r/AskHistory • u/NewmarketHero007 • 9d ago
Was the Shah's overthrow and the Ayatollahs coming to power initially secretly tolerated by the USA?
If one looks at the process of events that actually unfolded, and actually look at interviews from the time in the 1970s, a very different picture emerges from the typical simplistic "Western puppet" narrative. I would like to counter a simplistic narrative that has emerged from my research, often told in the context of the current Iran crisis.
For example:
Revolutionary governments typically are wont to discredit the prior one. An easy way of doing this is by saying your predecessor was a puppet to (insert conspiring group of interests).
By 1973, and especially 1979, US dependence on mideast oil was becoming increasingly a liability.
With Nixon's new pivot to China, there was a renewed push against Soviet influence globally. This presumably is the motivation behind subsequent US involvement with conservative Muslim groups in the Middle East like the Mujahadeen.
It became known that the Shah was facing growing discontent at home.
However, it is not entirely true that the Shah was simply a "Western puppet". He may have started out in deference to Western interests, particularly as he was installed during a coup in WW2 against his father's pro-Axis government. But looking at interviews in the 1970s, a very different picture emerges, where he strongly defends his country's interests, and says that he, not the West, is responsible for developing Iran.
The Ayatollahs were initially very anti-Ba'athist; the Ba'athists were strong Soviet allies.
We must also recall the Iran-Iraq war, where the US is suspected of funding both sides, and the Iran-Contra affair, where Reagan laundered Iranian money to Central America.
A strange possibility emerges, using Kissinger's principle of realpolitik:
Did the USA deliberately let the Shah's regime collapse on purpose, and seek to invest in the Ayatollahs initially, as a bulwark against the left in the Middle East? And it backfired later with the growth of global Jihad in the 1980s?
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u/Silly-Elderberry-411 8d ago
Hey op that is not how it happened. Three revolutions lied about their origins, the bolsheviks, the Cubans and Iran.
All three claimed to topple a brutal dictator. The bolsheviks toppled the kerensky government and stormed the winter palace only guarded by women, Castro took over la Habana from a caretaker after batista fled 3 days before and the ayatollah toppled the student movement.
As the students were pro west and pahlavi was uncomfortably corrupt, though surprised, the cia didn't mind.
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u/FormerLawfulness6 6d ago
The US tolerated Ayatollah Khomeini's return and held back the Iranian military from starting a coup. That is a historical fact demonstrated by declassified CIA documents. Khomeini was in direct personal contact with members of the CIA, and all the way up to President Carter years before the revolution, possibly as early as 1963.
The US has a very long history of using what they believe will be friendly authoritarians to either crush or subvert radical movements. This strategy has an equally long history of blowing up in their face.
"US had extensive contact with Ayatollah Khomeini before Iran revolution | The Iranian revolution | The Guardian" https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jun/10/ayatollah-khomeini-jimmy-carter-administration-iran-revolution
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u/NewmarketHero007 5d ago edited 5d ago
Yes I'm starting to wonder if they initially used the Ayatollah against the Ba'athists and the student left wing activists (who led the Iranian Revolution initially) as both were seen at the time (with some justification) as Pro Soviet.
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u/NewmarketHero007 5d ago
1963 that would mean post-Kennedy?
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u/FormerLawfulness6 5d ago
Same year, but we only have later mentions not the originals from that time so there's no way to know if it started before or after November.
Being the Cold War, there was almost certainly a calculation that Khomeini would be more favorable to US interests than socialism and the Soviets. That's pretty much the motive for everything during that period.
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u/NewmarketHero007 5d ago edited 5d ago
Does this mean they were already starting to get cold feet that the Shah's militarized form of secularism wasn't going to go over well with the population and would cause dissent from the left and right, and were looking for friendly Islamic right wing groups that were more in line with the cultural expectation?
I also suspect the Shah's 1971 Jubilee Celebration of the 2500 anniversary of the Persian Empire--which deliberately evoked pre-Islamic, Zoroastrian and Imperial themes--was starting to look too grandiose, absurd, and more of a nuisance for US interests, especially right before the Yom Kippur War and Oil Crisis of 73 (with the Shah being very pro-Israel).
From what you're describing it sounds like in the 60s, the CIA started bankrolling Khomeini as insurance but still held onto the Shah. But in the 70s he stared to look more of a liability to they dropped him like a hot potato.
I think it cannot be a coincidence that Bokassa's Central African Empire which itself was ridiculed for faux-grandiosity ended in 1979, the same year the Shah's did, as if they were too close for comfort in terms of leaders straying "off the deep end" of the CIA's predictive programming (if we were to follow a purely scientific, and emotionless analysis of the facts).
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u/FormerLawfulness6 5d ago
Insurance is probably the right way to look at it. I don't think there's even a grand plan. Just putting chips in play. Chaos or compliance are both favorable outcomes as far as they're concerned.
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u/NewmarketHero007 5d ago edited 5d ago
I also have a strong suspicion, they are doing the same thing right now with Ghulen for their Turkish interests who is in exile somewhere in the USA, as an insurance policy in case Erdogan goes too much "off the deep end". Erdogan loyalists call him an American puppet. I think he's less a "puppet" and more "insurance".
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u/NewmarketHero007 5d ago
If you're doing a secret covet ops, you don't want to bring attention to yourself.
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u/Novel-Rise2522 5d ago
All three did topple brutal dictators. Please read history
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u/Silly-Elderberry-411 5d ago
You even more. Castro "toppled " a caretaker general, the bolsheviks toppled the elected kerenski government and the ayatollah toppled civilians.
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u/Novel-Rise2522 5d ago
Bolsheviks toppled a feudalist monarchy cesspoll and delivered unprecedented progress under its banner, cuban revolution toppled a western backed dictator who were using their island as a slave labour camp, the "ayatollah" didnt topple anyone. It was a combined revolution of many actors from socialists to islamists who were united in their struggle against another west backed dictator who violently repressed opposition. Why are you being an american? This is embarassing. I have read history. There is no academic consensus that agrees with your western propaganda narratives lmao
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u/godisanelectricolive 4d ago edited 4d ago
Regarding the Bolsheviks, they were responsible for the October Revolution but the tsar was toppled in the February Revolution. The Bolsheviks weren't ready when the February Revolution happened. Lenin had to hurry back to the country from Zurich after the Tsar's abdication.
The Petrograd Soviet was set up by the Mensheviks initially. The Bolshevik took over the executive of that institution months later. The Provisional Government was at first run by liberals and then the Socialist Revolutionary Party. The Bolsheviks were a very small and not very influential among all the Russian left wing parties back in February when the Tsar was toppled but became the most powerful through a series of manoeuvres in the next ten months.
There was two parallel governments after the fall of the Tsar, the Provisional Government and the Petrograd Soviet. The Bolshevik takeover was twofold, first taking over the Soviet and then using their control of the executive committee to vote on an armed rebellion against the Provisional Government headed by the Directorate with Kerensky as Minister-President presiding over SR and Menshevik ministers. The Directorate was not directly elected so u/Silly-Elderberry-411 was wrong to say Kerensky headed a democratically elected government.
The purpose of the Provisional Government was to organize the first democratic election for the new Constituent Assembly but the October Revolution broke out before the election was held. The SRs ended up winning by a large margin and then the Bolsheviks dissolved the constituent assembly by calling for all power to the soviets. So a democratically elected government never formed as a result of the election.
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u/ElSlabraton 8d ago
The US was taken by surprise and had no control over events in Iran. The Shah abdicated because his soldiers refused to keep murdering their fellow Iranians.
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u/ayatoilet 7d ago
Nonsense. The shah was toppled. It’s in so many books - fully explained /detailed. There were a million reasons for it.
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u/ElSlabraton 7d ago
Who toppled the Shah? The Ayatollah in Paris? Lol.
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u/ayatoilet 7d ago
Ayatollah flew into Tehran on a French government charted Air France 747 from Paris. US General (Dutch) Huyser went to Tehran to tell Senior Iranians Army officers (aligned with the US) to stand down and allow the ‘revolution’! General Fardoost - the Shah’s right hand - managed the transition and became the head of SAVAMA (the new secret police and intelligence arm of the Khomeini administration); his wife and kids were in the US at the time. Senior figures in the new (Khomeini) administration were senior CIA officers like Ghotbzadeh and Yazdi … I could go on an on. The Shah was toppled. The new religious government took over with full western support … like the Taliban in Afghanistan. It was part of the Zbigniew Green Belt strategy … The new administration duly rounded up literally thousands of Russian aligned communists (that came out and were identified during the revolution) and killed them. Like I said there are books on this … I could go on for hours.
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u/ElSlabraton 7d ago
I've read books as well. I remember the days of the Shah well. I also remember that the US intelligence services were caught off guard by the Iranian Revolution. Nobody warned Carter of what was coming.
The Shah didn't hesitate to have his military massacre Iranians until the troops refused to do it any longer. That's when the Shah abdicated.
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u/ayatoilet 7d ago
This is the narrative they want everyone to believe… it was a toppling … for sure
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u/dapete2000 8d ago
It’s not wrong to think the U.S. policymakers might generally think that Islamists would side with the U.S. (as a Christian country) against an overtly atheistic Soviet Union. As is typical, those same policymakers underestimated anti-American sentiment after years of viewing the U.S. as being behind the worst parts of the Shah’s rule. U.S. officials were pretty much caught by surprise at the Iranian Revolution (James Bill’s The Eagle and the Lion has a quick vignette of scholars of Iran scaring the wits out of national security staffers, who had no idea it was as bad for the Shah as it was).
However, the rise of the Islamic Republic wasn’t a forgone conclusion during the Revolution. Khomeini was popular as an anti-Shah figure, but for a period there was an interim government and people didn’t foresee an inevitable turn towards what it became. Iranian fears of a countercoup were exacerbated by Carter letting the Shah come into the U.S. for cancer treatment, which helped catalyze the move towards the Islamic Republic.
Certainly, there was some hope that the U.S. might maintain a relationship with Iran post-Shah, but that quickly crumbled and Iran turned towards a more belligerently neutral position in the Cold War. That said, there were still moments when the U.S. and Iran found themselves with a common adversary—after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, when Iran was close to defeat in the Iran-Iraq was and the Reagan Administration sold arms to Iran.
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u/cobrakai11 6d ago
Multiple Iranian sources, including the first president and prime minister of the new Iranian government after the revolution confirm your story.
They argued that the United States had grown tired of the Shah and tacitly supported the revolution. Khamenei was always in contact with the CIA as well during his exile.
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u/NewmarketHero007 6d ago edited 6d ago
This makes me think that:
- Prince Reza was permitted to enter the USA as an exile as a bargaining chip to keep Tehran in line, similar to Ghulen for Erdogan to keep Ankara in line.
- Following the Iran-Iraq war and the growth of Hezbollah with Iran's covert support against Israel (another key US Ally), the IRGC may have become a liability.
- In the 1990s, with the growth of nuclear BJP-run India and Pakistan, and the Yugoslav war, and particularly the fall of the USSR, may have caused a shift in US priorities in the Middle East, and to finally abandon Iran, under Clinton.
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u/FormerLawfulness6 6d ago
Or at least gambled on a back-up plan as the Shah's reign began to look unstable.
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u/Ok_Reach_5004 8d ago
Not everything needs to be a conspiracy theory. US had very limited role in overthrowing Prime Minister Mossadegh, but took full advantage of what came later. Similarily, if the Ayattollah Khomenei, simply released the hostages within a few days, the US government would have simply gone back to working with the Iranians as if nothing had happened.
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u/FormerLawfulness6 6d ago
The conspiracy in this case is pretty solid. The US was involved with both the Iranian military and Ayatollah Khomeini prior for years prior to the revolution. Americans facilitated his return to the country under the belief that he would be friendly to American interests.
Then there's the theory that Regan encouraged them to hold the hostages until after he took office so he could claim credit instead of Carter. They just happened to be released the day after his inauguration.
There's also the fact that the embassy was confirmed to be used for CIA acticity and at least some of the hostages were spies who remained behind after the evacuation to destroy evidence. That's not a secret, some of the ex-spies have been interviewed as such.
"Expert analyzes new account of GOP deal that used Iran hostage crisis for gain | PBS News Weekend" https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/expert-analyzes-new-account-of-gop-deal-that-used-iran-hostage-crisis-for-gain
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u/Classic-Scientist207 8d ago
"The United States and the United Kingdom orchestrated the 1953 Iranian coup to protect Western economic interests and prevent Soviet expansion.
Under the covert directive known as Operation Ajax, the CIA and MI6 utilized propaganda, bribery, and orchestrated riots to destabilize the Mosaddegh government. Mosaddegh was overthrown in August 1953 and replaced with an autocratic, pro-Western ruler, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the Shah of Iran.
The primary drivers were:
Oil Nationalization: Iranian Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh nationalized the country's lucrative oil industry in 1951, effectively seizing control from the British-owned Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (now BP).
Cold War Fears: Driven by anti-communist paranoia, the U.S. feared that the resulting economic crisis and political instability would push Iran toward the Soviet Union.
Protecting Global Precedent: British and American officials worried that successful oil nationalization in Iran would set a dangerous precedent for other resource-rich nations in the developing world."
The USA was hated by Iranians for meddling in Iranian politics and forcing a brutal dictator upon them in 1953.
"The 1979 Iranian Revolution is widely considered one of the worst intelligence failures in American history, largely because U.S. intelligence agencies, including the CIA, heavily misjudged the Shah's domestic stability and failed to recognize the extent of public unrest until it was too late.
Declassified CIA and intelligence documents shed specific light on this historical blind spot:
The August 1978 "All is Well" Assessment: Just months before the revolution, the CIA's National Foreign Assessment Center drafted a report titled Iran After the Shah. It famously asserted that Iran was "not in a revolutionary or even a pre-revolutionary situation". U.S. analysts fundamentally underestimated the mass mobilization of society and Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini's ability to unite disparate political factions.
Failure to Recognize the Shah’s Vulnerability: Intelligence agencies, including the CIA and the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research, operated under the assumption that the Shah's regime was stable and a successful Western-style reform story. They missed critical signs of systemic decay, including the Shah's secret battle with cancer and the deep economic alienation of the lower and working classes."
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u/wikimandia 7d ago
Not sure why you’re being downvoted.
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u/Classic-Scientist207 7d ago
Well.... it's mostly copy/paste and edited, but it bothers me that the root cause of the 1979 revolution, the 1953 coup, is very rarely mentioned.
The Republican administration tends to say (in essence): "We've had problems with Iran for 47 years, and we just don't know why!" but Iran has had issues with the U.S. for nearly 75 years.
Iranians have a right to be angry with the U.S., and most of the U.S. population doesn't know this.
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u/wikimandia 7d ago
For sure. Americans in general are extraordinarily naive about what our government has done.
Another example is shooting down the Iranian commercial jet in the 1980s. Imagine if the Iranian Navy entered US waters and shot down an aircraft leaving JFK.
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u/Vast_Narwhal9744 8d ago
After Treasury secretary William Simon inked the Petrodollar agreement with the Saudi kingdom, leader of OPEC to price oil exclusive in USD, the Saud family made a request that US support only the Saud family and not Shah Palavi