Undergraduate

Iran’s Azerbaijan Crisis:
Great Power Politics & the Advent of the Cold War
Nicole Bayat Grajewski
The George Washington University’s Elliott School of International Affairs
Abstract
This paper will examine the policies of the Soviet Union, the United States, and Iran during the Soviet invasion
of Iranian Azerbaijan in 1946 to argue that oil, Great Power geopolitics, and Cold War insecurity shaped each
state’s respective policy. Drawing upon American, British, Soviet, and Iranian diplomatic correspondence as
well as secondary sources, this paper will demonstrate that the Soviet Union’s invasion of Iranian Azerbaijan
marked the first Cold War crisis and set the context for subsequent competition among the Great Powers. The
combination of Allied occupation and the appointment of a weak monarch thrust Iran into a state of political
ferment where outside forces vied for power, which eventually culminated in the first major international
crisis of the Cold War. While the Soviet Union and the United States both considered Iran a valuable strategic
asset by virtue of its geography and resources, the Soviet Union particularly viewed Western presence as
an existential security threat to its southern border and to its primary economic interest in Iran, oil. The
imperative to balance Soviet influence in the region and protecting oil in the Persian Gulf compelled the
United States and Iran to defend Iranian sovereignty through the United Nations Security Council.
The Soviet Union’s invasion of Iranian Azerbaijan
marked the first Cold War crisis and set the
context for subsequent competition among the
Great Powers. Iran’s involvement demonstrated the
country’s ability to defend its sovereignty even when
confronted by the world’s superpowers. The motivations
for actions taken by the Soviet Union and the U.S.
during the Azerbaijan crisis varied, but in both cases
were shaped by oil, strategic geopolitical influence,
and emerging Cold War competition. While the Soviet
Union and the U.S. both considered Iran a valuable
strategic asset by virtue of its geography and resources,
the Soviet Union particularly viewed Western presence
as an existential security threat to its southern border
and to its primary economic interest in Iran, oil (Clarke
2004, 558).
Through the occupation of northern Iran, demands for
a stake in the exploitation of Iranian oil, and support for
the communist Tudeh and the Azerbaijan Democratic
Party (“ADP”), the Soviet government attempted to
shift the balance of power in their favor. Reactions
from the U.S. and Great Britain were based upon
Soviet aggression and the strategic value of the region
(Fatemi 22). Unlike the Soviet Union, whose interests
lay primarily in northern Iran, Britain concentrated its
interests in the south of Iran where its oil holdings
and ports along imperial trade and communication
routes were located (Fawcett 2014 143). As a result of
these concerns, Britain sought to persuade the U.S.
to espouse an anti-Soviet policy to protect the fading
empire’s oil and colonial possessions.
Throughout the nineteenth century, Iran was a
strategic objective in the Great Game between Tsarist
Russia and the British Empire. In the 1907 Anglo-
Russian treaty, the Empires shifted from vying for
influence in Iran to striking an alliance that effectively
divided Iran into two zones of influence (Sykes 410-
412). With the collapse of the Tsarist regime and the
advent of the Bolshevik government, the influence of
the former Russian empire waned in Iran, while Great
Britain proceeded to exploit Iranian petroleum and
to influence Tehran’s internal politics (Keylor 266).
By 1921 the Soviet Union sought to strengthen its
southern border and counter Great Britain’s extraregional
hegemony in the Near East with the Iran-
Soviet Friendship Treaty, which ensured Moscow’s
military protection of Iran (Treaty of Friendship 1921,
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