Conclusion

Abstract

Many US officials had anticipated Soviet subversion and opportunism as the Shah’s regime collapsed; they then expected the Kremlin to exploit the security vacuum created by Iran’s chaotic revolutionary transition. Brzezinski informed Carter in March 1979 that the Soviet Union ‘could become the major strategic winner in the Persian Gulf as a result of the downfall of the Shah. In a prolonged period of change in Iran, the Soviet would be increasingly inclined to provide backing for those forces which they considered sympathetic to their own interests.’¹ The Islamic Revolution had convinced many in the Carter administration that pro-Western regimes in countries like Saudi Arabia, North Yemen, and Pakistan could be brought down by revolutionary Islamic movements and that the small communist groups in these countries could take advantage of the political and social crisis and take power, perhaps with Soviet assistance.²