What if Iran never had a revolution?

helmutkohl

helmutkohl

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What if the Iranian revolution never succeeded..
either changes were made that prevented it from occurring, or that it occurred but failed.

How would it affect

  • US relations with Iran? Would they still continue to import US weapons?
  • Iran relations with other Mid-East countries? would there still be an Iran-Iraq war?
  • Iranian relations with the Soviet Union?
  • The balance of power in the region?
 
helmutkohl said:
What if the Iranian revolution never succeeded..
either changes were made that prevented it from occurring, or that it occurred but failed.

How would it affect

  • US relations with Iran? Would they still continue to import US weapons?
  • Iran relations with other Mid-East countries? would there still be an Iran-Iraq war?
  • Iranian relations with the Soviet Union?
  • The balance of power in the region?
Click to expand...

How good / bad was the Shah son ?

The father had gone to a well-known military buying orgy in the 70's, including Invincibles and SHARs.
Iranian F-16s and F-18, perhaps the -L variant; Northrop then doesn't make the F-20 - to be screwed a third time (after the F-17 and F-18L).

The "Ayatollah class" (Kidds) are not going to the USN, nor to Taiwan later on.

No war with Saddam, probably. Cooperation with Israel (Project Flower).
 
Let assume that some thing happen to Khomeini (slip on soap in bad, falling down stairs etc.)
The Iranian Uprise will transform into Civil War, here will neutral Military step in and end situation.
There will things happen like Islamic radicals attacking the US embassy, but be terminated bloody by Iran Military.
This could end that Iran become a Military Junta with Reza Pahlavi as new Shar, but as constitutional monarchy.

USA will have connection with Iran, but official not strongly as under old system
They will sell weapons to Junta, like F-111 or F-16 maybe even more F-14 or Super Tomcats
oh i wanna see Dick Cheney face as he get news "ahh Dick forget that phase out of F-14, the president sign deal for new ASF-14 with Iran, they pay..."
also other deals like building licence us rockets

But things will change radical in Middle East
Iraq leader Saddam Hussein started war with Iran during there Revolution (with little help from Wester Nations )
But here Saddam would face Iran were Revolution is crushed fast by Military Junta ! (and he without help by Wester Nations )
Even he would think twice to invade Iran
I guess Saddam would instead focus on his pet project: the Anschluss Kuwait to Iraq.
We would have first golf war in mid 1980s to liberate Kuwait from Iraq and with Iran in coalition forces !
Leaving the Iranians to be occupied forces in Iraq and controlling the No flight zones.

Long term conflicts
The Typical Iran vs Saudia Arabia
This depends on, if Iran intervene in 1979 Grand Mosque seizure in Mecca in favour of Saudis, if yes, they could normalised there relations)

Also Issue between Iran and Israel special under paranoid Benjamin Netanyahu

Also in War on Terror would Iran be on side of USA and fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq and Syria against IS
 
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Let assume that some thing happen to Khomeini (slip on soap in bad, falling down stairs etc.)
Click to expand...

My favorite ones: druggued by the CIA
- with a cancer-treatment-like substance that makes him lose his beard
(and credibility,)
or
- with LSD in the food before a major speech - turning him into a stoned, babbling wreck

The vision of Khomeini ranting against America in front of an immense crowd, and then he starts losing his beard, followed by his mind (at least the little mind he ever had in the first place)...
ROTFLMAO.

CIA whacky plans, how we love you !
 
Justo Miranda said:
Possibly President Carter would have found a way to lose another country
Click to expand...

And the election, too.

It always blew my mind to think the Mullahs released the hostages at a date carefully chosen to piss him off to the very end.

Random iranian fanatic "Carter has lost the election, yeah ! Now, can we release the hostages ?"

Khomeini "No."

Random iranian nutjob "Why, now that he is out ? we played a good trick on him, ha ha ha"

Khomeini "Sure, but that ain't enough to my taste. I suggest we wait for Reagan to enter the White House. Wait for his inauguration. Carter humiliation will be maximum."

Random iranian whacko "Good idea !"

Khomeini "Of course it's a good idea !"

Seriously - whatever your opinion of Carter, the Mullahs really were absolute arseholes there (they were, and still are, assholes - make no mistake. But that day, they really went beyond that).
 
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Even more ironic in light of revelations in recent years that Khomeini and co. succeeded in overthrowing the Shah because of covert support from Carter!
 
Sure, they were so fed up with the Shah that they ranked islamists and communists as "preferable options" - or maybe they hoped they would neutralize each others.

Brilliant thinking, really...
 
Immediate thoughts.....Just bashed out.
Iranian economy Potentially much better.

Iran has long border with USSR. Failure of Revolution = continuing threat to USSR and threat from USSR.

Afghanistan unlikely to fall and Iranian intervention highly probable if there is attempt.
Zia Ul Haq won't get US support. Pakistan military must reach accommodation with Iran over Afghanistan for 'strategic depth' against India.
Potentially Pakistan is viewed as Iran's wayward 'possession', Saudi funded Deobandi schools will be opposed by pro-Iran factions.

Iranian Bomb project continues. Military and Shah fear US will trade them to USSR. Carter doesn't reassure them enough. US miki prefer this to Pakistani Bomb.
Israeli influence is a factor.

Saddam cannot gain Western support of the type OTL. Potentially Ba'ath Party state becomes pariah earlier. Only path out is anti-Wahhabi position.

Turkey under more pressure to be a good ally.

Post Cold War, Iranian efforts to dominate the region, civil and military.

Azeri-Armenian War likely to see Iranian and Turkish proxi conflict. Major complexity stemming from Turkish Turanian Steppe states. Are they pulled into Iranian orbit?

Georgia?
 
isayyo2 said:
F-111s and E-3s for one

Doubling his F-14 order and funding a "B" model?
Click to expand...
What the Shah had planned:

70 more F-14s (although I've also heard F-15s or Mirage 4000, but more F-14s makes the most sense). I doubt he would have funded an engine, but they would have been upgraded with F-110s later in the 80s.

300 F-16s. F-5s and possibly F-4s would have been sold on to others, like the F-5As were when he bought F-5Es.

4 Kidds.

1500 "Challenger 1". The UK ended up with Challenger kind of like the U.S. ended up with the Kidds.

F-111 was out or production, so that's a bit of a non-starter. E-3 had been rejected, but since they got approved for Saudi, they may have been approved for Iran later.

Iran-Iraq war would not have happened. Saddam was taking advantage of the confusion and chaos of the revolution. He wouldn't have tried if the Iranian military wasn't in upheaval. Same for Kuwait later. That was what the U.S. support for Iran was meant to prevent.

Continued cooperation with Israel. I can see Lavi going forward with Iranian cooperation.

The two big questions to me are what would have happened after the Shah died and would the economy have diversified? Best case would be political liberalization along the lines of a European style constitutional monarchy and economic diversification away from resource extraction towards industrial production.

Post Cold-War and there are just too many butterflies. I can see them turning into South Korea as well as remaining an autocratic petro-state.


Archibald said:
Sure, they were so fed up with the Shah that they ranked islamists and communists as "preferable options" - or maybe they hoped they would neutralize each others.

Brilliant thinking, really...
Click to expand...
It was a broad-based revolution, with strong support from moderates, but as can happen following a revolution the faction that is the most murderous kills the moderates and takes over. See France, 1789, and Russia, 1917, for the same phenomenon.
 
How about we go back a little further and the CIA didn't aid in overthrowing the Iranian democratic government of Mosaddegh and install it's own dictator in the form of the Shah of Iran? Due to the falling out of favor with Great Britain, once the refused them access to their oil anymore, but this time, the CIA refuses to overthrow the government, who would they have turned to being a democratic country, but needing to build up their military? Would the U.S. have given them aid in order to base assets there, considering their access to the Caspian Sea? Or would the U.S. have remained non-committal because of what happened to G.B. not having access to Iranian oil anymore?
 
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helmutkohl said:
What if the Iranian revolution never succeeded..
either changes were made that prevented it from occurring, or that it occurred but failed.

How would it affect

  • US relations with Iran? Would they still continue to import US weapons?
  • Iran relations with other Mid-East countries? would there still be an Iran-Iraq war?
  • Iranian relations with the Soviet Union?
  • The balance of power in the region?
Click to expand...

Tha answer to these questions are;
1) Yes, since the Shah was installed by the U.S.
2) The Iran-Iraq war as it happened, probably not, because Iran would have been allied with the U.S., which would have strengthened Iraq's ties with the USSR IMHO and I think a proxy war there would have been too destabilizing to the world's economy at the time.
3) Because of 1, no relation with the USSR.
4) It would be interesting to see what happened to Saudi Arabia if Iran had strong ties to the U.S. I think Saudi Arabia wouldn't be as powerful now, if that had been the case.
 
More thoughts....

Jews in Iran....
Parsees in Iran.... maybe drawn back from India? The Shah had a natural soft spot for the Zoastrian religion of the old Persian Empire. Iranian Civilisation is, despite Shia religious dominance a strong perception among the elite even now.

Tolerance official policy.
No room for Pashtu extremism or Wahhabism.....confrontation with Saudi is inevitable.

Potential to draw Baluchi out of Pakistan.
Attempt to exert pull on Kurdish territories.

A successor Iran would threaten Russia, Turkey and Western China.

Deeper note Iranian mathematics and software
 
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For a plausible scenario Sundog is probably correct for the need to go back to at least the coup against Mosadegh.
The Shah essentially held power through terror and he and his regime proved both massively corrupt, incompetent and cruel; that “winning” combination was never going to last.
And there was no “neutral” armed forces to step in; they were instruments of the Shahs rule by terror and shared his regimes attributes.
So a revolution of some kind was inevitable, it was more of a question of when it would happen and who would lead and ultimately (if they could get away with it) exploit the revolution.
And for the purposes of this forum any of these different versions of this revolution would have put an end to the Shahs shopping addiction to top end military aircraft.
 
The real events of 1979 tend to make us forget that a few years earlier the West was starting to have other concerns about Iran.
www.goodreads.com

The Crash of '79

The Crash of '79 is a book so real that its plot reads like today's headlines. The central figure is that world traveler, playboy, despot...
www.goodreads.com
This book appeared in 1976 and there were others which portrayed the Shah in a less than flattering light.
This one really sticks it to the Shah and is pretty bad.
www.goodreads.com

Shah-Mak

A gripping story that moves with lightening speed through many colorful backgrounds. Shah-Mak is about an oil baron chess player who hire...
www.goodreads.com
 
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As Kaiserd has explained the Shah's rule was going to end badly. Western intervention in Iran's affairs created a second Saudi style despot. Back in the 70s the Saudis were seen as the vulnerable ones. We now know better.
The Iranian revolution might, however, have produced a less fervent regime without Khomeini. A regime more secular in nature would still have moved away from the Shah's weapons splurge. But it might have been able to buy French or other Western kit to counter Iraq and the Gulf states as well as the Soviet Union.
The Soviets hoped that a strong Tudeh Communist party in Iran might give them more influence.
Different outcomes to the inevitable demise of the Shah offer some interesting if more modest shapes to Iran's order of battle after 1979.
 
I'm not sure the term 'modest' is appropriate here.
The threat to Iran doesn't go away until there are stable regimes around it and especially the North (USSR then Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan, and Russia), the East (Pakistan and Afghanistan), the South (Saudi), the West (Iraq, Turkey, USSR then Azerbaijan, Armenia, Dagestan and Russia).

So surrounded by potential threats, even the ideal outcome of a tolerent and democratic Iran (Federation, Confederation?). It will still be threatened by others, still have various internal issues and still view itself as a Civilisation.
 
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In this non-revolution scenario, how far would the Shir 2 order going ahead have buggered up the British Army's plans?

Would it have encouraged the Army to continue with MBT-80/FV4211 programme for service entry the 1989 timeframe? This would in theory give the British Army something like Challenger 2 five years earlier but would mean that as the Berlin Wall fell, BAOR would still have been totally reliant on the Chieftain. Supposing a Gulf War still occurs in this scenario, few MBT-80s would have been available then either.

Shir 2 production for 1,500 tanks would likely have lasted until 1984-85 at least, and would still leave Leeds ROF (which was privatised in 1986) with a gap in work until MBT-80 was in place.

The USN losing the Kidds is probably less likely to be keenly felt, given the superior Ticonderoga-class then underway, although its still four fewer cruiser-capable vessels that are available, though arguably the NTU resources not spent on them would have benefited other older ships sooner.

Iran and Saudi battling for F-15E production slots might have been an interesting tussle too, perhaps the Saudis would just go with an all-Tornado fleet instead?
So there might have been downsides, big 1980s orders would have been denying the US and other nations of some badly needed production capacity for their own fleet renewals during that era.
 
My scenario removes both the Shah and Khomeini and leaves Iran with a less extreme, but still Islamic government . This Republic would not have much time for the US and UK and would almost certainly follow the Mosadegh era nationalisations of their assets.
Major beneficiaries of this would be France, Italy as well as non aligned countries like India and Yugoslavia. The Soviet Union might also have picked up some military orders
 
Yugoslavia would seem ideal and potentially South Africa.

Under the table the US would want to reestablish listening posts in Iran, in return for turning a blind eye to Iranian activities......
 
uk 75 said:
My scenario removes both the Shah and Khomeini and leaves Iran with a less extreme, but still Islamic government . This Republic would not have much time for the US and UK and would almost certainly follow the Mosadegh era nationalisations of their assets.
Major beneficiaries of this would be France, Italy as well as non aligned countries like India and Yugoslavia. The Soviet Union might also have picked up some military orders
Click to expand...
Maybe, but given the threat of the USSR to the north and all those MiGs, Tuploevs and Sukhois, and having been a long-term US fighter user, the Iranian AF may have pushed to keep buying US. Mirage F-1s might not quite have cut the mustard, though the Mirage 2000 would have been tempting and maybe the 4000 if there are enough petrochemical dollars available.

You have to remember, the Shah was tech mad and had ordered some potent kit and wanted more, that's quite hard to wean off given the threats Iran faced from almost all her neigbours.

Yugoslavia notched a few Middle East sales of ground equipment, training aircraft plus a training frigate to Iraq, so its possible some deals might be done. Not sure India exported much in this era (plus you have the whole India Vs Pakistan thing which might detract from possible political co-operation).
 
Wasn't Iran troubled by MiG25R flights?
In fact the F14 buy was driven by a fairly rational assessment of the threat.
Israel had to push for a souped up F4 with oversped engines and a cobbled together mishmash of Sidewinder and Sparrow to counter such overflights.
 
zen said:
Wasn't Iran troubled by MiG25R flights?
In fact the F14 buy was driven by a fairly rational assessment of the threat.
Israel had to push for a souped up F4 with oversped engines and a cobbled together mishmash of Sidewinder and Sparrow to counter such overflights.
Click to expand...

Iranian Tomcats in October 1978 painted MiG-25R with their AWG-9 and truly scared the shit out of them.

Israel got F-15s and before that - RF-4X
www.historynet.com

F-4X: The Fastest Phantom

A joint American-Israeli program sought to modify the F-4 for Mach 3 reconnaissance missions.
www.historynet.com www.historynet.com

I often wonder if Iran was part of the RF-4X program. Oh, and circa 1973 the Shah inquired about Lockheed A-12s OXCART languishing in storage at Lockheed Palmdale since early 1968 - there were a dozen of them. He wanted them as combined ECM / AWACS / F-12 multimission air defense platforms.

One can imagine the face of Nixon and the CIA when they heard about that proposal - the CIA memos have been posted on this forum some years ago.
 
helmutkohl said:
What if the Iranian revolution never succeeded..
either changes were made that prevented it from occurring, or that it occurred but failed.

How would it affect

  • US relations with Iran? Would they still continue to import US weapons?
  • Iran relations with other Mid-East countries? would there still be an Iran-Iraq war?
  • Iranian relations with the Soviet Union?
  • The balance of power in the region?
Click to expand...

Iran shopping list for its armed forces will keep going and will be impressive.
 
Sundog said:
How about we go back a little further and the CIA didn't aid in overthrowing the Iranian democratic government of Mosaddegh and install it's own dictator in the form of the Shah of Iran? Due to the falling out of favor with Great Britain, once the refused them access to their oil anymore, but this time, the CIA refuses to overthrow the government, who would they have turned to being a democratic country, but needing to build up their military? Would the U.S. have given them aid in order to base assets there, considering their access to the Caspian Sea? Or would the U.S. have remained non-committal because of what happened to G.B. not having access to Iranian oil anymore?
Click to expand...
That wouldn't happen because Mosaddegh was already going to get deposed by his own people when the CIA intervened by... largely showing up with oodles of cash and promises.

People forget that Mosaddegh's reign caused a lot of unrest at the end of it, to the point that the country getting into civil war was a distinct possibility. So, the CIA short-circuited it by greasing a lot of important hands (i.e. showing up with oodles of money), got them into a united front, and largely sat on the sidelines.
 
Dear GruntFox,
Who wants to speculate on an Iranian Civil War. WE know that there were a dozen or more ethnic groups: Persians, Shias, Baluchis, Kurds, etc. many of whom wanted their own distinct tribal homeland.
What if Iran broke up into several smaller tribal homelands?
What is most of those separations occurred peacefully?
 
GTX said:
Possible outcome of this scenario (or something like it...):

View attachment 659727
Click to expand...
Well, as you're undoubtedly already aware GTX, 'Iran signed a letter of intent on October 27th, 1976 for 160 F-16 aircraft, with the possibility of a follow-on order for 140 more. However, the Iranian revolution of 1979 ended all that.
With much irony, many of the F-16s intended for Iran were eventually sold to Israel.'

I also believe Iran looked like being a F-18 [pre-F/A-18 designation, when there was a separate F-18 and A-18 derivatives] customer as well.


Regards
Pioneer
 
It's apparent that Iran had an interest in acquiring through-deck cruisers/light aircraft carriers, as indicated by our own Antonio:

"Iranian Navy would not be ordering an Invincible-class cruiser. The abandoned plans called for the construction of three vessels. The renouncement was prompted by Iran's inability to provide sufficient trained personnel to form the crew for ships of the size and sophistication of the ASC, negotiations are continuin, however, about the order for a batch of 25 Sea Harrier. Acording to some sources Iran is going to replace the abandoned Invincible with a group of at least 4 Harrier vessels. But in this case too, the Shah seems to be very reluctant to give the go-ahead in the absence of any show of concrete interest by the Royal Navy."

(https://www.secretprojects.co.uk/threads/invincible-class-notes.11062/)

So, as much as they might not have taken up the employment of Invincible's, they might have went for a helicopter/light carrier of some description - perhaps a derivative of the Spanish Príncipe de Asturias....

Regards
Pioneer
 
Pioneer said:
It's apparent that Iran had an interest in acquiring through-deck cruisers/light aircraft carriers, as indicated by our own Antonio:

"Iranian Navy would not be ordering an Invincible-class cruiser. The abandoned plans called for the construction of three vessels. The renouncement was prompted by Iran's inability to provide sufficient trained personnel to form the crew for ships of the size and sophistication of the ASC, negotiations are continuin, however, about the order for a batch of 25 Sea Harrier. Acording to some sources Iran is going to replace the abandoned Invincible with a group of at least 4 Harrier vessels. But in this case too, the Shah seems to be very reluctant to give the go-ahead in the absence of any show of concrete interest by the Royal Navy."

(https://www.secretprojects.co.uk/threads/invincible-class-notes.11062/)

So, as much as they might not have taken up the employment of Invincible's, they might have went for a helicopter/light carrier of some description - perhaps a derivative of the Spanish Príncipe de Asturias....

Regards
Pioneer
Click to expand...

Which of course was a straightforward derivative of Zumwalt Sea Control Ship. So we may get a US - Iran - Spain cooperation there ?
 
Archibald said:
Pioneer said:
It's apparent that Iran had an interest in acquiring through-deck cruisers/light aircraft carriers, as indicated by our own Antonio:

"Iranian Navy would not be ordering an Invincible-class cruiser. The abandoned plans called for the construction of three vessels. The renouncement was prompted by Iran's inability to provide sufficient trained personnel to form the crew for ships of the size and sophistication of the ASC, negotiations are continuin, however, about the order for a batch of 25 Sea Harrier. Acording to some sources Iran is going to replace the abandoned Invincible with a group of at least 4 Harrier vessels. But in this case too, the Shah seems to be very reluctant to give the go-ahead in the absence of any show of concrete interest by the Royal Navy."

(https://www.secretprojects.co.uk/threads/invincible-class-notes.11062/)

So, as much as they might not have taken up the employment of Invincible's, they might have went for a helicopter/light carrier of some description - perhaps a derivative of the Spanish Príncipe de Asturias....

Regards
Pioneer
Click to expand...

Which of course was a straightforward derivative of Zumwalt Sea Control Ship. So we may get a US - Iran - Spain cooperation there ?
Click to expand...
Exactly Archibald. Or one could go even further and develop something remanicent to Thailand's 'Offshore Patrol Helicopter Carrier' Chakri Naruebet earlier, itself a more auster derivative of the Príncipe de Asturias again. This would give the Shah's regime a small crew size and seemingly lower technology concerns.....

Regards
Pioneer
 
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If the Shah had been more pragmatic like his Saudi counterparts and been closer to the religious establishment in Quom Iran in the 70s might have evolved along similar lines to Saudi Arabia.
This would have seen continued high defence expenditure but more realistic aims and objectives.
The Air Force would have got F16s and F14s/15s
The Army would have procured first Shirs and later M1s
The ambitious naval plans I think would have been a casualty of improving the standard of living of rural Iranians.
Using Saudi as a model I think the large surface units (carriers and Kidds) would have been axed in favour of replacing the destroyers and frigates with
a frigate design as the Saudis did.
 
riggerrob said:
Dear GruntFox,
Who wants to speculate on an Iranian Civil War. WE know that there were a dozen or more ethnic groups: Persians, Shias, Baluchis, Kurds, etc. many of whom wanted their own distinct tribal homeland.
What if Iran broke up into several smaller tribal homelands?
What is most of those separations occurred peacefully?
Click to expand...
The thing is, most of those groups know that only with a united front would they not get colonized either literally or defacto. So, in that respect, you'll have to accept that this civil war would have lots of bloodshed as the multiple groups try to take over all of Persia/Iran...
 
a few days ago, a Tomcat pilot discussed about the F-14 in Iranian service.. especially kills it made during the Iran-Iraq war.
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L3HYrasBB4k


this got me thinking.. what if Iran chose the F-15 instead of the F-14?
how would it change things?
such as
- F-15 in combat against Iraq and interception against Soviet MiG-25s?
- impact on the price of the F-15 and F-14 (in that video he claims that the Iran order significantly brought down the price of the F-14). thus I assume an F-15 order would make the F-15 cheaper and F-14 more expensive
- how would it affect exports of F-15 and F-14?
 

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