Wi Iran had overrun Iraq in the Iran Iraq war?

Since in OTL the USA would intervene against the Iranians if they could defeat the Iraqi ground forces, the PoD is both a different american approach in the Gulf and a different american president, someone isolationist in this case

So, in the scenario somwhere in 1985 the Iranians succesfully invade Iraq and Saddam flees outside, while Iran create a puppet kurdistan state and a shia dominated rump Iraq, what would happen after that?
 
so, the USA does nothing as Iran suddenly is within striking distance of the rest of the Gulf States? Europe isn't going to be quite so lackadaisical about that, due to the threat to oil supplies (the USA shouldn't be either). Russia might get into the act too, although more in anger about their client Saddam being tossed out; they might mass some troops on the border, hoping to get Iran to pull back. As for Iran... well, at this time, their enthusiasm for their theocracy was at a fever pitch, and this victory will just add to their exuberance, and they might be led into some further adventures... during the war in OTL, they talked a lot about tossing out Saddam and then going on to overthrow the Gulf monarchies and replace them with Islamic governments. In this scenario, they might be tempted to try it...
 
Iran would be jubilant. They would have succeeded in exporting their revolution to Iraq, and as the above poster said, that might just give them the idea to roll on into Saudi Arabia and the other Gulf States. Bahrain is a particularly juicy target, as it's population is predominantly Shia. Same with Saudi Arabia's Eastern Province, oil-rich and absolutely full of restive Shia Muslims. Meanwhile, they might just get their "Shiite Crescent" earlier than OTL - Syria was friendly to the Iranians and remained anti-Israel, and already helped Iran establish Hezbollah in Lebanon, then still in it's civil war. It's likely that Iran would use occupied Iraq and friendly Syria to continue to send weapons, supplies, and men into Lebanon to sway the civil war in their favor and threaten Israel.

I can't see either the U.S., Israel, or the Arabs accepting an Iranian threat of that magnitude, and as such I believe that they would do anything to undermine Iran's new position, up to and including military action (which they were already engaged in OTL, the U.S. Navy having taken several actions against Iran, including sinking half of the Iranian surface fleet in 1988 in response to Iranian mining). A full US-Gulf invasion to liberate Iraq, or even to topple the Ayatollah, doesn't even seem too far out of the question. However, the American public might not have the will to fight such a war - the horrors of Vietnam and Lebanon still weigh heavy on their minds.

The Soviet response could go one of two ways. The first way is that they will not be happy with the idea of an Islamic revolutionary state threatening to expand it's influence into Afghanistan and Soviet Central Asia (predominantly Muslim) and will do whatever they can to undermine the regime. They might use Tudeh guerillas to challenge the regime from within, or they might just decide to invade and eliminate the Iranian threat. This might end badly, as Carter Doctrine states that a Soviet attack on oil reserves in the Persian Gulf would be seen as an attack on the United States - and we all remember the plot of Threads.

The other option the Soviets have would be to begrudgingly accept the new Iran and try to make the best of the situation. Capitalizing on the inevitable hostile U.S. response, the Soviets could position themselves as military partners of Iran. Also taking into account that several of the Soviet's Middle Eastern allies favored Iran to Iraq, the increasing sales of Soviet and WarPac weaponry to Iran, and the increasing of Soviet-Iranian economic ties under Gorbachev, it's just as likely that the Soviets could use the Iranian victory as a chance to gain influence in the Middle East. They might even get some concessions from the Iranians in response, such as the cessation of aid to Afghan mujahideen.

One thing is for sure: an Iranian victory in the First Persian Gulf War would result in a wave of upheaval and instability across the Middle East.
 
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