Kaveh Farrokh —
Persian Heritage, #112, Summer 2024 —
Just one year after the end of the Second World War (1939-1945) in 1946, Iran was able to expel the separatist movements out of its northwestern territories that had been organized and led by the Soviet Union ever since the Anglo-Soviet invasion of Iran in 1941. With the onset of the Cold War between the Soviet Union and the Eastern Bloc against the West led by the United States, Iran remained a key geopolitical country in the contests between the opposing superpowers. Fears of the spread of Communism into the Near East prompted policy makers in Washington to form effective pro-Western alliances in the region against the Soviet Union (USSR). The primary focus of US strategists was to enlist Iran, Turkey, Iraq and Pakistan into a military alliance against the USSR. This resulted in the Baghdad Pact first signed between Turkey and Iraq (February 24, 1955), followed by the United Kingdom (March 30, 1955), Pakistan (September 23, 1955) and finally Iran on October 11, 1955. Iraq however was not to remain in the Baghdad Pact as the government of King Faisal II was violently overthrown by General Abdolkarim Ghassem on July 14, 1958. As a devout Iraqi nationalist, Ghassem rejected the pro-West policies of the previous Iraqi government, soon dissociating himself from the Baghdad Pact, with Iraq no longer participating in the alliance’s regular consultations. This forced the alliance to shift the center of its organization away from Baghdad to Ankara, Turkey, which was (and remains) a member of NATO. The organization was initially renamed as METO (Middle East Treaty Organization) to then be renamed as CENTO (Central Treaty Organization) by August 1959. Iraq in turn finalized its withdrawal from the organization on February 24, 1960.
The US never formally joined CENTO but did provide military and political support. The Eisenhower Doctrine was integral to CENTO, as it stipulated that the US was beholden to the defense of countries threatened by (a) Communist ideology and (b) the military possibilities of Soviet invasion, which in the case of Iran and Turkey, were existential threats. Iran had already suffered large territorial losses to imperial Russia during the 19th century in the Caucasus (1813 Treaty of Golestan, 1826 Treaty of Turkmenchai) and Central Asia (1881 Treaty of Akhal). The existential threats posed by the USSR in the 20th century led the US to deliver to Iran its first (subsonic) jet fighters. By 1959 the US had signed a bilateral military accord with Tehran, cementing American support for Iran. Hopes of having Afghanistan joining CENTO were not realized given the Afghans’ territorial disputes with Iran. Moscow was certainly riled by CENTO and was especially concerned that Iran could become an unofficial military and missile base for the Americans against the Soviet Union.
The Iranian military leadership’s strategic threat assessments in the 1970s deduced that the primary military threats to Iran were being posed by two major zones. The first was the Arabian realms to the West and southwest (primarily Iraq). The second and (greater threat) was to the north posed by the successor of imperial Czarist Russia, the USSR which as noted previously, had attempted to detach northwest Iran under its puppet separatist movements in 1941-1946. The Soviets posed a long-term existential military and security threat to the very independence and existence of the Iranian state. The Soviet threat to northern Iran was in three segments. The first was in Iran’s northwest Azarbaijan regions (broadly characterized by a mix of hilly, forested, and mountainous terrain), through where both the Czars and Soviets had previously invaded Iran. The second segment of the Iranian north was its Caspian Sea coastline, vulnerable to Soviet naval assaults and troops landings. The third category was Iran’s northeast Khorasan regions which were exposed to invasion by Soviet forces in the steppe-type territories of Turkmenistan. The Soviet doctrine for invasion (against NATO and Iran) was the implementation of the “Daring Thrust”: launching massive swarms of tanks, attacking in waves, supported by assault helicopters, mobile and towed artillery, mechanized infantry and anti-aircraft mobile units. The Soviets were able to rapidly airlift considerable numbers of troops into Iran, thanks to (a) their large fleet of 700 turboprop (An-12, An-22) and jet (Il-76) military heavy transport aircraft and (b) their civilian airline Aeroflot which could be rapidly refitted for troop transport. The securing of Iranian airspace would be left to the overwhelming numbers of Soviet jet fighters (e.g. Mig-21 /23 /25; Su-22, etc.) with Tehran itself vulnerable to the bombing strikes of Blinder Tu-22 jet bombers. Iranian apprehensions of the USSR’s intentions proved warranted when Soviet armies invaded Afghanistan on December 7, 1979, in the aftermath of the 1978-1979 revolution, during which Iran was gripped by political chaos with its military in disarray. It is notable that the invasions of the imperial Russian armies in the 18th and 19th centuries had taken place at times when Iranian armies were beset by military weakness. For the first time since her disastrous territorial losses in the early 19th century CE, Iran’s military power was ascending, especially by 1971 when the US delivered to Iran its first squadrons of (supersonic) F-4E Phantom II fighter-bombers.
A top strategic priority for Tehran was Iran’s extended and dangerously exposed southern coastline along the Persian Gulf. The willingness of the US and the UK to have the Iranians act as guardians of international security and commercial interests in the Persian Gulf region, facilitated the Iranian army’s operations against radical movements seeking to overthrow regional governments. This case occurred against Oman by the rebels of Dhofar who were defeated with the help of Iranian forces before the 1978-1979 revolution. Despite their close relationship with Iran and military cooperation in Dhofar, British attitudes towards Iran remained ambiguous. This was partly traceable to British policy in the Persian Gulf since the late 19th – early 20th centuries. London had assumed control of the foreign affairs and military protection of a number of local Arabian Sheikhdoms in the Persian Gulf. In return, London’s Sheikdom colonies were allowed to administer their own internal affairs. London had, by the 1970s, established treaties to militarily protect the seven Sheikdoms or Trucial states of Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Ajman, Um al-Quwain, Sharjah, Fujairah and Ras al-Khaima as well as Qatar and Bahrain. While one of London’s objectives was to maintain peace between their clients, the primary British aim of these military treaties was to shield their colonies against Iranian and Iraqi ambitions. British determination was evidenced by its placement of forces in Bahrain and Sharjah for the support of its clients, with more forces available for deployment from facilities beyond the Persian Gulf. Despite these arrangements, British policies were already being tested by the late 1960s, as symbolized by Prime Minister Harold Wilson’s announcement that London would withdraw their military forces and treaty obligations in the Persian Gulf region by late 1971. The British were now in an awkward position: they remained committed to their Sheikhdom clients yet were also nominally the allies of the Iranians (notably through CENTO), to whom they sold British arms, conducted joint naval drills with the Iranian navy, and (as noted previously) with the two states also having cooperated in the war against Dhofar rebels. Even as the Shah agreed to the establishment of the United Arab Emirates (U.A.E.) from the seven original Trucial states, and also agreed to withdraw Iran’s historical claims to Bahrain, Tehran would not abandon its claims to the three British-administered islands of Greater Tunb, Lesser Tunb and Abu Moussa. Located very close to Iran’s Bandar Lengeh port city and Qeshm Island, these islands are strategically located on the western access of the Straits of Hormuz, directly impacting the security of Iranian shipping lanes in the Hormuz straits which connect the Persian Gulf to the Gulf of Oman. Tehran made clear that these islands were considered as Iranian territory, as expressed by the Shah in an interview with the Indian Magazine Blitz (June, 24, 1971) in which he noted that the three islands had been seized from Iran in the 1890s when its central government was politically and militarily ineffective. Three days after the Shah’s interview, Iranian Prime Minster Amir Abbas Hoveida recapped the Iranian position and accentuated the economic and security significance of these islands for Iran. The largest of the three islands, Sharjah, was administered by Abu Moussa, with Ras al-Khaima administering the Greater and Lesser Tunbs. The British firmly supported the territorial claims of their Arab clients, Sharjah and Ras al-Khaima, as expressed by Donald Hawley (British political agent of Trucial states 1958-1961) who claimed that the islands were originally occupied by the Qawasim Arabs. In the meantime, Tehran had continued to seek a diplomatic solution with London and her Arab clients into late November, which resulted in a “Memorandum of Understanding” with Sharjah on November 29, 1971. This permitted Iranian forces to be stationed at Abu Moussa with both governments to mutually govern the island. On the following day (November 30, 1971) Iranian troops landed on the three islands, just one day before the expiry of London’s treaty with Ras al-Khaima, which opposed the Iranian entrance to the Tunbs, leading to a very short clash on the Greater Tunb (the larger Tunb was largely unpopulated at the time). Soon joining the U.A.E., Ras al-Khaima was also offered a settlement by allowing her to exercise authority over the small Arab population of the Lesser Tumb. Meanwhile, irrespective of London’s pro-Sheikhdom stance, the Royal Navy fully withdrew its forces from the Persian Gulf by December 1971. The three islands remain a source of friction between Iran and the U.A.E. to the present.
The Baath (pan-Arab nationalist) government of Iraq took great issue with the Iranian arrival to the three Persian Gulf islands, leading them to cut their diplomatic relations with London and Baghdad over the dispute. The USSR was the main beneficiary of this diplomatic shift, resulting in Moscow and Baghdad signing a 15-year Treaty of Friendship and Cooperation in April 1972. Thanks to the treaty, Baghdad was now lavishly supplied with the best weaponry in the USSR’s arsenal: advanced supersonic Tu-22 Blinder bombers and Mig-23 Flogger fighter-bombers (to be used against Iraqi Kurdish rebels in 1974) and state of the art T-72 tanks, with numbers of these delivered before September 1980, just in time for Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Iran in the aftermath of the chaos of the 1978-1979 revolution. Meanwhile, ignored by the Western press, were the Baath party’s ethnocentric programs from late 1971, banishing from tens of thousands of Iraqi citizens of Iranian ancestry into Iran, a process that continued throughout the 1970s. Also expelled from Iraq during the summer of 1980 were large numbers of Iraqi populations who were not of Iranian descent: Iraqi Arab middle-class Shiites and Kurdish Shiites suspected of disloyalty to the Baath. It is estimated that up to 200,000 Iraqi citizens were forcefully expelled in 19171-early 1980s. The Baath also actively organized and funded Arab separatists in the southwest Iran’s Khuzestan province as well as pan-Baluch separatists in Iran’s southeast Seistan-Baluchistan province.
As a political and military ally of the US and the West, Iran, as a vital member of CENTO, was of critical interest to NATO. The Zagros Mountain chain in Iran was perceived by the military planners in Washington, as a seminal military asset in blocking against attempted invasion by the USSR. To the south of the Zagros are Iran’s petroleum assets and Persian Gulf coastline, critical areas for the Western strategic calculus to the present day. This meant that if Iran were to be invaded by the USSR, the US and the Western coalition would have no choice but to militarily intervene to support the Iranians. The Pentagon war planners in Washington preferred to have the Zagros act as a strategic defense line against Soviet invasion forces. The Iranians disagreed as this would mean that they would be surrendering the entire north and northwest of their country to the Soviets. Such an action would be a severe blow to Iranian martial morale. Instead of waiting for the Soviets to arrive at the Zagros, the Iranians formulated a forward-defense system. The Iranians also realized the stark reality of the sheer might of the Soviet superpower, be it nuclear or conventional. While Western support for Iran against a Soviet invasion was certainly critical, the Iranian military staff had formulated serious plans to face down a Soviet invasion. The Iranian forward defense doctrine which emphasized quality against Soviet quantity focused upon the training of highly proficient troops fit for both commando and anti-armor operations. The planned arrival of the Shir Iran II tank (developed with British expertise, fielding the best technology of its time) was essential in forming the nucleus of a highly mobile armored and mechanized force featuring rapid mobility and exceptional firepower. This of course was a long-term project, as the Shir Iran II was still in its development and testing stages, with plans to begin production of the tank in Isfahan. In the meantime, the Iranians were equipped with the US-made M-47, -48 and -60 and the British Chieftains. While less capable than the Shir Iran II, Iran’s available tank inventory was still a relatively modern force at the time. The final goal was to have the Shir Iran II-centered land army be closely supported by combat helicopters and jet fighters. The strategy was to deploy combined arms (armor, commandos, anti-tank units, etc.) against invading Soviet forces, with helicopter gunships (such as the venerable AH-1 Cobra) and combat aircraft playing a key role in knocking out Soviet tanks and mechanized units. In reality the Iranians could at best hold off the Soviet steamroller for a period of (optimistically speaking) 2-4 weeks. This would be just enough time for US and Western coalition forces to land in Iran and join the surviving Iranian forces to fight and repel the invading Soviets. A key lynchpin for Iran’s defense would have been its air force, especially its state of the art Grumman F-14A fighter Tomcat fleet which could confront the best Soviet fighters of the time, notably the highly advanced Mig-25 Foxbat. Iranian fighter pilots, who were considered as among the world’s best (before the Islamic revolution) and highly trained to rapidly knock out Soviet armor, were to soon have their aircraft guided with AWACS aircraft, which had been ordered but never to be delivered due to the 1978-1979 revolution. Had the revolution not occurred, the Iranian air force would have posed serious challenges to any attempted Soviet or Arabian (especially Iraq) armor and aircraft invading Iran. Even as the air force had not fully completed its development programs before the revolution, Iranian fighter aircraft displayed their devastating efficacy against Iraq’s armored incursions into southwest Iran in 1974.
Of course, Iran (at least in theory) would not be alone as it was a member of CENTO, whose regional partners, Turkey and Pakistan, would be able deploy their military powers to assist the beleaguered Iranians against a Soviet invasion. Turkey could send in forces into Iranian Azarbaijan in the northwest to join the Iranians against the Soviets. Pakistan could send in troops into Iran’s southeast Seistan-Baluchistan province who would then be dispatched further north to join the fight against the Soviets, alongside the Iranians and the Turks. The British could at best send in a modest land force, however the formidable Royal Navy would be a powerful and dissuasive force against any possibilities of Soviet naval adventurism in the Persian Gulf. In practice, the survival of Iran was highly dependent on US support and NATO, which, through their fellow member Turkey, would be linked (at least on paper) to CENTO in this scenario. In reality CENTO had demonstrated its weaknesses, especially as member states would often not support other fellow members at times of war. This happened with Pakistan in its 1965 and 1971 wars with India. Iran did send in limited military assistance to Pakistan in 1965, however the US blocked the Iranians from sending their US-made military equipment for Pakistan’s war effort against India in 1971. Instead, the Iranians were able to allow Pakistani fighter aircraft to take shelter in Iranian airbases to stay out of reach of the Indian Air Force’s attacks against Pakistan’s airbases. Limited US assistance to Pakistan was provided in 1971, but not under CENTO authority. Iran however declared its support for Pakistan’s territorial integrity following the breakaway of Bangladesh to become an independent state in the conclusion of the 1971 war. CENTO was further undermined in 1974 when Turkey invaded Cyprus, especially as the US and the UK stood in opposition to the invasion. These developments may explain in part as to why CENTO had, by 1978, become a largely ceremonial organization.
Moscow had little difficulty in building its alliances against Iran and CENTO by forging close partnerships with the Arab countries of Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Libya, Somalia and Egypt. A potential military alliance forged by Iraq and Syria against Iran was viewed with concern in Tehran. Following 1971, the Soviets (as noted previously) began building up Iraq’s military capabilities against Iran and supplied them with their advanced weaponry. Both Iraq and Syria were now supplied by large numbers of the Soviet T-54/55/62 tank series, posing a major threat to Iran’s southwest Khuzestan region characterized by flat desert terrain, which is ideal for tank operations. In case of an Iraqi invasion, the Iranian army planned to build up its armored corps along the Western frontier in Mehran and Qasr-e Shirin (located in Khuzestan’s north). The stratagem was to launch a powerful armored thrust led by the (not yet undelivered) Shir Iran II tanks, followed by Chieftains and M-47/48/60s, into Iraq towards Baghdad with another armored force based in Khuzestan to thrust into southern Iraq towards Basra. The armored forces (supported by mechanized infantry, mobile artillery and anti-aircraft echelons) would be supported by attack helicopters and combat aircraft. The military doctrine of the Iranian air force was to strike with an overwhelming air offensive for neutralizing the enemy’s airfields and the clearing his skies of fighters in order to achieve complete air superiority. F-4 strike groups would thrust into the enemy’s airspace, protected by F-14As and F-16s. The F-14A was tasked with long-range interception at high-altitude, with the F-16s entrusted with short-range interception and low-altitude against Iraqi and allied fighters. The F-4s (ultimately to be replaced by the Hornet F-18) were to be accompanied by Tiger II F-5s (all to be replaced by F-16s) for the mission of destroying enemy airfields, runways and air defense sites. With air superiority accomplished, the air force would then transfer its focus towards the support of Iranian ground and naval operations.
While the Iranian army had made significant strides by 1978 in maneuver and combined arms operations (especially between the armored, combat helicopter and air fleets), considerable work remained in place for training more professional personnel, improvement of logistics and battlefield coordination. Despite mainstream Western media claims to the contrary, much of Iran’s military equipment orders had also not been delivered in 1978-1979, with the Shir Iran II still in prototype and testing stages with the Chieftains in need of serious overhauls. The air force also never took delivery of its orders of F-16 and F-18 combat aircraft (with possibly only 77 of the F-14As having been delivered). Had these deliveries been completed, Iran would have fielded one of the world’s most modern air fleets comprised of 155 F-14As, 100-140 F-16s (with plans to augment these to 300), 250 F-18s, 440 F-4s with another possible 53 F-15s. While it is matter of speculation as to how international history would have proceeded had the revolution in Iran not taken place in 1978-1979, it is fairly certain that had the plans for the Iranian military been accomplished, the likelihood of military adventures such as the Baathist-Iraq invasion of Iran in 1980 (and ensuing bloody Iran-Iraq war until 1988), the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan (1979) and ensuing bloodshed till 1989 (leading to the rise of movements such as the Taliban, etc.), and the Iraqi-Baathist invasion of Kuwait in 1991 (with ensuing consequences reverberating to this day, such as the rise of ISIS), may possibly have been significantly diminished.