illegally acquiring replacement parts that the F-14s that didn't go to museums were fed into a massive shredder to prevent parts from leaking out to them. Only Iran and the United States have ever flown F-14s, so that means we were worried they would someone get them right out from under our nose at AMARC, which is run by the United States military itself.

All of the other equipment would have spares and other support spread across the world, so it could be fairly easily maintained. If Israel decides to keep supporting Imperial Iran, then they would basically be able to maintain anything. By the 1980s Israel could design and build radars, missiles, and tanks, and it has access to Western supply chains. If Iran can't get spare parts or doesn't want to be tied down to them, the Israelis might be able to help them replace major subsystems. That's assuming Iran doesn't have a factory making spare parts anyways by the mid-1980s.

There's a huge difference between keeping your military force up to trim in peacetime, and keeping it going in wartime.

The during the Iran/Iraq War, Iran ran up against huge bottlenecks, which created a demand for spare parts and munitions and fueled the whole 'arms for hostages' and 'iran/contra' stuff.

Basically, in wartime, you're using that stuff up at extraordinary rates. Nature of modern warfare. It's an industrial exercise where you piss away huge volumes of munitions, parts, equipment and fuel. And whoever pisses more and longer is the winner.

In some ways, isolation, ostracism and a long period of relative peace means that Iran now has a more competent and self sustaining armaments industry than it had under the Shah. The Shah could simply write a cheque and get immediate delivery whenever he needed armaments and munitions. He never had to make a long term investment, which was more expensive and would delay gratification.

So best evaluation is that Iran has, in boxer's term, no 'heart.' Iran punches hard, but after the first few rounds, it's all about looking for a soft place on the matt to take a lie down.

For the Shah to be a genuinely competent threat to his neighbors (the ones that can hit back, as opposed to the sitting ducks that will squawk for Uncle Sam) there's only a few avenues:

1) He can do the hard stuff - as Katchen says, invest in the economy and infrastructure. As a compromise, he can invest in military industries and try and become an arms exporter. He also needs to invest heavily in genuine military infrastructure, including logistics. Force projection is an art form in and of itself, it doesn't come automatically with a humungous army. Look at China when it went toe to toe with Vietnam in the 80's, no logistical capacity to support an army more than a few dozen miles into Vietnam.

2) He can go all Blitzkrieg. Again, that's not easy to do. You need the logistics and force projection capacity. It's a particular skill, and even with an immensely powerful military, it fails much more often than it works. Now assuming that the Shah can get his military to function in that way, what's the options? 1) Don't pick a fight with the Russians, that never ends well for anyone. 2) Don't pick a fight with the Turks, that won't end well either. 3) Don't pick a fight with Pakistan, they got twice as many people and they're a lot closer to nukes than you are. 5) Don't pick a fight with Israel, they actually do have nukes, and anyway, there's no return on the investment even if you won big time. 5) Don't fuck with the Saudi's to the extent that they'll lose their lunch and get Uncle Sam to sort things out.

What does that leave? Iraq, Syria, and maybe the Arabian coastal states. Iraq is the big tough nut. It's as or more heavily militarized as Iran, and likely to do reasonably well fighting a defensive war. But let's say that the Shah spots an opportune moment of weakness or finds a huge tactical or technological edge, or he just gets incredibly lucky. He could roll right into Iraq.

With Iraq, we add a shitload of oil, about another quarter of the population, and a semi-diverse economy. Two directions to go from there - squash Kuwait fast and hard, and drive at Syria. Why Syria? Well, Syria got no friends, so it's vulnerable in that way. No oil, marginal economy, all its military pointed the other way. Most significantly, access to the med. Hugely important if you're thinking pipelines. Both the US and Israel will be very happy to see Syria go, being as its the last front line state that poses even half a threat to Israel. So you might be able to enlist the co-operation of the Israeli's and Americans and in particular, get the Americans to hold their noses on the Kuwait business.

The other big thrust is to overrun the weak Persian Gulf coastal states, maybe even as far as Yemen. Is South Yemen still communist? Risky business because both the US and the Saudi's are going to be freaking out. Maybe the Shah can threaten or bribe or intimidate or make promises to the Saudi's to get them to roll over. If the Saud's can be made to fall into line, then there's an outside chance the US will just fold its tent. But make no mistake, the US likes all these pissy little arab microstates. Makes their oil easier to deal with. The US doesn't like the kind of economic dislocations, and in particular, the political and economic dominance that would come with that.

So if the Shah's going to pull this, he needs to do it really really fast and hard, present the world with a fait accompli, and then batten down the hatches for a huge blowback.

At that point, room to expand comes to an end. Every other route leads to disaster. You might see some foreign adventurism - meddling in Africa or some puissant state somewhere, but no more than that.

If he can stabilize and consolidate and hold on long enough, the break up of the Soviet Union might provide a host of opportunities to expand into Central Asia, including Afghanistan. And I suppose that Pakistan's long term vulnerability or disintegration as a state might make some opportunities. But that would have to be a decade on after the initial blitzkriegs. Very few states can pull that off.

Anyway, to do this, the Shah needs three things: 1) A mightier and more flexible army than he has OTL. although its possible that he might be able to reach that status growing from existing forces; 2) Spectacular diplomatic acumen and timing; 3) Forgive me Godwin, but he'd need luck, spectacular amounts of luck, more luck than Adoph Hitler.... and we all know that Hitler for much of his career had the kind of luck where he could fall into a barrel of cocks and come out sucking his thumb.

(1) is possible; (2) is pretty hard to come by; (3) ?

 

[katchen]

There's a huge difference between keeping your military force up to trim in peacetime, and keeping it going in wartime.

The during the Iran/Iraq War, Iran ran up against huge bottlenecks, which created a demand for spare parts and munitions and fueled the whole 'arms for hostages' and 'iran/contra' stuff.

Basically, in wartime, you're using that stuff up at extraordinary rates. Nature of modern warfare. It's an industrial exercise where you piss away huge volumes of munitions, parts, equipment and fuel. And whoever pisses more and longer is the winner.

In some ways, isolation, ostracism and a long period of relative peace means that Iran now has a more competent and self sustaining armaments industry than it had under the Shah. The Shah could simply write a cheque and get immediate delivery whenever he needed armaments and munitions. He never had to make a long term investment, which was more expensive and would delay gratification.

So best evaluation is that Iran has, in boxer's term, no 'heart.' Iran punches hard, but after the first few rounds, it's all about looking for a soft place on the matt to take a lie down.

For the Shah to be a genuinely competent threat to his neighbors (the ones that can hit back, as opposed to the sitting ducks that will squawk for Uncle Sam) there's only a few avenues:

1) He can do the hard stuff - as Katchen says, invest in the economy and infrastructure. As a compromise, he can invest in military industries and try and become an arms exporter. He also needs to invest heavily in genuine military infrastructure, including logistics. Force projection is an art form in and of itself, it doesn't come automatically with a humungous army. Look at China when it went toe to toe with Vietnam in the 80's, no logistical capacity to support an army more than a few dozen miles into Vietnam.

2) He can go all Blitzkrieg. Again, that's not easy to do. You need the logistics and force projection capacity. It's a particular skill, and even with an immensely powerful military, it fails much more often than it works. Now assuming that the Shah can get his military to function in that way, what's the options? 1) Don't pick a fight with the Russians, that never ends well for anyone. 2) Don't pick a fight with the Turks, that won't end well either. 3) Don't pick a fight with Pakistan, they got twice as many people and they're a lot closer to nukes than you are. 5) Don't pick a fight with Israel, they actually do have nukes, and anyway, there's no return on the investment even if you won big time. 5) Don't fuck with the Saudi's to the extent that they'll lose their lunch and get Uncle Sam to sort things out.

What does that leave? Iraq, Syria, and maybe the Arabian coastal states. Iraq is the big tough nut. It's as or more heavily militarized as Iran, and likely to do reasonably well fighting a defensive war. But let's say that the Shah spots an opportune moment of weakness or finds a huge tactical or technological edge, or he just gets incredibly lucky. He could roll right into Iraq.

With Iraq, we add a shitload of oil, about another quarter of the population, and a semi-diverse economy. Two directions to go from there - squash Kuwait fast and hard, and drive at Syria. Why Syria? Well, Syria got no friends, so it's vulnerable in that way. No oil, marginal economy, all its military pointed the other way. Most significantly, access to the med. Hugely important if you're thinking pipelines. Both the US and Israel will be very happy to see Syria go, being as its the last front line state that poses even half a threat to Israel. So you might be able to enlist the co-operation of the Israeli's and Americans and in particular, get the Americans to hold their noses on the Kuwait business.

The other big thrust is to overrun the weak Persian Gulf coastal states, maybe even as far as Yemen. Is South Yemen still communist? Risky business because both the US and the Saudi's are going to be freaking out. Maybe the Shah can threaten or bribe or intimidate or make promises to the Saudi's to get them to roll over. If the Saud's can be made to fall into line, then there's an outside chance the US will just fold its tent. But make no mistake, the US likes all these pissy little arab microstates. Makes their oil easier to deal with. The US doesn't like the kind of economic dislocations, and in particular, the political and economic dominance that would come with that.

So if the Shah's going to pull this, he needs to do it really really fast and hard, present the world with a fait accompli, and then batten down the hatches for a huge blowback.

At that point, room to expand comes to an end. Every other route leads to disaster. You might see some foreign adventurism - meddling in Africa or some puissant state somewhere, but no more than that.

If he can stabilize and consolidate and hold on long enough, the break up of the Soviet Union might provide a host of opportunities to expand into Central Asia, including Afghanistan. And I suppose that Pakistan's long term vulnerability or disintegration as a state might make some opportunities. But that would have to be a decade on after the initial blitzkriegs. Very few states can pull that off.

Anyway, to do this, the Shah needs three things: 1) A mightier and more flexible army than he has OTL. although its possible that he might be able to reach that status growing from existing forces; 2) Spectacular diplomatic acumen and timing; 3) Forgive me Godwin, but he'd need luck, spectacular amounts of luck, more luck than Adoph Hitler.... and we all know that Hitler for much of his career had the kind of luck where he could fall into a barrel of cocks and come out sucking his thumb.

(1) is possible; (2) is pretty hard to come by; (3) ?

D'Valdron, you're remark about Iran having "no heart" during the time of the Shah (in the boxing sense) is spot on and particularly true of the Shah himself. I just finished reading a book Hugh Wilford America's Great Game: The CIA's Secret Arabists and The Shaping of the Modern Middle East Basic Books 2013. Wilford, a California State Universiity Long Beach History Professor notes that in the run up to the coup against Mossadegh, many Western observers portrayed the Shah as a "mesmerized rabbit" (p. 170) to use the words of Monty Woodhouse before Kermit (Kim) Roosevelt Jr. rehabilitated his image to portray him as a heroic figure. As rulers go, Mohammas Reza Pahlevi appears to have been a mediocrity, not as bad as some, not terribly megalomaniac, but not in touch with the needs of his nation either. He was more of a Tsar Nicholas II than the Alexander II that Iran needed.