History has a sense of humor, though sometimes it can be very dark indeed. The anti-British Russian-Iranian treaty of 1921 was used by Moscow twenty years later as the springboard for the Anglo-Soviet occupation of Iran. Seventy years ago, on August 25, 1941, Operation Countenance was launched, with the United States later joining the Anglo-Soviet invasion.
Some historians claim that this oft forgotten episode of the 20th century had grave consequences for the world. They believe it was in Iran, long before Winston Churchill's "iron curtain" speech, that the first seeds of the Cold War were sown.
Motives and pretexts
The formal pretext for the Allied invasion of Iran was to protect Iranian oil fields from possible capture by Germany or its satellites, and to secure the southern transport corridor for Lend Lease deliveries to the Soviet Union.
This was, of course, important, but what worried the Allies even more were the openly pro-German leanings of the Iranian monarch, Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi, and his government. The Allies suspected that Tehran was seeking to join the Axis. It's little wonder, then, that Moscow and London began to discuss the possibility of invading Iran almost immediately after the German invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941. Their suspicions were confirmed when Reza Pahlavi turned down British and Soviet requests to deploy some forces in his country.
It is unclear how London legally justified Operation Countenance. As I see it, Britain did not bother to look for any legal pretexts at all. The war was in full swing, and that was reason enough. The Soviet Union justified its participation by referring to clause six of the Soviet-Iranian treaty of 1921, which authorized the Soviet Union to invade Iran in the face of a threat to its southern borders.
It's hard to deny that history has a sense of humor. Both Iran and the Soviet Union believed the 1921 treaty was in their best interests and in their common interest to force the British out of Iran. Clause six certainly was a political bonus for the Soviets, but Moscow ceded quite a lot in exchange. Iran received all Russian property in Iran (a railway, a bank, a Caspian port, some steamers, and telegraph lines), as well as a number of Caspian islands.
Twenty years later, however, Moscow used that anti-British treaty to justify the Soviet-British occupation of Iran.
The invasion itself was fairly brief, coming to an end on September 17, 1941. The loss of life was tolerable, too, as the Iranians did not put up much resistance. The Iranian Cabinet resigned en masse soon after the Allied invasion, and the Shah's regime fell. The new prime minister, Mohammed Ali Forugi, ordered Iranians to lay down their arms.
An agreement was signed on September 8, 1941, allowing the deployment of Allied forces on Iranian territory. British forces occupied southern Iran, while the Soviets held the North, which suited Moscow fine. Their position in the northern sector allowed them to keep Turkey in check while establishing an essentially autonomous Azerbaijani area in northern Iran, which immediately began to cooperate actively with Soviet Azerbaijan.
Lend Lease and the Tehran Conference
The occupation helped establish a reliable route for Lend Lease deliveries to the Soviet Union. The most famous route is, of course, the northern one, where each piece of cargo was paid for in the blood of Russian and Allied sailors. But in terms the amount delivered, the Soviet Far East comes first and Iran second. (Incidentally, to establish that route, the Americans and the British invested heavily in new Iranian infrastructure.) The northern route to Murmansk and Archangel was third in importance, and, finally, a small amount of aid got through to the USSR at various times over the Black Sea and even through the Arctic.
Were it not for Operation Countenance, there would have been no Tehran Conference in 1943, the first meeting of the Big Three: Roosevelt, Churchill and Stalin. Of course, the meeting could have been held elsewhere had the invasion failed.
But we must not forget how difficult it was to find and secure a location for the Big Three to meet. And time was of the essence, particularly for the USSR. So, Tehran presented itself as a venue just in the nick of time. In Tehran, the three leaders agreed on exact timelines for opening the Second Front and on many other historic matters.
The Cold War began in Iran?
The argument can be made that the Cold War began in Iran. Many mark Winston Churchill's "iron curtain" speech in Fulton, Missouri, as the starting point, but this is highly questionable.
Churchill's speech did not impress the West as much as Stalin's harsh response. This fact is rarely mentioned in Russia. Churchill described the international situation in tragic, almost Shakespearean terms and accused his former ally of seeking world dominance: "A shadow has fallen upon the scenes so lately lighted by the Allied victory."
Nevertheless, the public initially saw Churchill's Shakespearean tragedy as little more than political theater. It was only much later that the Fulton speech was transformed into political doctrine and the former British PM was anointed the patron saint of the Cold War.
Stalin's reply was harsher, more venomous and left no room for continued dialogue. In an interview with Pravda, he likened his former allies to the Nazis, accusing them of warmongering. Many experts believe that Stalin's fierce reaction produced a much stronger impression on the West than Churchill's literary-political essay.
Yet, even political heavyweights like Churchill and Stalin were not able to transform the world overnight. The transition to the Cold War was certainly a long process. For example, the Shah of Iran, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, was convinced that the Cold War between the Allies began even before the end of World War II. He would claim in his memoirs that the Cold War began in Iran.
The Shah is right in a way. With the war drawing to a close, it was in Iran that serious differences arose between the Allies. Every side wanted to establish a foothold in that oil-rich region. Throughout the Allied occupation, the area was the scene of geological exploration by the Soviets, Britain's Shell, and two U.S. companies, Standard Vacuum and Sinclair Oil.
The 1945-46 Iranian crisis demonstrated that the postwar future offered no quick fixes. It was also clear that Soviet, British and U.S. withdrawal from Iran would benefit Washington and London alone, as the Iranian leadership had set its sights on a Western alliance.
Iranian and Allied pressure on Moscow was mounting, and Stalin ultimately decided to withdraw Soviet forces from Iran rather than risk souring relations.
The crisis was resolved, but not in Moscow's favor. As soon as the last Soviet soldier left Iranian territory, Tehran withdrew from all its agreements with Moscow. The USSR not longer had access to Iranian oil, nor would there be any autonomy for Iran's Azerbaijani population.
The Soviet withdrawal from Iran can be seen as the first Soviet defeat in the Cold War.
The views expressed in this article are the author's and may not necessarily represent those of RIA Novosti.
