WI The Soviet Union, Iran and the shia crecent

[EnvarKadri]

Seeing how now Russias and Iran's objectives in the region seem to align somewhat, specially regarding Assad, it made me thing how an atl Soviet Union could have found a similar partnership with Iran decades earlier in their common interest in Assadist Syria, maybe in Lebanon (the shia community of Lebanon, before founding movements like Amal and Hezbollah, was the social base of most communist and leftist factions in the country, being the poorest, hell, the sectarian tone of the lebanese civil war made a lot of weird alliances between islamist and leftist) and likely in Iraq, being how problematic was Saddam as partner for the Soviets. I am not shure how much ideology would be a problem once the iranians calm down after their inicial revolutionary fervor runs out and they enter a more pragmatical phace. But the thing that made me rhink about this first was seeing some similarities in the ethnic and religious demographics of Syria and Afghanistan:

The shia minorities are 7-20% of the population (mainly the Hazara but also some persian speaking, tajik, comunities) and the Hazara themselves are around 10-13% and with the turkic peoples and rest of the linguistic minorities (there is a lot: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethnic_groups_in_Afghanistan) the principal ethnic group, the sunni pashtun, only make it to first minority around 40%. The biggest problem in otl seem to be the lack of pragmatism and political incompetence of the leadership of the
Democratic Republic of Afghanistan and the USSR, both falling completly in the same pit the USA and South Vietnam fall before. A corrective revolution that moderates the party stands on economy and religion and using the ethnic divide of the country by overrepresenting shias and persianspeakers in the state apparatus and playing the pashtuns against each other by exploting clan divides, like in Syria. In otl, the only support of the government of the Saur Revolution lied on the persian speaking cities (the vast majority of the population was rural) and the USSR but were in bad terms with everyone else. By adding the shias to the governing alliance you could get both the theirs and Iran's support instead of them working agaisnt you (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tehran_Eight). They were the second biggest alliance of mujahideens after the Pakistan based sunnis.
The point is, I was wondering of the conditions of current shia crecent-Russia relations, in a context with a surviving USSR (which means that either this happens in the '80s or this is a post economical reforms now a days USSR). Could the political project of Iran and the USSR be as compatible like now a days Russia and Irans are? Could we reach a vaguely similar situation (Iran and Russia getting closer over common alliance with Al Assad's Syria, shia ruled Iraq getting closer to Iran and Syria, and Lebanon also getting closer to Syria and Iran with Iran financing local groups, and Qatar changing sides) with a surviving USSR or is this level of pragmatism regarding the middle east imposible for the USSR?
Edit: found some thread that deal with an Iran that overruns Saddam or the iraki shias taking over themselves, could serve as inspiration:
https://www.alternatehistory.com/fo...islamic-world-atl.362888/page-6#post-12464887
https://www.alternatehistory.com/fo...ry-in-the-iran-iraq-war.438060/#post-16618963
https://www.alternatehistory.com/fo...sident-john-wayne.133442/page-12#post-3451498

 

[EnvarKadri]

Bump.

 

[Khanzeer]

But what about iranian monarchy paranoia of left wing parties ?
And pro western stance of Pahlavi ?

 

[fasquardon]

The Soviets tried hard to court Iran after the 1979 Revolution. The Iranians, while not entirely unwilling to be courted, remembered very well what the Soviets had done to them in decades past and what Russia before them had done and were wary. Especially what with being invaded by a Soviet ally in 1980 (especially when the Soviets flooded Iraq with aid when the Iranians look set to whip the Iraqi armies all the way to the city centre of Baghdad). Given US ascendency in the Middle East, had the Soviet Union survived longer it's not unreasonable to imagine that the slow warming Soviet-Iranian relations saw during the Gorbachev era would have continued and the two might cooperate extensively.

It's possible that things could have warmed earlier. For example, if Stalin had quickly withdrawn from Iran after WW2 and positioned the Soviets as a champion against British efforts to extend their occupation in the south and resist nationalization of Anglo-Iranian oil. Flirting with breaking off parts of the Iranian Azeri and Kurdish regions didn't do much for Soviet credibility as a genuine anti-imperialist force.

Another later PoD is simply that the Soviets aren't in alliance with Iraq. Either because the alliance is never signed (perhaps because Egypt continues as a Soviet ally) or it collapses before the Iran-Iraq war happens (likely this needs another big shake-up of the Middle Eastern alliance system, as happened in the early 70s).

Or possibly the Iranian revolution goes differently, though it would take some rather interesting circumstances to put a pro-Soviet party like Tudeh in power (I'd say nearly impossible), but it could definitely lead to closer USSR-Iranian cooperation and to a longer lived USSR (though it also could lead elsewhere).

But what about iranian monarchy paranoia of left wing parties ?

Well, it's not like the Soviets minded if their allies liked to persecute Communists. They got on better with Argentina than Cuba at a time when the Argentine junta was throwing Communists out of choppers to die in the South Atlantic.

And the revolutionary regime in Iran was busy suppressing Tudeh at the same time as their relations with the Soviets were improving.

And pro western stance of Pahlavi ?

IMO for that, you need Stalin doing better foreign policy with respect to Iran.

fasquardon