As far as the reflection of the Islamic Revolution on the strategic issues of the Soviet Union is concerned, the geopolitics of the region was undergoing a major transformation after the victory of this Revolution and Iran that was protecting United States interests in the region at the time, has been identified as a threat to the United States interests by breaking the American colonial chain and ending its domination over the country. Although the nature of this revolution was in conflict with the socialist system, the Soviet Union would rather see Iran as an independent country than dependent on the other bloc. (Eta’at 1996: 70-71)
The collapse of the Shah and the weakening of the United States in the region were in favour of the Soviet Union. Because of the Iranian withdrawal from the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization and the dissolution of the United States Strategic Defense Agency in the ports of Shah and Kabkan to which the Soviets have always been objected, Moscow gained more opportunities to be active in the Gulf area.
The independence of Iran that decreased the sphere of influence of the United States, was a significant change in which the Soviet Union showed its interest. (Carrère d’Encausse 1989: 238) Therefore, the Soviet authorities believed that the collapse of the imperial regime in Iran and the success of the new system of governance were their rival’s strategic defeat, hence they willingly welcomed the occurrence of the Islamic Revolution.
In the last days of the Pahlavi regime, the Soviet authorities carefully monitored the developments of Iran and were worried about the military intervention of the United States in this country. Brezhnev said: “It should be clear that any intervention – particularly the military ones – in the internal affairs of Iran that is located near the borders of Soviet Union, would be considered by the Soviet Union as a violation of the security interests of the country.” (Koulaei 1998: 200)
While being sensitive to Iran’s affairs and situation, the officials of the Soviet Union took precautionary measures and did not announce their views and positions. Thus, after realizing that certainly, the Pahlavi regime would fall, the Soviet officials including Brezhnev, expressed their positive views on the Iranian Revolution and seized the opportunity to establish close ties with Iran.
With the onset of the revolution, the internal security and international interests of the Soviet Union were overshadowed and despite intense control carried out by the Soviet security organizations, the thoughts and teachings of the revolution have passed the country’s borders and affected the Muslim republics of Soviet Union. (Malakoutian 2003: 271) In addition, the Islamic Revolution challenged the international influence of the country by changing the ideology and nature of the revolutionary movements throughout the Muslim world – most of which either had been communist or Soviet-oriented. Thus, despite adopting the policy of establishing close relations with Iran, the Soviet officials were worried about and afraid of the Islamic Revolution of Iran.
The reason for Brezhnev’s fear of the Islamic Revolution was that he had seen Imam Khomeyni along with millions of poor people, being succeeded in overthrowing the strongest government in the Middle East and ending the American influence in this region. Therefore, if another Islamic Revolution will take place on the southern borders of the Soviet Union, it is obvious that how the Soviets will react. Therefore, from the very beginning, the Soviet officials were worried about such a phenomenon and hence they first move was to occupy Afghanistan with the aim of preventing the export of revolution.
The reason for Russians invading Afghanistan is illustrated by Brezhnev when he said: “after the Islamic Revolution of Iran, I do not want to see another Islamic Revolution being occurred on our southern borders.” (Huber 1991: 77)
On the other hand, Iran while adopting the policy of “neither East nor West,” set out to start an ideological confrontation with the Soviet Union and provide support for Afghan mujahedeen. Due to Iran’s opposition to the United States and independence of the country from being under the sphere of influence of the west, the Soviet officials did not seek to directly confront the revolution, though Iran had been the cause of the aforementioned problems for the Soviet Union; rather, they tried to change and drive the governing body in Iran toward their favour by the means of the Tudeh Party in order to secure power for their loyal agents and forces in the long term. (Ardestani 1999: 70)
Meanwhile, by adopting a neutral policy concerning the Iran-Iraq war, they tried to gain the attention of Iran while simultaneously maintaining their influence in Iraq and thus consolidate their position vis-à-vis the United States. Likewise, given the fact that hostility between Iran and the United States was become intensified, the Soviet officials, in addition to getting political-strategic privileges, sought to tip the balance in favour of Moscow regarding Iran’s stance on the Afghan people’s movement. (Doroudian 1999: 58)
By the late part of this decade, “the tenacious resistance of the Afghan people against the Soviet Union, which is called Jihad with the infidels, was supported and inspired by Iran and the Islamic Revolution.” (Malakoutian 2003: 274) Many believe that the war of Afghanistan was playing a key role in the bankruptcy of the Soviet economy and the subsequent collapse of this regime; because the Russians had predicted that this war would last only three or at most four weeks and that eventually Afghanistan will be occupied. But the war lasted ten years and paved the way for the economic collapse of the Soviet Union.
Since it was no longer possible for the Soviet Union to manage its numerous satellites, Gorbachev was forced to create developments in Russia and the Soviet satellite countries by adopting two policies of perestroika and glasnost – restructuring of the economic system and the creation of openness and transparency in terms of politic. Accordingly, Gorbachev provided a good atmosphere for the development and expansion of relations between Iran and the Soviet Union through presenting new ideas in the field of internal and external affairs and emphasizing peaceful orientation and new understating in the field of international relations. He stated that returning to expansionist thoughts and tendencies and ignoring the right of the majority of nations to think and decide independently are historical mistakes. (Keddie and Gasiorowski 1990: 66)
Policies and actions of Gorbachev at the regional level that were focused on the withdrawal of the Red Army from Afghanistan, the establishment of security by the countries of the region and withdrawal of foreign forces from the Persian Gulf, have had positive impacts on the relations between Iran and the Soviet Union and provided the basis for the development of bilateral relations. On the contrary, Imam Khomeyni used this opportunity and wrote a letter to Gorbachev. Imam Khomeyni invited Gorbachev to study Islam to fill the ideological vacuum within the Soviet Union and warned him that you should not get trapped in the prison of the West during the Perestroika process. (Rezaei-Cherati 2004: 163)
The collapse of the Soviet Union and the demise of its features, namely being a superpower and an imperialist, prepared the ground for the expansion of Iran’s relations with the former Eastern bloc, and Iran not only strengthened its relations with Russia but also its cultural and economic interactions with newly independent states across Central Asia and Transcaucasia were expanded. (Mohsenin 1995: 165-184) At the time, despite the expansion of the relations between the two parties, Russian rulers were preventing foreign countries including Iran, from influencing the countries in Central Asia and the Caucasus, and remained committed to preventing the export of the Islamic Revolution to these areas and supported the independent republics against Islamic fundamentalism. However, at the same time, many steps have been taken to establish positive relations with Iran so that such states would regain power against the United States and demonstrate their global independence and power.
Currently, relations between two countries are relatively favourable, and the Russian Federation aims to advance its global ideals in two ways: on the one hand, it tries to find a place in other European institutions and on the other hand, it seeks to benefit from cooperation with other states such as China, European countries, and Iran, as well as the dynamism of international organizations, to confront the continuation of the United States’ unilateralism.
2) Other countries encountering the Islamic Revolution of Iran:
With the triumph of the Islamic Revolution, most of the contemporary governments – including Western, Eastern, Third World, or even Islamic states – did not welcome this historical transformation looking at this emerging phenomenon, which none of them had predicted, with a sense of surprise and perplexity.
On the other hand, each of them was somehow concerned about the effects of the revolution on his community and the future of the stability of the ruling system of his country, and since governments are concerned with their permanence more than anything else, any popular and liberating movement could have been disturbing and even dangerous to them; therefore, the ruling governments, especially the secular ones, have acknowledged the concept of separation of religion from politics as a permanent and lasting principle while showing little desire for such movements and revolutions, and fought against them in order to protect their own interests. In this regard, most of the western countries have dealt with this revolution with hostility and hatred in an effort to make such movement fail along with the ruling system that emerged from this phenomenon experience collapse and instability. Moreover, together with the United States, they sought to control the Islamic Revolution and the Islamic Republic as the focal points of the movements of the Muslim world and in this regard putting pressures on Iran such as ethnic separatism, economic sanctions, an arms embargo, coup, military intervention, imposed war, psychological warfare, war of embassies, oil war, nuclear crisis, human rights debate etc. were among the tools that targeted the existence of Islamic Republic. Western politicians explicitly referred to such phenomenon as “bringing Iran’s rulers back to rationality and reasoning and subduing the Islamic Revolution.” (Mohammadi: January 9, 2007)
With the fall of the Soviet Union and the tendency of the United States to form a unipolar world order and comparing to the period of bipolarity, the integrity and the single policy of the west to oppose Iran became unstable and the European Union took different paths than the United States on many issues such as recognizing the realities of the Islamic Revolution and pursued a different policy regarding Iran through the framework of critical dialogue along with bilateral trades; nonetheless, it should not be forgotten that there is still intellectual, cultural and ideological agreement among the western countries in terms of confronting with the realities of the Islamic Revolution, especially concerning the dominance of Islamic values and principles.
The triumph of the Islamic Revolution also gave rise to two fundamental problems for the Eastern bloc states: the first problem was that, given the Marxist frameworks dominating in those countries, how can we analyze and justify the purpose and framework of a revolution for which predominant economic criteria, religious beliefs and norms may be found and argued in those countries? The second challenge was that in the light of the good relations that most of the Eastern bloc states had with the Shah’s regime, how would they set up their relations with the new revolutionary order? (Mohammadi 2006: 504)
In the case of Islamic states, it should be noted that generally, the Islamic Revolution had a negative effect and reflection on countries that had a heavy reliance on the western world especially the United States. In other words, the more danger the developments of Iran are considered to carry for the future of a country, the more negative reflection that state would receive of the Islamic Revolution. Also, the immediate reactions and responses of these states may be seen in accordance with such effects. In general, as these countries became geographically closer to Iran and feel more threatened by the penetration and export of revolution among their people, they adopted more rigid positions. On the contrary, the governments such as Syria, which had perused a more independent policy concerning the revolution, would adopt a more friendly policy concerning revolutionary Iran. (Mohammadi 2006: 504-505).
Archive of The Enemies of the Islamic Revolution
leave your comments