ABSTRACT
Economic, technological, military and political strands were being woven into a network of relationships that were perceived by Soviet observers as furthering American interests in the Gulf region in general, and in Iran in particular. In addition to strengthening, temporarily, American-Iranian ties, the energy problem affected Iranian-Soviet relations in conflicting ways. As well as affecting Iran's relations with both the United States and the Soviet Union, the influx of "petrodollars" into Iran had economic, political and military implications for Iran domestically and regionally. A concomitant of the military build-up and the attempted transformation of society was the great increase in the number of American military and civilian specialists brought to Iran to train local cadres in the use of the new, and in many instances highly sophisticated, military and industrial equipment. In the Soviet view, the Iranian Revolution represented a loss of global proportions to the United States, and being a severe blow to American interests in regional terms.
