I would agree...however, only with the caveat, like you mentioned of
"no American forces approach the Soviet border". And right there could be a potential rub. How far does this potential shooting war with Iran go with the US? What if American aircraft end up getting too close to the Soviet border with the possibility of a border incident, what then? Do Iranian refugees start spilling across the Soviet/Iranian border? Or do the Soviets decide to invest in the Tudeh (Iranian communist) movement as a new wrinkle and potential foil to both the Americans and the Iranian Islamists...?
en.wikipedia.org
EDIT: Also worth noting the Soviets had continuing ethnic/religious strife going on in it's Central Asian territories/republics, sometimes culminating in riots that got put down by the MVD and KGB. With the Iranians wanting to export their Islamist revolution worldwide, and these republics in their sights which could mean even more unrest? The Soviets will be more than happy to see the would-be Revolution get consigned to hell along with the 72 virgins.
Disclaimer: In no way am I suggesting certain topics that might get explored in a certain "what if" WW3 fic I'm writing...
l think if Iranian forces wind up getting close to the border, the Soviets might step in (albeit uninvited). The problem for them is that their deployable* forces amount to whatever VDV (Soviet Airborne) and Spetznaz forces they have to spare, along with air power. Their conventional forces are pretty much crap at this point (hell, they can’t even sufficiently supply the conventional troops they have in Afghanistan), the terrain in question is all mountains (except for the immediate coastal areas around the Caspian in Iran as well as small segments extending into Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan), it’s an absolute catastrophe waiting to happen if the Soviets actually try that with their conventional forces (which are mechanized). And as it turned out, the Soviets were even worse at fighting insurgent forces in unfamiliar terrain than the Americans (particularly mountainous terrain when surrounded by fanatical Muslims).
Based on that, it’s possible the Soviets allow the Americans a free hand in Iran (as in, getting close to the border to take out any Iranian forces trying to hide or else putting the hurt on themselves if they enter Soviet territory)…but only if the Americans do the same for the Soviets in Afghanistan. It’d be weird as fuck but given just how much the Iranians would have to have pissed off the U.S. to get to this point, they might agree to it just to be sure they bag Khomeini and his band of merry mullahs.
And, fortunately for the Americans, the mullahs started to piss off the rest of Iran with their shit, so it’s possible that the U.S. can install a regime that’s at least cordial to the U.S. (read: No Pahlavis Allowed!) *Maybe* the son if he’s a total figurehead with full power invested in the Majlis.
This would certainly make for a weird fucking timeline, too, if Iran is friendly to the U.S. and the Soviets either wipe out the resistance in Afghanistan (or they don’t but the conflict is localized so no bin Laden). Saddam might also think twice about crossing the U.S. if there’s a U.S.-aligned Iran on his border. Don’t know if they’d let him hold onto Khuzestan, either, at that point. Maybe allow him to extract whatever oil he can until the mullahs are defeated?
So many possibilities…and incidentally I for one would love to see such in a timeline. Or at least updates to one
*-Autocorrect seems to keep wanting to change that to ‘deplorable’ which describes Soviet conventional forces of the time quite well, but not the VDV and special forces troops. And given that the Red Army of the time was designed as a conventional mechanized force to go toe-to-toe with NATO (
and that their logistics completely fucking suck in both the Caucasus and Central Asian regions