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The Soviets were standing in northern Iran in 1946 and wanted to take Tehran, but decided against it, to have more resources available for Europe.
The British were largely responsible for control in the Middle East and conducted itself in the classic fashion of the empire. Some sheikhdoms were actual colonial dependencies back then. Serious cracks in the British system were due to high-level infiltration by soviet intelligence. The highest traitor may have been Lord Louis Mountbatten whose assistant Baron Ismay became the first secretary general of NATO.
In 1968 the British left the region while maintaining some espionage networks. The Americans mainly wanted to work with Iran (under the shah) and with Saudi Arabia. The shah bought many US weapons and became the most serious military power in the region.
The CIA failed at reading the situation and in 1979 the Mullahs took over with the help of the Soviets.
Zbigniew Brzezinski wanted to stage a military coup. The United States supported Saddam Hussein in the war against Iran, which killed several hundred thousand Iranians.
Larger American military forces in the region were out of the question, because the planners expected a major war in Europe. Soviet troops were stationed in Afghanistan and were theoretically ablet o move into Pakistan or Iran. But
the performance of the Russians in Afghanistan was already not good and we saw the usual logistics problems. Up to 24 Russian divisions would have been necessary to invade Iran.
The USA and USSR had hundreds of small nuclear weapons ready for a clash in the desert. There were also the Manpack Nukes that could be buried to destroy a tunnel or a pass if necessary.
Iran under Khomeini smelled the danger that the superpowers would divide up Iran and perhaps even collaborate secretly to do so.
In 1982 a Soviet KGB defector formerly stationed in Iran, Vladimir Kuzichkin, gave intel to the British MI6 who gave it to the CIA who in turn handed it over to Iran. This is how Iranians were able to eliminate communist agent networks. The CIA overall knew very little about what was going on in Iran.
Reagan started the “Iranian Covert Action Program”. The agency shared more intelligence with Iran and wanted to create sympathies for the Mujahideen in Afghanistan. At the same time, preparations were made for armed groups against the Iranian government, but the plan was hopeless. Iranian officers had often visited US schools, but bigger groups were impossible to set up.
In late 1987 it looked as if Iran would launch a naval attack on Saudi Arabia. Iran’s president Khatami and the USA were getting closer.
Then came the US attack against Iraq. The Iranians made everything much harder for Americans. Ultimately Iran offered the Americans a deal. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad restarted the nuclear program. The US and Israel responded with hacker attacks, mobile internet for dissidents and black ops.
