AN AUGURY OF REVOLUTION: THE IRANIAN STUDENT ...

opportunities for the CIS and well-educated intellectuals studying abroad to exploit political
grievances inside Iran. 459 The American embassy in Tehran was concerned that these antiregime
activities sought to weaken Iran before the British withdrew from the Persian Gulf in late
1971. 460 The shah demonstrated that he desired to moderate leftist movements in the Persian
Gulf when he assisted the Arab regime in Oman. During this war, the interests of the shah and
the United States directly collided with the concerns of Iranian students. The ISAUS put out
numerous tracts condemning the shah’s military backing of the Sultan of Oman, Qaboos ibn
Sa’id, against Marxist rebels in Oman’s Dhofar province in the early 1970s. 461
While there was an increase in Iranian student protest in the United States and Western
Europe in the late 1960s, countries previously unaffected by their protests bore witness to the
worldwide struggle against the shah’s regime by the 1970s. In the summer of 1970, Iranian
student groups formed in Montreal and Vancouver and by 1971 the Canadian government
became concerned about their activities. 462 Canadian authorities became concerned when
Empress Farah traveled to Canada in June 1971. Officials in Ottawa told all consulate posts not
to issue any visas for a two week period, unless they were members of the foreign ministry, in
order to keep Iranian activists out of the country during her visit. American officials also
recommended that security agencies in the United States inform Canadian authorities if they
459 AE Iran to DOS, “Intensification of Anti-GOI Subversive Efforts,” 12 May 1971, FRUS 1969-1976, Vol. E-4,
http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ho/frus/ (accessed on 26 February 2008).
460 AE Iran to DOS, “Intensification of Anti-GOI Subversive Efforts,” 12 May 1971, FRUS 1969-1976, Vol. E-4,
http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ho/frus/ (accessed on 26 February 2008).
461 ISAUS, Dhofar (San Francisco, CA: Iranian Students Association in the United States and Arab Student
Organization in Northern California, 1974); ISAUS, The Solidarity of the Iranian People’s Movement with the
Omani Revolution (College Park, Maryland: Iranian Students Association in the United States, 1976).
462 Matin-asgari, Iranian Student Opposition to the Shah, 119.
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