AN AUGURY OF REVOLUTION: THE IRANIAN STUDENT ...

and collective confrontation of illegitimate authority,” in the 1960s were “unlikely to have much
effect on American policy.” 6
Iranian students did have an effect on American foreign policy in the early years of the
1960s. Kennedy did not view the shah’s regime favorably, and many in the administration were
receptive to the opinions of Iranian students in the United States. However, Lyndon Johnson
drastically reversed the policies and attitudes of the Kennedy era, and the Nixon administration
escalated the level of cooperation between Washington and Tehran that began during the
Johnson administration. The decisions made by Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger in May
1972 were the culmination of an American policy toward Iran that had been developing for
nearly a decade. Instead of a conservative reaction to the Iranian student movement, this policy
was Realpolitik put into action. The Nixon administration viewed the world as a “single strategic
theater” upon which it desired to forge alliances with world leaders that it believed would
provide the best opportunities for American-defined stability. 7
Washington believed that the
shah could provide this stability, and ignored the plight of the citizens and students of Iran in
favor of a ruler who supported American interests. The disconnect between the Iranian people
and the shah led the Pahlavi regime to collapse with remarkable speed, increasing instability in
the region that was to last into the twenty-first century.
The Iranian student movement abroad was indicative of the growing unrest among the
intelligentsia, but both Washington and Tehran downplayed its significance. Leaders in
Washington and Tehran should have been aware of the historical role that the intelligentsia has
played in the modern Middle East. There were thriving Ottoman exile communities in Paris and
6 Maurice Isserman and Michael Kazin, America Divided: The Civil War of the 1960s (Oxford University Press,
2004), 188.
7 “The Modern World, A Single ‘Strategic Theater,’” 29 September 1969, attachment to Memorandum from
Kissinger to Nixon, “A Strategic Overview,” undated, FRUS 1969 – 1976, Volume I, Foundations of Foreign Policy
1969-1972 (Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office, 2003), 111.
5