AN AUGURY OF REVOLUTION: THE IRANIAN STUDENT ...

question the nature of American involvement in the Middle East and set the stage for widespread
public protest similar to the movement against the war in Vietnam.” 495
The public denunciation by American citizens that Iranian students envisioned never
came to fruition, and the bond that the shah and President Nixon formed was very strong and
continued throughout the rest of the shah’s life. However, even though U.S. – Iranian relations
were stronger than ever, they strengthened amidst the rising tide of Iranian student protest
abroad. Throughout the 1960s and into the 1970s, Iranian student protest was a clear indication
of the severity of the shah’s authoritarian rule and the fragile foundation on which U.S. – Iranian
relations rested. The flawed Twin Pillars policy had become a foundation of American foreign
policy and this further infuriated Iranian students. The ISAUS believed that the shah’s “mission
in life within the context of the Kissinger doctrine, is to maintain the status quo for the
imperialistic interests in the area.” 496
The ISAUS believed that the “Vietnam Nixon-Kissinger
Doctrine of ‘let Asians fight Asians’ has been translated in the Gulf region into ‘let Iranians fight
Arabs.’” 497 With increased animosity between Iranian students and the intimate relations forged
between Washington and Tehran, protests throughout the United States and Europe continued to
grow throughout the 1970s as revolutionary sentiment in Iran reached a fever pitch. With the
Yom Kippur War and the subsequent oil boom, the number of Iranian students grew by leaps and
bounds. Thus the problem of Iranian students in the United States became an even more
explosive issue. The increased number of Iranian students in the United States led American
policymakers to question the principle tenets of its student exchange programs. However, it did
not lead them to question their foreign policy regarding Iran.
495 ISAUS, Iran’s Kent State and Baton Rouge, 6.
496 ISAUS, Dhofar, 3.
497 ISAUS, Dhofar, 3.
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