Isfahan was defined by its geopolitical and strategic significance during much of the Cold War period. However, this role was not new for the city. The settlement’s original name Aspadana means “troop assembly point” connoting one of its original functions.

The municipality had historically endured periods of decline and manipulation due to political and economic expediency. After a period of decay following the glorious reign of Shah Abbas, Isfahan (along with other Iranian cities) re-entered the world economy in the nineteenth century.

Shah Abbas I was the most popular king of the seventeenth century Safavid dynasty. He moved the center of government to Isfahan, a city in decay, in 1597. During his reign, “European visitors variously estimate the population of Isfahan” as between 700,000 and 1,000,000.

The leading geopolitical factor influencing the reintegration was the confrontation between Russia and Great Britain in the half-century leading up to World War I. The conflict was known as “the Great Game.”

The British believed that a large-scale infusion of capital into Iran was the surest way to secure British control and, thus, to guard the gates of India.

The Russians, on the other hand, were concerned with cementing their dominance over the administration of northern Persia and expanding southward toward warm water ports in the Persian Gulf.

Constant interference from both meant that the continuing development of Isfahan (and other pre industrial Iranian cities) was subject to the activities and needs of these two imperialist rivals.

In fact, in 1907, the Anglo-Russian entente went so far as to divide Iran into three spheres, with northern and central Iran, including Tehran and Isfahan, in the Russian sphere. Southeast Iran was in the British zone. The territory in-between was neutral and included the area where Iranian oil was first discovered in 1908.

The Anglo-Russian entente settled the British and Russian differences in Tibet, Afghanistan, and Iran.

Tehran, Iran’s capital, was the most populous city at that time but urban life was also vibrant in Isfahan and Tabriz. Tabriz was Iran’s greatest emporium, the center of caravan routes to Turkey and the starting point of Iran’s first railway which ran toward Russia.

By the end of World War I, shortly before Reza Khan ascended the Peacock Throne, these three cities dominated the urban scene.

Under Reza’s tutelage, the political conditions which were to change the character of Isfahan were created.

Regarding Iran, post World War II US administrations were concerned with two issues: strategically, they desired an internally strong Iran that would counter any communist threat; economically, they wanted to ensure American  control over the country’s oil fields and they wanted to obtain contracts for America’s defense manufacturers.  These objectives overshadowed other, more lofty, ideals.

Isfahan’s development differs from many other cities in the developing world in that midway through the Cold War period the city’s close relationship with the US was severed and its position in the world capitalist system was definitively altered.

Some interpret the revolution which spurred this radical change as an anti-American event.  It is more appropriate, however, to consider the anti-Western component of the revolution as evidence of Iran’s longstanding inability to find its place in the world marketplace on advantageous terms.

Still, it is clear that the revolution reoriented the city’s economy which was subsequently damaged again by the Iran-Iraq War and an on-going brain drain.

As a result, despite articulated revolutionary intentions, Isfahan has achieved neither the social and redistributional gains of Havana nor the strong economic growth of Taipei.  In fact, since the revolution the city has taken on a subordinate position relative to other secondary cities in the country–Mashhad being the best example.

Nevertheless, Isfahan has continued to be shaped by militarism.  It is the primary location of the Iranian nuclear weapons program and is reportedly the site of a ballistic missile production facility as well as a major chemical weapons facility.

In the end, Isfahan’s Cold War significance was remarkably transitory.

While American cliency was an accepted fact as late as 1978, Iranians have been willing to sustain substantial sacrifice to avoid post revolutionary entanglement with the United States.  Instead, the Islamic regime has diligently explored opportunities for regional affiliations and alliances.

Isfahan serves as a test case for those who argue that military spending adversely impacted urban economies and spatial patterns throughout the developing world during the Cold War period.  It also raises interesting questions regarding the globalization of cities that is argued to have occurred during the Cold War timeframe since it provides a prime example of an urban economy impacted by the internationalization of goods and services rooted in strategic calculations.

Given its revolutionary choices, questions emerge regarding the permanent impact of the global flows embedded in Cold War superpower competition.

Certainly, it seems as if the ethnoscapes, technoscapes, finanscapes, mediascapes, ideoscapes, and commodityscapes associated with the American presence–and touted in the urban literature–were rapidly replaced after the revolution by more local thrusts.

If so, what does this have to tell us about the permanence of today’s neoliberal project?  Relatedly, what does Isfahan tell us regarding the current perception that the popularity of Western values and culture are effecting a process of convergence which is sweeping the world?

For over two decades following the conclusion of World War II, American presidents and the shah of Iran quarreled over Iran’s defense needs.

Expert advisory missions from the US arrived as early as 1942, charged with increasing the efficiency of security forces through organizational reform.

It soon became apparent, however, that the shah’s postwar objective was not reform, but the acquisition of sophisticated military hardware.

When, in 1968, the Nixon Doctrine facilitated this process, workers from multinational defense firms and their subcontractors flowed into Isfahan, a heritage city in the heart of Iran.  The city was disproportionately affected, and quickly merged existing urban qualities with newly acquired characteristics to take on the appearance of a Cold War city.

Isfahan became highly militarized, a process which altered its demographics, economy, and built environment.

The new activity, in conjunction with memories of  CIA intervention in 1953, projected an illusion of American penetration–even manipulation.

The support of the United States helped the shah consolidate his power during the decade of the 1950s. But monetary assistance equal to that provided Taipei was not forthcoming.  Both Iran’s oil wealth and the absence of comparable communist threat meant that the country would be responsible for financing its own development.

Therefore, while the Kennedy administration pressed for reform, America’s leverage was not nearly so strong as most Iranians (or Americans) believed.

Isfahan and Taipei differed, also, in another important respect.   While Chiang Kai-shek and the KMT had floundered on the mainland, they–not the United States–had established firm political control, including martial law in urban Taipei.  Later, a loosening occurred which facilitated constitutional reform, institution building, and democratization.

In Iran, on the other hand, Isfahan’s pluralistic postwar environment had been recast when US covert action enabled the shah to assert his executive powers, undermining the legislative primacy intended by the country’s constitution.

Consequently, Isfahan was not an urban champion of America’s neoliberal ideals.  On the contrary, the city reflected the most opportunistic and conflated qualities of US grand strategy.

Photograph by David Wolfe.

When Americans first arrived in Isfahan, the newcomers moved into luxury housing in the middle of town and local landlords earned windfall profits. The boom was short-lived, however, because the community was soon relocated to newly constructed American style subdivisions on the outskirts of the city, the result of sweetheart deals between foreign companies and Iranian entrepreneurs.

The ever-expanding population influx and resultant urban sprawl necessitated infrastructure expansion due to urban increase as well as for bases, airfields, and related industrial facilities.

Large tent cities housed low-wage construction workers from Afghanistan and Pakistan who were rapidly building the extra housing needed to accommodate additional demand.

Thus, Isfahan changed rapidly during this period, evolving from one of the foremost art cities in the world to one of the principal military enclaves in the Third World.

Moreover, the spatial organization of Isfahan did not allow for a distinct division of the foreign and local communities. While the foreigners lived in walled enclaves protected by the shah’s military, school buses, work buses, and minibuses loaded with shoppers were quite visible throughout the older sections of town.

As the revolution took form, the outsiders continued to be an intrusive presence as they went about their daily activities.

Martial law was imposed in Isfahan in August 1978. Most Americans left the city by November, and an estimated $2 billion in military servicing and production contracts scheduled for implementation left with them.

At the end of World War II, Havana, the capital of Cuba, was a perfect example of what is known as a primate city. This condition develops when one city becomes so dominant that it prohibits cities in other parts of the country from developing.

In contrast, Taipei was also a capital, but not strictly speaking a primate. Still, as the largest city in Taiwan,  it exhibited many primate characteristics.

On the other hand, Isfahan was not a capital. While the governments of both Taiwan and Cuba were preoccupied with devising strategies to divert population growth from Taipei and Havana, the Iranian government was targeting Isfahan for expansion.

The second largest city in Iran, Isfahan was selected to be the center of Iran’s process of military-led industrialization in order to shift urban pressure from Iran’s primate city, Tehran.

Also, in contrast to Taipei and Havana, Isfahan received support from both superpowers (sometimes concurrently) until the Iranian Revolution of 1978-1979.

Soviet support was logical given Iran’s historically close relationship with the Soviet Union, analogous to Cuba’s close relationship with the United States. American support evolved from the Allied occupation of the country in World War II.

Isfahan presents a good example of a Soviet turnkey operation in its Russian steel mill located on the outskirts of town, and is perhaps the prime example of urban transformation due to major weapons import from the West in the Third World.

Isfahan, located in the center of one of America’s forward defense areas, was important not only for its geographical location, but also because of Iran’s large oil reserves. Facilitated during the 1970s by ever-growing oil revenues and by the implementation of the Nixon Doctrine, the shah of Iran began to purchase a range of weapons and support systems that he expected would meet both regional contingencies and maintain US military objectives.

Ultimately, Iran spent more on American arms and associated services than any other non-European country.

Concurrent with escalating arms purchases, the shah embarked on a program of military-led industrialization which expanded Isfahan’s economic and  urban base. The city’s central position contributed to its selection as an industrial hub, and its numerous military facilities greatly benefited from the shah’s defense expenditures.

A viable arms industry was declared to be a precondition to successful industrialization, and since the arms sector was traditionally subject to state control, the expansion of arms production in Isfahan offered advantages for both Iranian capital and American enterprises.

The purchase of the F-14 Tomcat, the latest Western jet fighter, along with helicopter and training purchases from Bell Helicopter, disproportionately modified Isfahan’s urban identity as large numbers of Americans and their families flowed into the city to provide expertise and training.

By 1970, Bell Helicopter had 1,800 employees (plus dependents) in Isfahan. The function of these employees, in addition to supplying maintenance training and skills, was to supply tactical training to Iranian pilots involved in the creation of a helicopter-borne strike force. Grumman had approximately 2,000 employees and dependents in Isfahan in 1976, with the number expected to grow to more than 10,000 by 1980. These foreign arrivals were supplemented by large numbers of Iranian technicians and military personnel arriving from other areas of the country.

While arguments and analysis continue regarding the causes of the Iranian Revolution and the contribution of external forces to its development, American foreign policy decisions during the 1977 – 1979 time period show no direct causal relationship.

In other words, Carter’s human rights policy and the confusions of US policy making  were not the determinant factors. However, it would be simplistic to assume that external forces were without influence.

Tensions were created as a result of Iran’s ongoing socioeconomic transformation.

The revenues of Iran’s oil industry rose from $45 million in 1950 to $20.5 billion in 1976. Concurrently, the United States embarked on a program of arms sales, with the Nixon Doctrine supplying the rationale — an extension of diplomacy that allowed the equipping of reliable allies, along with a quick and easy way to use oil money to redress the US trade balance. (For more click here)

In a one year period the Pentagon more than doubled their foreign arms sales from$3.9 billion in 1973 to $8.3 billion in 1974. Almost half of this total went to one buyer, the shah of Iran.

This recycling of petrodollars for US – supplied weaponry meant that the political and military buildup of the shah’s regime was, in the end, contingent on American  foreign policy decision making.

Opponents of the shah were able to combine the regime’s obsession with weapons spending and neglect of human capital, the ramifications of Kennedy’s intervention in Iran’s affairs in 1960 (especially land reform), and America’s covert activities in the Mossadegh era to create a climate where identification with the West — or with the Soviet Union for that matter — was clearly undesirable.

In the end, the Ayatollah Khomeini succeeded in steering his nation away from overt dependence on (or support of) either superpower, an accomplishment that most other Third World leaders had failed to achieve.

After expelling American influence, Khomeini purged the pro – Soviet Tudeh party and offered assistance to anti – Soviet rebels in Afghanistan. Nevertheless, the US remained concerned that perceived American weakness in the region would benefit Moscow by providing opportunities for it to extend its influence.

By 1969 the United States was looking for assistance in carrying out its military commitments in the Third World based, primarily, on Britain’s decision to withdraw military forces from all ports east of the Suez Canal, including the Persian Gulf. (Formal confirmation of the withdrawal occurred on March 1, 1971.)

Washington believed that Britain’s departure would leave a dangerous strategic vacuum in the region and, therefore, expanded allied responsibility, announcing that the US would send arms rather than troops to critical areas.

The Nixon Doctrine, announced in 1969, provided supporters with a new justification to buy arms that would be used in the Western interest, a policy which would also allow American defense contractors to extract huge profits.

Given a green light by the Americans, the shah of Iran began to purchase a range of weapons and support systems that he expected would meet both regional contingencies and support US military objectives.

The shah was basically given military carte blanche based on the perceived American need to have a trusted local power protect US interests in the Persian Gulf. Nixon and Secretary of State Henry Kissinger believed that as America’s foreign surrogate, Iran deserved to receive whatever military goods it deemed necessary to carry out its new responsibilities.

Nixon and Kissinger thought that American and Iranian interests overlapped. In Kissinger’s words:

On all major international issues, the policies of the United States and the policies of Iran have been parallel and therefore mutually reinforcing.

From Kissinger’s perspective the shah was

… that rarest of leaders, an unconditional ally, and one whose understanding of the world situation enhance our own.

Facilitated in the 1970s by ever growing oil revenues, the Iranian government spent more money on US weapons and military support than any other non-European country.

Iran did, however, insist on a quid pro quo, insisting that the US provide covert military assistance to Kurdish rebels. The Kurds were used as proxies, serving Iranian, American, and Israeli interests until 1975 when Iran and Iraq reached an agreement favorable to Iran, moving Iraq’s border from the Iranian shore of the Shatt-al-Arab waterway to the  middle of the deepest shipping channel. Iran then cut off aid to the Kurds who were subsequently overwhelmed.

Despite this occurrence, the Iran-Iraq agreement did serve to stabilize the region by encouraging Iraq to move to a more non-aligned position and increasing American opportunities to reestablish influence in the country.