AN AUGURY OF REVOLUTION: THE IRANIAN STUDENT ...

the potential to provide an alternative focus of power to that of the government. 46 Iranian
students studying in the United States and Western Europe during the turbulent 1960s developed
their critiques of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi’s regime, while at the same time formulating
their own alternate discourses on Iranian politics that became radicalized as the decade
progressed.
Amidst these developments, a wealth of scholarship was produced by a wide array of
historians. The United States did not emerge as a world power until the end of World War II,
and the historiography of American foreign relations has been a relatively recent development.
Literature pertaining to American foreign policy in the Middle East, including Iran, is an even
more recent development. Before the Allied occupation of Iran during World War II, the
American presence in the country was limited to missionaries and economic advisors.
Therefore, historians the 1950s reached a consensus on the benevolent interests of the United
States in Persia. American benevolence was contrasted with British and Russian policy with
Qajar-ruled Iran in the nineteenth century when both imperial nations competed in the “Great
Game” for dominance in Central and Southwest Asia.
From the 1940s to the 1970s, Iran played a major role in American foreign policy, and
historians began to analyze U.S. – Iranian relations within the context of the Cold War. Some
historians still made the case for American benevolence in Iran. However, revisionist critiques
emerged by the late 1960s emphasizing the role that economic self-interest played in American
foreign policy. At the same time, because of its war in Vietnam, many historians began to view
the United States as an imperial power whose presence was felt throughout the developing
world, including Iran.
46 Odd Arne Westad, The Global Cold War: Third World Interventions and the Making of our Times (Cambridge
University Press, 2005), 254-5.
15