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After committing a coup and installing the Shah, the subsequent revolutionary forces found widespread support and success, but were split into factions. The two

After committing a coup and installing the Shah, the subsequent revolutionary forces found widespread support and success, but were split into factions. The two most concerning to the US and UK governments, and what they believed to be the most powerful and likely to assume power, were the theocrats and the leftists / communists. They decided to actively support the theocrats and undermine the leftists. Anyone suggesting that all of this was organic or purely democratic is at best naive, at worst cynically manipulative.

totalZero 6y ago
I think the caveat here is that communism was culturally incompatible with Iran. It was a country without a large domestically-owned industrial base, where the Shah and his father represented the strongest force toward modernization of the economy, with a multi-millenial history of monarchy and tribal fragmentation. This is not the same as, say, Latin America during the Cold War. There, the non-Western cultural antecedents came from indigenous cultures that were naturally collectivistic. Communism was a better cultural fit. It was perhaps hip to be involved with communism as a young student in Iran. Still....how do you turn a fragmented, tribal, and superstitious country, whose population is made up of several different ethnic demographics, into a communist nation? That was never a plausible outcome, so I doubt your theory that the US allowed the theocrats to win because it wanted to box out the communists. The US desired to maintain Iran's role as a security base and an investment hub. Neither the communists nor the followers of Khomeini would have allowed either of those two things to continue. Even today, despite years and years of aligning with China, Russia, Venezuela, Bolivia, and other "leftist" regimes, Iran is not a communist nation. It is a resource-rich dictatorship with a resistance economy. I think you are over-extending your speculation by saying that Khomeini was the US's horse in the race when it became clear that the Shah would lose power. This is evidenced by the fact that the US assisted Saddam Hussein in the Iran-Iraq War shortly after the Revolution.
- shirakawasuna 6y ago
  Communists had a long history in Iran dating back to the 00's (1900-1909) and were very popular in the 30s, 40s, 50s, etc. Iran industrialized around extraction and related industries as a quasi-colonial state, subject to Russian and (moreso) British interests. Communists there successfully organized general strikes and bought sweeping worker protections with their efforts. Iran was hardly infertile ground for collectivist organization or leftist politics. They were systematically killed, disrupted, and suppressed during the revolution.

totalZero 6y ago

I think the caveat here is that communism was culturally incompatible with Iran. It was a country without a large domestically-owned industrial base, where the Shah and his father represented the strongest force toward modernization of the economy, with a multi-millenial history of monarchy and tribal fragmentation. This is not the same as, say, Latin America during the Cold War. There, the non-Western cultural antecedents came from indigenous cultures that were naturally collectivistic. Communism was a better cultural fit. It was perhaps hip to be involved with communism as a young student in Iran. Still....how do you turn a fragmented, tribal, and superstitious country, whose population is made up of several different ethnic demographics, into a communist nation? That was never a plausible outcome, so I doubt your theory that the US allowed the theocrats to win because it wanted to box out the communists. The US desired to maintain Iran's role as a security base and an investment hub. Neither the communists nor the followers of Khomeini would have allowed either of those two things to continue. Even today, despite years and years of aligning with China, Russia, Venezuela, Bolivia, and other "leftist" regimes, Iran is not a communist nation. It is a resource-rich dictatorship with a resistance economy. I think you are over-extending your speculation by saying that Khomeini was the US's horse in the race when it became clear that the Shah would lose power. This is evidenced by the fact that the US assisted Saddam Hussein in the Iran-Iraq War shortly after the Revolution.

shirakawasuna 6y ago
Communists had a long history in Iran dating back to the 00's (1900-1909) and were very popular in the 30s, 40s, 50s, etc. Iran industrialized around extraction and related industries as a quasi-colonial state, subject to Russian and (moreso) British interests. Communists there successfully organized general strikes and bought sweeping worker protections with their efforts. Iran was hardly infertile ground for collectivist organization or leftist politics. They were systematically killed, disrupted, and suppressed during the revolution.