In a communiqué dated 9 June 1965, the Dhufar Liberation Front (DLF) announced the commencement of armed struggle against the British-backed Sultanate of Muscat and Oman, marking the beginning of thawrat dhufar, the Dhufar Revolution (1965–76). The Arabic term al-thawra  ^{1Thawra; Arabic: ثَوْرَة, meaning revolution, was the concept used by the revolutionary political movement in Dhufar to define its struggle. It was used by the editors of Sawt al-Thawra, meaning voice of the revolution.} was used by the popular revolutionary movement to describe and legitimise the armed struggle, in contrast to how the majority of the studies, historiography, and cultural production on Dhufar in the English language have framed the events of 1965–76, which as the historian Abdel Razzaq Takriti has argued, avoid “the term ‘revolution’, relying instead upon such terms as ‘insurgency’, ‘rebellion’, ‘war’, and ‘campaign’”. ^{2Abdel Razzaq Takriti, Monsoon Revolution: Republicans, Sultans, and Empires in Oman 1965-1976 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), 7-8.}

This poster made by the Iranian Students Association in the United States (a member of the transnational student organisation, the Confederation of Iranian Students – National Union [CISNU]) refers to the more than $3 billion worth of US arms sales made to Iran in 1972, when Iranian purchases rocketed from an annual $150 million per year to several billions per year. Source: University of Kansas Libraries.

Sawt al-Thawra reported weekly on a wide range of the revolution’s military, social and political developments. The military activities, losses and successes of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) against the British-led counterinsurgency comprising Iranian, Jordanian, Baloch, Omani and mercenary assistance or troops as well as Saudi support were publicised in the periodical. Documenting the revolution’s resistance in a colonial war, Sawt al-Thawra revealed how despite Britain’s ostensible military withdrawal from the Gulf following the “East of Suez” policy from 1968-71, Britain’s military involvement and presence in the region actually continued in the early 1970s through the secret war in Dhufar.

After the British were forced out of Aden in 1967, the People’s Democratic Republic of Yemen became the first, and only, Marxist state in the Middle East. In the aftermath of the British withdrawal from its strategic bases in the Gulf, Iran became the regional power to fill Britain’s historic security role in the region. Iran’s position was reinforced by the Nixon Doctrine, as the US sought to reduce its interventionist foreign policy and limit the deployment of troops abroad following the Vietnam War, thus encouraging allies in Asia to effectively fight their own wars: “let Asians fight Asians”. ^{3See Marc Pellas, “Oman: How the Shah of Iran Saved the Regime,” Orient XXI, https://orientxxi.info/magazine/oman-how-the-shah-of-iran-saved-the-regime,3681 and Marral Shamshiri-Fard, “Why Oman Loves Iran,” Foreign Policy https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/01/16/sultan-qaboos-oman-loves-iran-shah/.} The US however continued to play a role in promoting anti-communist interests in Asia without committing ground troops.

With Iran’s newfound role in the region, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the shah of Iran, intervened militarily in Dhufar by sending military assistance and several thousand ground troops to defeat the revolution. In May 1972, the shah signed a “blank cheque” deal with the Nixon administration which allowed Iran to effectively purchase any US weapons except nuclear ones. ^{4See Stephen McGlinchey, US Arms Policies Towards the Shah’s Iran (London: Routledge, 2014).} The shah consequently merited the title of ‘policeman’ of the Gulf by commentators and detractors alike, equipped with billions worth of sophisticated arms and weapons from the US – which were used in Dhufar under British command.

A photograph of Sultan Said bin Taimur, father of Qaboos, with Colonel David Smiley, 1958. Source: Wikimedia Commons. This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license.

In order to undermine the local ruling classes involved in crushing the Dhufar Revolution, Sawt al-Thawra frequently used the hyperbolic language of puppetry in reference to the sheikhs, shahs, and sultans of the region who had ascended their thrones through coups and imperialist or colonial undertakings. The puppet-master language and analogy was thus used as a strategy intended to delegitimise the Gulf’s rulers. In the context of the resource-rich and strategically important Gulf region, the analysis of Iran’s role was somewhat akin to a structural system of sub-imperialism in which the sub-imperialist power, the shah of Iran, was seen as colluding with the imperialist core, Britain and the United States, in the wider setting of global capitalism.  ^{5The theory of sub-imperialism was developed by the Brazilian economist Ruy Mauro Marini In the 1970s. On its application to Iran, see: Feroz Ahmed, ‘Iran: Subimperialism in Action,’ Pakistan Forum, vol. 3, no. 6/7, Middle East Research and Information Project (MERIP), 1973, 10–20.}

In a 1976 issue of Sawt al-Thawra, the penultimate article titled “Puppets in Muscat and Fascists in Chile are Two Faces on One Coin” criticised the establishment of diplomatic relations between the “natural allies” of Oman and Chile. Here, a transregional thread was recognised between the experiences of the two states, as both regimes had come about as a result of coups orchestrated or backed by Britain and the US: Sultan Qaboos was installed by the British in 1970 to replace his father, while the US-backed coup in Chile in 1973 removed the democratically elected socialist Salvador Allende and resulted in the military dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet.  ^{6 Sawt al-Thawra, [unnumbered], 17 March 1976.}

Articles published in Sawt al-Thawra, whether observing the revolution’s developments or condemning the counterinsurgency, were intended for an international audience to raise public awareness about the atrocities in Dhufar. Regular reports of arrests, imprisonment and detainees filled the pages of the periodical. News items travelled in various forms within a transnational counter-public as Sawt al-Thawra issues were circulated through global support networks and even reprinted outside of Dhufar. For example, Gulf Solidarity was a periodical published by the Support Committee for the Liberation Movement in the Gulf, based in California, US, which reprinted excerpts from Sawt al-Thawra in English to “encourage active support for the revolution in the Gulf”; to inform the people of the US about developments in the Gulf; and to raise money and material aid for the PFLOAG.  ^{7 The Gulf: Solidarity, vol. 1, no. 1, October 1972. Subsequent issues were titled Gulf Solidarity: Solidarity with Revolution in Oman & the Gulf.}

Sawt al-Thawra was received not only in networks that were supportive of the revolution but also by the counterinsurgent forces as an important form of political communication that was monitored by the Oman Research Department and the British government.  ^{8 For example, see: FCO 8/2031; FCO 8/2485; FCO 8/2489 (London: The National Archives). Hereafter TNA.} The Oman Research Department was the successor to the Oman Intelligence Service, an agency set up by intelligence officer Malcolm Dennison in 1958 as part of the Sultan’s Armed Forces (SAF), then under the command of Colonel David Smiley, to monitor popular revolutionary activities deemed subversive.  ^{9 Oman’s military, the Sultan’s Armed Forces (SAF), which led the counterinsurgency against the revolution was commanded by a series of British SAS officers following Smiley who had served in colonial counterinsurgency campaigns in Palestine, Cyprus, India, Kenya, Northern Ireland, Aden and Malaya.} In addition to local radio and the PFLOAG magazine 9 Yunyu (9 June), Sawt al-Thawra provided a significant source of intelligence.