raharris1973
Well-known member
What if the Islamic Revolution of the late 1970s does not happen in Iran, what would be the medium and long-term domestic, regional, and global consequences?
I will give a simple PoD- when the Shah's doctors first identify his cancer in 1974, they don't keep the news from him [which they did until two or four years later], they tell him right away and he gets a spleenectomy and competent follow-up treatment.
As a result of successful cancer treatment, a healthier Shah, not getting mentally disturbed by side effects of misprescribed drugs and depressed his mortality and failing physical health, is more sound mentally, and more focused on governing.
He survives challenging protest movements, especially militant ones, by suppressing them to whatever degree is necessary, to protect what he sees as his regime's (and dynasty's) achievements so far and continue advancing the country.
If he has any moments of doubt while dousing popular anger with repression, he puts it aside by remembering what's at stake. If he has any worry about being undercut by Jimmy Carter's overall human rights policy, he also pushes those aside, thinking of the generally positive words he tends to hear from US diplomats in country, military and intel figures, National Security Advisor Brzezinski, and even Carter's own speech early in his term where he called Iran an 'island of stability'. In any case, after riding out some rough patches, by 1981, Carter is out of office in the USA because of discontent over the economy, Ronald Reagan is President, and he is an enthusiastic supporter of the Shah who sees his as a more important ally than ever containing the USSR in the region after its late 70s invasion of Afghanistan.
Doing a quick review of major 1980s events that will converge and diverge from OTL, here is what I suspect:
Afghan War - yes, it will happen, it will freak out anti-Soviet countries, and Pakistan and Iran, all of whom will support Mujhadeen. The Pakistanis will support fundamentalist Pashtos, the Iranians will support Hazaras and Tajiks. It's not gonna go great for the Soviets.
There is no Iran-Iraq war - Iraq just is not going to see Iran as a target of opportunity, because Iran will not have the deadly mixed appearance of being weak and unstable yet also dangerous, provocative and expansionist. As a result of no war, and other factors, both Iraq and Iran will continue to develop their economies, technology and standard of living, rather than face stagnation, debt, and infrastructure destruction in border zones.
The Israeli 1982 invasion of Lebanon should occur as historical, and be controversial globally and within Israel. Lebanon will have Israeli and Syrian intervention, and be rent by militia fighting.
However, the attacks blowing up the US Embassy and US Marine Barracks in Beirut, attributed the Islamic Jihad Organization section of Iranian-backed Hezbollah, will not occur, allowing the US "peacekeeping" operation in Lebanon to conclude without major humiliation even if without any peacemaking success to point at. Amal will remain the main Shia militia in Lebanon.
The Israeli strike on Iraq's Osirak reactor would probably still occur as historical (in 1981 or 1983, I forget). The Israelis, or possibly the Iranians, who may be concerned about an Iraqi nuke, may need to do an operation to "mow the grass" once more by the end of the decade to avoid being confronted with a working Iraqi nuke.
The western-Saudi agreement to drop oil prices from 1984-86 is likely to still happen as both an anti-Soviet measure and a measure on the Saudis part to discourage oil import substitution and alternate energy. Only this time, Iran would be included in the planning, with adjustments made to accomodate budgeting for the Shah's public works plans. Since Iran would be pro-western in the 1980s unlike OTL, like the Saudis it can still live well off the west even in a low oil price world by investing its sovereign wealth funds in diverse enterprises in the west (and Asia) as well as at home.
Regarding Iran itself, I would imagine a fair lifespan to give the cancer-free Shah would be until 1987, so he lives till age 67 or 68, just a couple more than his Dad, who died in a humiliating exile. His some would be mid-20s by then. Still young, but eligible. For good measure, let's say Khomeini dies the same year in his Iraqi exile, just a couple years earlier than OTL, having had more disappointment and less adrenaline in his life.
As for Iran going forward under the son and into the 1990s, I don't think it has to stay perfectly secular, and there probably would be alternations of political liberalization and clamping down. But political liberalization was pretty globally popular in the late 1980s. More public displays of faith and modesty may become 'trendy' in Iran, as happened in Pakistan and Egypt and Turkey. But let's just say that whatever changes are evolutionary or constitutional and not revolutionary, there's not a velayat e-faqih constitution installed, and by 2023, the furthest Iran may have wandered in that direction is having an illiberal, semi-democratic Erdoganist Islamicist ruling party and chief executive.
Macro-trends of economic stagnation, and a desire to remedy it, and medium trends like the Afghan war and the unfavorable drop in energy prices, all parallel to OTL, are likely to point the USSR to Glasnost, Perestroika, and the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact and then USSR over 1989-91.
The east bloc collapse will mean no more subsidized arms at least for Mideast radical nationalist regimes like Syria, Iraq, South Yemen, Libya. Anything they try to buy from Russia or other former Soviet Republics will have to be cash on the nail going into the 1990s. No eastern bloc funding for the PLO either.
Without Iran and Syria in combination backing Hezbollah, and that group becoming increasingly effective in wearying Israel in Lebanon over the course of the 1990s, Israel's endgame in Lebanon will be something different from unilateral withdrawal. At any point between 1985 and 2005 it might instead have been a negotiated withdrawal, involving a peace agreement or nonbelligerency agreement, or a permanent occupation of the south Lebanon security zone in the absence of an agreement. What do you see happening here?
Lack of a Hezbollah success provides less inspiration for Hamas to apply a similar model in Gaza and the West Bank. And with Iran not being an Islamic Fundamentalist regime getting practice in supporting the Hezbollah resistance model, Iran will not get drawn in as a supporter to Hamas attempting to follow any similar models in the occupied territories. But none of this stopped the Intifadeh of the late 1980s.
Regardless, with no successful resistance in Lebanon and no foreign countries backing Hezbollah or Hamas resistance to oppose the Israelis or provide any kind of deterrent counter-force to the Israelis, what kind of expansionist and annexationist or expulsionist schemes would the Israeli governments have become emboldened to do at what points over the 1990s and 2000s in what land in the Middle East region?
I will give a simple PoD- when the Shah's doctors first identify his cancer in 1974, they don't keep the news from him [which they did until two or four years later], they tell him right away and he gets a spleenectomy and competent follow-up treatment.
As a result of successful cancer treatment, a healthier Shah, not getting mentally disturbed by side effects of misprescribed drugs and depressed his mortality and failing physical health, is more sound mentally, and more focused on governing.
He survives challenging protest movements, especially militant ones, by suppressing them to whatever degree is necessary, to protect what he sees as his regime's (and dynasty's) achievements so far and continue advancing the country.
If he has any moments of doubt while dousing popular anger with repression, he puts it aside by remembering what's at stake. If he has any worry about being undercut by Jimmy Carter's overall human rights policy, he also pushes those aside, thinking of the generally positive words he tends to hear from US diplomats in country, military and intel figures, National Security Advisor Brzezinski, and even Carter's own speech early in his term where he called Iran an 'island of stability'. In any case, after riding out some rough patches, by 1981, Carter is out of office in the USA because of discontent over the economy, Ronald Reagan is President, and he is an enthusiastic supporter of the Shah who sees his as a more important ally than ever containing the USSR in the region after its late 70s invasion of Afghanistan.
Doing a quick review of major 1980s events that will converge and diverge from OTL, here is what I suspect:
Afghan War - yes, it will happen, it will freak out anti-Soviet countries, and Pakistan and Iran, all of whom will support Mujhadeen. The Pakistanis will support fundamentalist Pashtos, the Iranians will support Hazaras and Tajiks. It's not gonna go great for the Soviets.
There is no Iran-Iraq war - Iraq just is not going to see Iran as a target of opportunity, because Iran will not have the deadly mixed appearance of being weak and unstable yet also dangerous, provocative and expansionist. As a result of no war, and other factors, both Iraq and Iran will continue to develop their economies, technology and standard of living, rather than face stagnation, debt, and infrastructure destruction in border zones.
The Israeli 1982 invasion of Lebanon should occur as historical, and be controversial globally and within Israel. Lebanon will have Israeli and Syrian intervention, and be rent by militia fighting.
However, the attacks blowing up the US Embassy and US Marine Barracks in Beirut, attributed the Islamic Jihad Organization section of Iranian-backed Hezbollah, will not occur, allowing the US "peacekeeping" operation in Lebanon to conclude without major humiliation even if without any peacemaking success to point at. Amal will remain the main Shia militia in Lebanon.
The Israeli strike on Iraq's Osirak reactor would probably still occur as historical (in 1981 or 1983, I forget). The Israelis, or possibly the Iranians, who may be concerned about an Iraqi nuke, may need to do an operation to "mow the grass" once more by the end of the decade to avoid being confronted with a working Iraqi nuke.
The western-Saudi agreement to drop oil prices from 1984-86 is likely to still happen as both an anti-Soviet measure and a measure on the Saudis part to discourage oil import substitution and alternate energy. Only this time, Iran would be included in the planning, with adjustments made to accomodate budgeting for the Shah's public works plans. Since Iran would be pro-western in the 1980s unlike OTL, like the Saudis it can still live well off the west even in a low oil price world by investing its sovereign wealth funds in diverse enterprises in the west (and Asia) as well as at home.
Regarding Iran itself, I would imagine a fair lifespan to give the cancer-free Shah would be until 1987, so he lives till age 67 or 68, just a couple more than his Dad, who died in a humiliating exile. His some would be mid-20s by then. Still young, but eligible. For good measure, let's say Khomeini dies the same year in his Iraqi exile, just a couple years earlier than OTL, having had more disappointment and less adrenaline in his life.
As for Iran going forward under the son and into the 1990s, I don't think it has to stay perfectly secular, and there probably would be alternations of political liberalization and clamping down. But political liberalization was pretty globally popular in the late 1980s. More public displays of faith and modesty may become 'trendy' in Iran, as happened in Pakistan and Egypt and Turkey. But let's just say that whatever changes are evolutionary or constitutional and not revolutionary, there's not a velayat e-faqih constitution installed, and by 2023, the furthest Iran may have wandered in that direction is having an illiberal, semi-democratic Erdoganist Islamicist ruling party and chief executive.
Macro-trends of economic stagnation, and a desire to remedy it, and medium trends like the Afghan war and the unfavorable drop in energy prices, all parallel to OTL, are likely to point the USSR to Glasnost, Perestroika, and the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact and then USSR over 1989-91.
The east bloc collapse will mean no more subsidized arms at least for Mideast radical nationalist regimes like Syria, Iraq, South Yemen, Libya. Anything they try to buy from Russia or other former Soviet Republics will have to be cash on the nail going into the 1990s. No eastern bloc funding for the PLO either.
Without Iran and Syria in combination backing Hezbollah, and that group becoming increasingly effective in wearying Israel in Lebanon over the course of the 1990s, Israel's endgame in Lebanon will be something different from unilateral withdrawal. At any point between 1985 and 2005 it might instead have been a negotiated withdrawal, involving a peace agreement or nonbelligerency agreement, or a permanent occupation of the south Lebanon security zone in the absence of an agreement. What do you see happening here?
Lack of a Hezbollah success provides less inspiration for Hamas to apply a similar model in Gaza and the West Bank. And with Iran not being an Islamic Fundamentalist regime getting practice in supporting the Hezbollah resistance model, Iran will not get drawn in as a supporter to Hamas attempting to follow any similar models in the occupied territories. But none of this stopped the Intifadeh of the late 1980s.
Regardless, with no successful resistance in Lebanon and no foreign countries backing Hezbollah or Hamas resistance to oppose the Israelis or provide any kind of deterrent counter-force to the Israelis, what kind of expansionist and annexationist or expulsionist schemes would the Israeli governments have become emboldened to do at what points over the 1990s and 2000s in what land in the Middle East region?