How F-14 Purchase from US Humiliated Iran’s Monarchy

Iranian historian and researcher Yaqoub Tavakkoli says the humiliation of the Shah, the former despotic ruler of Iran before the 1979 Islamic Revolution, before his American masters became all the more evident in the case of purchasing F-14 fighter jets from the United States.

Tavakoli says the Shah was afraid of Washington, according to a report by the Persian-language Khabar Online news website.

The highlights of Tavakkoli’s comments follow:

The Shah’s humiliation and fear in the face of the Americans was quite obvious in the case of Phoenix missiles. When sending Phoenix missiles, the US delivered them in the form of separated parts along with other army equipment. In other words, they delivered the F-14 warplanes to Iran, but did not supply Phoenix rockets, which were the most important component of the fighter jets. An F-14 aircraft without rockets is like a harmless bird. The effectiveness of F-14 jet fighters is due to its missiles.

An investigation was conducted and it became evident that the components of the rockets were being kept as separate parts in the depots of the army, and the US did it because Washington did not want Iran to have airplanes ready at all times.

A report was given to the Shah about what the Americans had done. In response, the former Iranian dictator said, “No problem. Just don’t complain to the Americans about it.”

They were trumpeting the idea that Iran had the largest refueling squadron. But the reality was that they were only a handful of scrapped American aircraft. They had been kept in the aircraft’s junkyard until a US general proposed that the planes be sold to Iran to join the country’s air fleet. After all, the idea that so many planes had been sold to Iran as refueling aircraft seems far-fetched because Iran did not need so many refueling planes given the limited number of the aircraft it had. For instance, you have 50 cars. It will be illogical and a waste of money to build 10 petrol stations for them because even one or two would do. However, the Shah issued purchase orders because it was what the Americans wanted.

In the case of purchasing F-14 fighter jets from the US, one can see a sort of humiliation in the former regime of the Shah (also known as Pahlavi regime). Back then, the Grumman company had manufactured F-14 fighter jets. The aircraft’s range was very short, around 150 miles only. As a result, the US Navy did not accept it. However, in order to save Grumman from insolvency, the Americans sold F-14 warplanes to Iran. Furthermore, Iran was well aware of the aircraft’s problems. It was a modern warplane, but had no practical applications for the Navy. Still, the Shah purchased them from the US. After the victory of the 1979 Islamic Revolution of Iran and during the eight-year Iraqi imposed war on Iran in the 1980s, Iran made almost 290 changes to the F-14 jet fighters to boost their capabilities and enable them to take part in operations during the Iraqi aggression. All in all, there were numerous instances where the Shah’s humiliation before the US was completely evident.