Iranian History

Monday, Jul. 2, 1934 Brothers in Islam (See front cover) Toothsome young lambs were slaughtered by the hundreds in Ankara last week and their fresh meat sizzled on a thousand skewers as banquet followed boisterous banquet. Champagne-loving Turkish Dictator Mustafa Kemal Pasha, high-strung and quick as a panther, was doing his best to honor the majestic Persian Dictator who styles himself the King of Kings and whose age of some 60 years is concealed by his upright military bearing, betrayed by a certain slowness of speech and gesture. Once a Cossack trooper, His Majesty Riza Shah Pahlevi, King of Kings, showed in converse with the Turkish Dictator his customary habit of arriving swiftly at obstinate conclusions. Several times Dictator seemed vexed by Dictator, but only in political converse. When the talk shifted to soldiering both were in their element. With a strutting pageant of Turkish soldiery and Air Force maneuvers, Host Kemal so diverted Guest Pahlevi that the King of Kings prolonged his official visit. When His Majesty relaxed in mellow mood, with Dictator Kemal half seas over, opportunities to negotiate were nimbly seized by the Talleyrand of Turkey, her perpetual Foreign Minister, Dr. Tewfik Rushdi Bey, who began his career as an obstetrician. Knowing that there is no Persian with whom one can effectively negotiate except the King of Kings, ingratiating Dr. Rushdi sounded His Majesty on the great project of a Middle Eastern Alliance, a bloc to be constructed in spite of Britain and France by Moslems of Turkey, Persia, Irak, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Transjordania and Egypt. Such at least is Dr. Rushdi's dream. And last week the King of Kings had left Persia for the first time since he seized the Peacock Throne in 1925 to discuss both Moslem dreams and realities with his Turkish neighbors. That His Majesty should have been able to proceed in seemly state over the whole length of his snakelike route of 2,000 miles from Teheran to Ankara (see map) was itself a gigantic achievement of the two Dictators. Before they ousted the do-nothing hereditary royal dynasties of Turkey and Persia such a journey could only be made by meandering caravan and in utmost peril of attack by bandits. Most savage of all were the Kurdish cutthroats who for generations had defied both Persian and Turkish soldiers, raiding (first into one country, then into the other along their common frontier. Perhaps the wisest and most enlightened act of the King of Kings was to conclude two years ago with emissaries of Dictator Kemal a pact, by which Persia yielded to Turkey certain bits of her northwest frontier which made it possible for the two states so to deploy their border patrols that the Kurdish tribesmen could be nabbed at-their raiding and the scourge of banditry wiped out. Last week Turkish and Persian statesmen hailed this achievement in toast after brimming toast. They then talked behind their ever-itching palms about British oil, by all odds the juiciest thing in Persia. Anglo-Persian. Spunky young Persians under their gruff and aging King of Kings have finally broken, denounced and torn up all important concessions previously held by the Great Powers except that of Anglo-Persian Oil Co. Ltd., of which concern the British Government is majority stockholder.

"Persia must learn to do without foreigners!" is a favorite dictum of Shah Riza, himself a masterly adept at playing foreigners off against each other. Issuing banknotes used to be the profitable prerogative of the Imperial Bank of Persia, a prerogative well paid for by the bank's British backers. When they had been well squeezed, the Government founded the National Bank, with Germans in charge, and let them issue banknotes for a consideration. Belgians were next in favor and only this spring did the King of Kings give his Belgian Treasurer-General (in charge of customs) notice and bounce the leading German banker in Persia, pompous Herr Doktor Horschitz-Horst. The National Bank then became 100% Persian under a Director who. besides being His Majesty's personal favorite, has thoroughly studied banking methods abroad. His Excellency Riza Ghuli Khan Amir Chosrowi. Before this fiscal favorite returned the King of Kings was asked whether it was altogether wise to send such highly placed Persians abroad for training from which they might return less Persian. "I hope,'' growled the King of Kings, ''that the men we send abroad will realize that civilization is different for every country. The Persian has a mighty tradition behind him, the Empire of Darius! I want to make out of my countrymen the best possible Persians! Ah, there is so much to do! I am always dissatisfied. I cannot do it quickly enough!" With thundering quickness the King of Kings denounced two years ago the concession of Anglo-Persian, claiming these British oilmen must be cheating his Treasury since they no longer paid in as big royalties as before (TIME, Dec. 12, 1932). Seething with hate of "the British dogs," Persia's Press, which always exactly mirrors His Majesty's views, called for the auctioning off forthwith of "the Persian heritage of oil" to the highest foreign bidder. "Fundamentally Sound," The sequel to this patriotic Persian attempt to shake the foreigners down was a hasty visit to Teheran by Anglo-Persian's suave Board Chairman and "Petrol Diplomat." Sir John Cadman carried through the ensuing negotiations of high public policy on the private basis that "the Shah is my personal friend." The result was a new concession for AngloPersian running until 1993, but His Majesty squeezed down the area under lease to Anglo-Persian by more than half and while leaving Anglo-Persian in possession of its pipe lines deprived the British of exclusive Persian oil pipe-line rights (TIME, May 15, 1933). Observed a cynical Soviet diplomat well posted on Sir John Cadman's negotiations: "Persia is fundamentally sound. They will sell you the country six times over, but that makes no difference. They are always on the lookout to sell it again. Da, da [yes, yes], Persia is fundamentally sound!" It was this fundamental of Persian policy which made oil such a pleasing subject of converse last week at Ankara. The stronger the two nations become, the more firmly they knit bonds of Moslem unity across the Near and Middle East, the stronger will be Shah Riza's hand the next time he feels like tearing up an oil contract. Dictator Kemal for his part was anxious to talk Persian oil for the Turkish fleet. He was said in Ankara to have turned down British firms and ordered ten new Turkish cruisers built in—of all places —Japan. "The peoples of Islam are intensely admiring of the Japanese," said an Ankara official. "The Japanese have made themselves strong without rejecting their ancient faith or paltering with Christianity." Dictators to earthquake. Neither the King of Kings nor President Kemal lacks personal courage. During the

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fêtes, rejoicings, fireworks, skewered lamb and champagne at Ankara last week news came of severe earthquakes in Western Turkey, the very region through which Host Kemal was about to escort Guest Pahlevi. Neither showed the slightest desire to cancel these plans. The royal Persian junket became an earnest inspection trip through the shaken area down to Smyrna with homeless families watching the Near East's two Strong Men. As their chief relaxation the two old campaigners stopped at the Battlefield of Sakarya and General Kemal explained with gusto how he beat the Greeks in 1921. So close grew the confab of host and guest at this point that Turkish and Persian journalists reported ecstatically afterward: "They have become real friends, personal friends and brothers!" At Smyrna, to his grave delight, the King of Kings received personal command of some Turkish troops who pitched under his orders into an exciting sham battle with airplanes raining "boom bombs." On through the Dardanelles, scene of Britain's greatest mistake and Turkey's chief glory during the Great War, steamed the Oriental brothers. The big, splendiferous windup of the King of Kings' junket was at Istanbul where the great Dolma Bagtche Palace of bygone Turkish Sultans was thrown open for a great ball to honor His Majesty. Reclining on a divan the King of Kings ate Turkish delight off a onetime Sultan's silver salver and puffed cigarets made for the occasion by the Turkish Tobacco Monopoly which had stamped on each the Persian Royal Arms. Meanwhile spry Turks in the sleektailed, Frenchified dress suits affected by President Kemal one-stepped and black-bottomed in a fashion to make the King of Kings blink. Stoutly, Persian courtiers insisted to their jewel-bedecked Turkish partners, on whose toes they had a tendency to tread, that "His Majesty is of ancient lineage, the noblest in Mazanderan." King of Kings. Such flattery is unnecessary. Riza Pahlevi is self-made and Persians would be proud of the fact were they not so thoroughly Oriental. The parents of the King of Kings were honest peasants. Their village had to send half a dozen young men each year to serve Persia's dissolute Shah and strong young Riza, born on the shores of the Caspian Sea, was mustered into a Persian regiment of Cossacks. He tasted battle chiefly against bandits and won steady promotion to the rank of Sartip with 3,000 Cossacks under his command. For a fateful coup d'état it was Sartip Riza who was sought out in 1921 by Persia's wily Saiyid ZiaudDin, a wealthy newspaper publisher and astute political wangler. Sartip Riza marched with supreme bold ness on Teheran and such was the Army's disgust with do-nothing Ahmed Shah that a few hours of quiet maneuvering turned the trick as whole battalions went over to Publisher Saiyid Zia-ud-Din's revolution. Not long after the publisher found he had made the mistake of his life. The upstart Sartip had got himself appointed Minister of War and the publisher was exiled to Baghdad. Two years passed while brooding Riza Khan intrigued, cajoled and bribed among the military, forcing his deep plans and domineering power to triumph over weaker minds. While still only War Minister he reorganized the Army and made it his own by insuring regular pay for the first time in living Persian memory. To do this he had to detach a section of the Ministry of Finance and incorporate it into the Ministry of War. That feat showed who was really No. 1 man in Persia. In 1923 frightened Ahmed Shah fled to the fleshpots of Paris. Two years later Riza Pahlevi, by that time Premier, was

elected by the Majlis to be Shah and King of Kings with "full powers" which make him in fact independent of the Majlis. Always domineering, he now became the utter autocrat and one day even kicked his first-born and beloved son Crown Prince Shapur Mohammed Riza into the palace pond for a trifling offense. King into Communist? Though his most striking feats have been to make Persia safe from banditry and put the Great Powers in their place, Shah Riza, while tactically respecting Persian traditions and taboos, is now driving ahead with a program of modernization and Persian self-sufficiency which fairly makes his subjects dizzy. Not long ago he decided that the great square and the side streets in the busiest quarter of Teheran should be repaved as fast as possible and for a month shopkeepers wailed as all traffic was obstructed by the pavers and customers kept at bay. Another order set up the Government Foreign Trade Monopoly, with iron rules that for everything imported Persia must make a corresponding export, or the import cannot be made. This has so strengthened the Treasury that with nearly all Great Powers off the gold standard, the King of Kings was said last week to be considering putting Persia back on. "The two greatest evils from which a country can suffer are foreign control and Communism," His Majesty has said, only to add darkly: "If Persia had to choose between the two I should be the first to put myself at the head of a Communist army!" Always at bottom the soldier, Shah Riza spent the closing hours of his visit to Istanbul last week with Turkish generals bent over staff maps showing the new strategic motor roads and railways of Turkey and Persia. Ten years ago there was no railway striking east from Ankara toward Persia and nothing but a caravan trail running west from Teheran toward Turkey. There is no through railway yet but the motor road over which His Majesty zipped from Teheran through Tabriz and Erzerum to the Turkish coast at Trebizond is now in prime shape to become an artery of heavy trucking and carry Persian carpets on a direct route to Europe. For trade with Russia and possible defense Persia is in course of being spanned by the line from Bandar Shapur via the Anglo-Persian oil country and Teheran to Bandar Shah. The line will make it possible for the first time to cross Persia by rail. With other railways sprouting throughout the Near East, across Syria and Irak, the statesmen in Dolma Bagtche Palace last week saw spread on their unromantic staff maps the physical symbols of a future United Islam. After taking the final Turkish salute Persia's King of Kings set the wires humming with his reputed farewell words to Ankara's Dictator Kemal: ''I rejoice at the prospect of your visit to Teheran! We are soldiers, not diplomats." Monday, Apr. 25, 1938 20th-Century Darius (See front cover] No country is more anxious to demonstrate its freedom than Iran, no ruler anywhere is more conscious of his dignity, more jealous of his sovereignty, than His Imperial Majesty Reza Shah Pahlavi, Shah-in-Shah ("King of Kings") of Iran. This week Iran's 60-year-old, 6-ft., grey-mustached King of Kings celebrates a coronation anniversary.

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Twelve years ago on April 5, the former Persian Cossack officer, born of middle-class landowners on the shores of the Caspian Sea, placed a specially-made crown of diamonds, emeralds and rubies on his own head. This week the monarch whom the elaborate-tongued Iranians often call "Most Lofty of Living Men," "Agent of Heaven in this World," "Brother of the Moon and Stars," will drive down Teheran's broad avenues, reflection of the glory of his reign, to famed Gulistan Palace. There the King of Kings will be pleased to stand in front of the $50,000,000, 17th-Century Peacock Throne and watch file past him diplomats, ministers, army officers, notables, all clasping their hands on wrists to show they carry no weapons, all bowing heads in profound deference to the August Presence. Unhappy the lot of a mere commoner who should by chance say "Your Majesty" instead of "Your Imperial Majesty," or by a slip of the tongue call Iran "Persia." Emancipator of his country from British domination, Shah Reza has commanded world attention during the last twelve years by deeds which, in other times, would have spurred British naval and military forces to action. Fresh proof that once-helpless Persia, now aggressive, heavily-soldiered Iran, could stand manfully up to her former master came early this month. A giant, trimotored Junkers low-wing monoplane, with swastikas gleaming on tail, roared down to Teheran airport, inaugurating Lufthansa's new commercial airline between isolated, mountainous Iran and the Near East and Europe. The bustling American and European salesmen who made the inaugural trip were delighted that they had been spared the hitherto unavoidable, tedious, 48-hour journey from Bagdad, Iraq to Teheran over Iraq's slow railroads and Iran's slower, often impassable dirt mountain roads. Better still, they had missed having to put up for a night in one of Iran's insect-ridden rest houses. What the plane's arrival meant to Middle Eastern diplomats, however, was that the Germancontrolled Lufthansa had just won a significant battle with British Imperial Airways over flying concessions. "Shadow of God." Formerly divided into spheres of influence by Imperial Russia and Imperial Britain, Iran shook off Russian influence when Cossack officers retired from the country at the end of the World War, but waited five years for the British-officered South Persia Rifles to disband. With a newly-created army of 40,000 men, commanded in person by the then Reza Khan, supplied with secondhand rifles, machine guns, tanks, Iran first dealt with her own warring, rebellious Kurds, Kashgais and Bakhtiaris, then began shaking a determined fist at Great Britain. First real shock to reach Downing Street from Teheran was arbitrary cancellation of the Anglo-Persian Oil Co. concession scheduled to run until 1961. Surprised British statesmen, suddenly realizing that protection of this oil lease would involve great military effort and huge expenditures, ended by negotiating. AngloPersian's basic holdings were enormously decreased and the Shah obtained increased royalties which were promptly earmarked for the army. This highly successful instrument of national freedom, now 100,000 strong, still receives its daily orders from His Imperial Majesty. Another move was an Iranian hint that His Britannic Majesty's naval forces in the Persian Gulf were no longer welcome to make their base in Iranian waters. Result: The British Naval Base was moved across the

Gulf to the oil-laden Bahrein Islands, territory of more tractable, independent H. H. Sheik Sir Hamad bin 'Isa al Khalifa, leaving His Britannic Majesty's diplomatic agent for the Persian Gulf uncomfortably high & dry in.' Bushire's British Residency (see map, p. IQ). Meanwhile protection-loving Imperial Airways revised its flying route to India, establishing its regular Persian Gulf stop for seaplanes at Bahrein instead of Iranian territory. Since Iran was bent on proving her independence, lean pickings were in store for British advisers, British business. Ships were ordered from Italy and Italian officers were engaged to teach Iranian landlubbers theories of navigation. Barter trade was established with Soviet Russia and German goods began to pour into Iran under a clearing agreement arranged by the wily Dr. Hjalmar Schacht. Among the first arrivals were 100 German warplanes for the Iranian air force. Danes. Czechs. Swedes, Italians, all chipped in to build new beetsugar factories, power plants, cotton mills. Road builders arrived from Europe and America and construction companies were not long in learning that Teheran, "City of the Shadow of God." was to undergo a facial operation. The King of Kings guaranteed prompt payment in foreign cash. Iran the New. By this spring thickly-populated bazaar districts were condemned and destroyed, new, broad, straight avenues plotted through once narrow, crooked streets. Magnificent, many-roomed, multistoried government buildings stood where once sagged ancient one-story huts. A handsome post-office building covering a city block has arisen and a Ministry of War Building, with sufficient space to house the general staffs of Germany, France and Great Britain at the same time, is being utilized by the ever-expanding but still relatively small Iranian staff. The Imperial Bank of Iran, set back from the street, needed an entire square. Slowly rising to completion is an Imperial Opera House to cater to the hitherto undiscovered musical tastes of Iran's citizens. The shortcomings of the Shah's dozen years in office, the ludicrous anomalies, misappropriations and mass suffering bring laughter and tears only to the eyes of Westerners. By Oriental standards, his own, the Shah is the man of his generation in the Middle East. Iranian public building has all been under direct orders of the Shah. He approved plans, altered details. Little did it seem to matter to the King of Kings that an architect omitted plumbing detail when building a hotel, that Teheran's water supply still came through the streets in half-open, easily contaminated cement drains, that Teheran's old electric power plant had a limited capacity. When His Imperial Majesty drove at night through a street not sufficiently lighted for his tastes, he ordered more powerful bulbs installed. Upshot of this was that the rest of Teheran was plunged into semidarkness. Most Lofty. Almost illiterate when he came to the throne, speaking only Persian with a smattering of Russian, Reza Shah Pahlavi had a strong historical sense, pictured himself as a 20th-century Darius even when he was still only a cavalry colonel. When he became Minister of War in a Shah-less government (the former do-nothing Shah had moved to Paris), he acted more like the great Persian monarch. He imposed his will on hitherto independent fierce tribes, hanging

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dozens of warring sheiks, making other suspected local chieftains his permanent "guests." On a group of disobedient mullahs (Moslem priests) he applied the whip in person. Strongwilled, previously healthy followers of the absent Sultan Ahmad Shah, whom Reza Khan later had deposed, developed mysterious maladies from which they never recovered. One chief of polio committed suicide, and a foreign minister underwent a fatal operation for a vague ailment. Summed up the Most Lofty of Living Men several years ago: "I am a soldier— a simple soldier—and love my job." Westernization. The King of Kings combines his knowledge of time-honored Iranian political methods with a passion for reform and an incorrigible interest in blue prints. Despiser of meddling, dictating European governments, he nevertheless admires Western habits and dress, Western technical achievements. Just as Kamal Atatürk had ordained in Turkey a few years before, Reza Shah Pahlavi ordered jail sentences for turban-wearers, forbade veils for Iranian women. Robed, turbaned mullahs were obliged to carry licenses. The Iranian habit of contracting temporary marriages, sanctioned by the Shiah sect of Mohammedanism, was so curtailed by the Shah that polygamy became difficult. The number of wives decreased, the number of prostitutes increased among Iran's heavy female population. Instead of religious schools government-controlled secular education was expanded. Boy Scout movements were encouraged, the army was taught to read and write. Mohammedan law was largely nullified. The vexing problem of land titles was solved, one major result being that suddenly vast, rich areas became known as "crown property"—i.e., were simply taken by the Shah. Once healthy, abstemious Shah Reza considered outlawing opium smoking, but factors other than reform weighed heavily. Important was the fact that an estimated half of the adult population smokes opium, that it is used as solace for the famine victim, to quiet crying babies and pleading children, to deaden the pain of a diseaseridden population largely unserved by doctors or hospitals, as well as for sheer pleasure. More important was that the opium trade, transported by camel caravan into Russia, then carried over the Transiberian Railroad to China by the obliging Soviets, accounted for more than half of Iran's exports (excluding oil revenues, used exclusively for the army), bringing the King of Kings needed foreign money. Receipts and Expenditures-Money was needed to make Teheran a city worthy of the residence of the "Most Lofty of Living Men." His Imperial Majesty must have expensive macadam roads for his occasional visits to the summer palace on the Caspian Sea—a palace convertible into a summer hotel for commoners when the royal master is not in residence. More expensive than all other modern improvements put together, however, scheduled to cost $160,000,000, nearly three times the annual revenue of Iran, is an 865-mile railroad line. No foreign country is to own any part of this line, no foreign loans are to be accepted. Conceived as a strategic railway, to enable the Iranians to repulse possible British invasion from the Persian Gulf, Russian invasion from the Turkomen Soviet Socialist Republic, the railroad line carefully avoids all Iran's big cities except Teheran, skirts round the Empire's more fertile districts, spans wide rivers, crosses mountain passes as high as 7,200 feet, bores into numerous tunnels, connects with no foreign lines. Foreign engineers, not interested in strategy, chuckled that the railway goes from "nowhere to

nowhere." This spring Scandinavian engineers were doubling shifts to finish before autumn a 200-mile gap so that His Imperial Majesty can soon ride by rail from his estates on the Caspian to his lands on the Persian Gulf. The first few hundred miles of the King of Kings' expensive railroad toy was paid for by a heavy tax on tea, favorite Iranian beverage. When this tax failed to produce sufficient money, large portions of Iran's silver reserve were sold. The Iranian rial lost more than half its value (worth about 6½¢ today), necessitating creation of Government monopolies for imports and exports, prohibition of entry or departure of Iran's paper or silver money. Food prices doubled, taxes trebled. To meet clearing agreement promises, large stores of grain, rice, dried fruits, some needed for home consumption, were exported. In one area His Imperial Majesty decreed that cotton should be grown instead of wheat. Drought ensued, the cotton crop failed, and to make matters worse the world's cotton market just then fell. To the Iranian masses this meant extreme privation, to foreign visitors scenes in Iran's villages were shocking. Forgotten Men. This spring Anglo-Iranian Oil Co. operators began to report they were unable to buy vegetables for their staffs. Other meats not available, chicken reached price levels reminiscent of early oilrush days. Eggs were soon unobtainable. No AngloIranian Oil Co. employe suffers unduly from this lack of foodstuffs, for the rich concern, having profited from cash sales of oil to warring Italy three years ago, can import vast quantities of canned foods. But all through southwestern Iran what had been for years a chronic famine has now deepened into acute starvation. Emaciated Iranian citizens can be seen sitting around in streets and doorways, their bones almost sticking through their skins, their eyes seeming to pop out of their heads, lacking the energy even to brush away the swarms of flies covering their bodies. Scores of beggars greet incoming travelers. Still greatly flourishing is the opium poppy, which withstands drought, is immune from locust attacks. Despite the bustling, superficial prosperity of Teheran, all was not well last week in the Empire of the Shah-in-Shah. That little opportunity exists for outward manifestations of unrest was evident from the fact that His Imperial Majesty keeps a tight rein on the army, maintains a force of 20,000 of his best-clothed, bestfed, best-paid soldiers in Teheran, This week the stern dictator's men were making the rounds of households along the route of the contemplated state drive of His Imperial Majesty, warning citizens to display flags, hang out banners. When an American automobile agent in Teheran recently suggested to the King of Kings that he might be interested in a bullet-proof car such as was formerly supplied to Al Capone & Company, the sensitive monarch resented the none-too-subtle comparison. A multilingual secretary replied briefly and pointedly: "His Imperial Majesty, beloved of his people, certain of his subjects' affection, has no conceivable need for such a conveyance." Monday, Sep. 8, 1941 Persian Paradox IRAN (See Cover)

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Over a suburb of Teheran, Iran's capital, suddenly appeared four Soviet bombers one day last week and dropped six bombs which exploded a half-mile from the home of U.S. Legation Secretary James S. Moose Jr. Within 30 minutes the Cabinet of new Premier Ali Furanghi ordered Iranian troops to cease resistance to the Anglo-Russian advances. The order took a while to filter through. Next day hard-of-hearing Russians bombed Kazvin, set afire thousands of gallons of gasoline Russia could have used. But 1,500 miles to the east on a mountaintop at Simla, General Sir Archibald Wavell, commanding the Indian Army and the British share of the Iranian operation, could collapse his figurative telescope, order himself a great big literal drink. Because: 1) The Allies now had a Burma Road to Russia. 2) Russia was given her first concrete evidence that Britain was an actual ally. Diminished was the possibility that Russia might make a separate peace with Hitler out of distrust of the democracies. 3) One more hole in the dike around the Axis was plugged. 4) Empire troops could cooperate in the defense of the Caucasus oil field if the Germans pass the Dnieper. 5) Four thousand German "specialists" were hustled away from contact with the inflammable tribes of India's Northwest Frontier.* 6) Britain's oil supplies in the East were safeguarded. Beside the Götterdämmerung thunders of the Russo-German War, the 80-hour campaign to achieve all these desirable things sounded like the popping of a little corn. Down either side the Caspian came the Cossacks— horsed, mechanized and propellered. Their western column rapidly took Tabriz; their eastern the port of Bandar Shah (see map). To the south the British crossed from Iraq and made sure of the richest single oil field in existence; their warships in the Persian Gulf squashed Iran's minuscule Navy, sinking two sloops, capturing seven Axis ships. Indian troops landed at Bandar Shahpur and, after a brief brush, made sure of the world's largest oil-cracking plant, at Abadan. Not needed were more Indian troops poised on the border of Baluchistan, where shaving the head and varnishing the skull is the poor man's pith helmet. Fighting on the same side again, Britain and Russia were delighted to have Iran, and with so little trouble. But there was one party to the taking who could not have shared their delight, and that was Iran's 65-year-old Shah in Shah ("King of Kings"). Last week the Shah held aloof from any official notice that his country was occupied. All that officially happened was that Premier Ali Mansur, to whom the Anglo-Russian ultimatum demanding the Nazis' expulsion had been handed, turned down the ultimatum and ordered resistance. Twenty-four hours later Ali Furanghi was in and the war was off. This week he was arranging peace terms. Ali Furanghi is a prominent Iranian. Prime Minister once before, thrice Foreign Minister, onetime Ambassador to Turkey and onetime President of the Council of the League of Nations, he is a historian and

economist of considerable local note. But he does not give the orders in Iran. The Shah does. Minus Times Minus Equals Plus. If ever a man had reason to be bewitched, bothered and bewildered by recent history's queer swerves, it was His Majesty Reza Shah Pahlavi. For 20 long years he had played with London, played with Moscow and never lost a trick. Actually he never played both ends against the middle, for he never needed to. During most of the 20 years, London and Moscow felt towards each other much as Georgia's Governor Eugene Talmadge feels towards Negro Ph.D.s and vice versa. But now, somehow, crazily, incredibly, these two irreconcilables stood shoulder-to-shoulder on the soil of his beloved Iran, using it for a meeting ground of mutual assistance. Within his lifetime the Shah has seen some strange quirks in Russo-BritishIranian relations, but never one like this. Flashback. Scion of an Army-officer family, the Shah was born in 1876 in the Firuzkuh district east of Teheran. Iran was Persia then; and in the '80s Russia, which had steadily picked off Persia's northern provinces, conspicuously strengthened her position at Teheran by organizing under Tsarist officers the Persian Cossack Brigade, most effective military force in the country. This rough & tough outfit Reza, a youngster of 24, joined as a trooper in 1900. While the Russians staked out their bailiwick in the north, the British did beautifully for themselves in the south. Oil had been smelled, and in 1901 for $20,000 bleak-brained Shah Muzaffar-ed-Din gave an English financial adventurer named William Knox D'Arcy a 60-year monopoly to explore and exploit all Persia for petroleum except the five northern provinces in the Russian stakeout. Britain worried about possible Russian encroachments on India, and there was much talk about the Bear that Walks Like a Man. To lubricate diplomatic friction, in 1907 an agreement was solemnly signed which defined each country's sphere of influence in Persia. Britain was to influence in the southeast; Russia in the north. As for the poor Persians, their attitude was aptly summed up in a Punch cartoon of the period. It showed a Persian cat apprehensively sitting between a lion and a bear. "I will pat its head," says the bear, "and you shall stroke its tail." Pleads the cat: "But I have not been consulted!" Ten years later the Tsar fell, and this ended the agreement. Britain's Foreign Secretary, the suavely arrogant Lord Curzon of Kecleston, then had a lovely dream. He dreamed of extending British control from the Persian Gulf to the Caspian Sea, thereby adding a magnificent frontier province to British India. The Mesopotamian campaign had slopped over into always neutral Persia, but in 1918 the British drove the Turks out and garrisoned Persia's strong places. The next year Shah Ahmad, even bleaker-brained than Shah Muzaffar, had no alternative but to submit to an agreement by which his country came under Britain's political and military control. In 1920, however, Lord Curzon's lovely dream was rudely shattered. The Bolsheviks overran large chunks of northern Persia. Along the shores of the Caspian the British, assisted by the Persian Cossack Brigade, vainly tried to stop them. Those of the old Tsarist officers who were not killed, fled; the brigade started to fall apart.

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The story is told that a British colonel at Kazvin, whither the anti-Bolshevik forces had retreated, spotted among the Cossack Brigade's remaining officers a striking six-foot Persian with hard grey eyes. His name was Reza Khan. The colonel knew him for a brave man and, in a last desperate attempt to keep the brigade together, he put him in command. Had he not done so, the future King of Kings might have died an unknown old horse bully. Persia into Iran. But luck intervened. The U.S.S.R. decided against sovietizing northern Persia, fearing that Britain would grab the rest of the country. The British decided against grabbing the rest of the country, fearing that the U.S.S.R. would sovietize the north. For the time being, it was a standoff. Taking advantage of the lull, on Feb. 21, 1921, Colonel Reza Khan rode into Teheran at the head of 2,000 Persian Cossacks and took over. Shah of Persia then was the squat, pillowy royal jerk, Ahmad (height 5 ft., 2 in.; weight 275 lb.), a member of the Kajar Dynasty which had leeched on the Persian people since the late 18th Century. Ahmad's most solemn edicts, when there were any, were not obeyed outside of Teheran. He was known as the Grocery Boy Shah because he once cornered his country's entire grain crop during a famine and sold it to his starving subjects at colossal prices. The night boxes and gambling joints of France were Ahmad's sole passion. When he left Persia he took an alleged $200,000,000 worth of jewels with him; gave an Oriental carnival for the whole town of Nice which lasted a week, and every night banqueted a thousand guests. On every damsel who tickled his fancy he bestowed a handful of precious stones. In 1930, aged 32, Ahmad died of cirrhosis. Gossip said that he had a liver like an old Spanish saddle. Provision for eight wives was made in his will (executed by Manhattan's Guaranty Trust Co.), but two more turned up whom he had apparently mislaid. Of such kidney was the ruler of Persia when Colonel Reza Khan took over. The treasury was empty, the Army little more than an armed rabble. Brigandage and tribal disaffection were rampant. The country's roads were hardly better than camel tracks, and so dreadful was transportation that fields of surplus wheat and barley might rot in one section while 600 miles away a bread famine would rage. The citizenry was saturated with corruption, ignorance and disease. Through this horrible mess Reza Khan swept like God's wrath: first as War Minister, then as Premier, finally (1925) as Shah in Shah. He reorganized the Army on western lines, put down brigandage, overthrew rebel chieftains, stripped the mullahs of their judicial and political powers, drew up a code of civil law, hobbled child marriage by raising to 15 the age at which a girl might marry, removed the veils from the womenfolk and bettered their status in life, ran the royal Grocery Boy out of the land, fostered education, set up schools and colleges, tore down slums, erected beautiful buildings, updated agriculture, improved medical service and public health, founded Boy and Girl Scout movements, reconstructed roads and fomented trade and industry with all his being. His greatest accomplishment (next to getting Persia up on its feet) was the 870-mile railroad, which took eleven years to build, cost $160,000,000 and runs from the Persian Gulf to the Caspian.†

A fanatic nationalist, in 1935 he changed Persia's name to Iran, which had been its name as a nation even before the great days of Cyrus and Darius and Xerxes. Persia ("Pars") was merely one of Iran's provinces. In the same spirit, he chose to add Pahlavi to his name. It means "the Parthian." In classic times, the Parthians were famed mounted bowmen. Critics and Defenders. A man so furiously vigorous and drastic as the Shah in Shah is bound to have detractors. They contend he is nothing more than another Oriental despot who has caused shoals of his enemies to be murdered, tortured, kidnapped, imprisoned. They claim he slaps Cabinet Ministers in the face, beats up priests, kicks irksome subjects in the crotch. (It is said that for tiresome gabbling he once booted even Crown Prince Mohammed Reza into a palace fountain.) Iran is ruled entirely by fear, they insist; bribery is still prevalent, taxation overpowering; Iran's 136-man National Assembly, the Majlis, and all Cabinets are solidly enstooged. By this time, they add, the One-Man New Deal has turned into a One-Man Corporative State, owning everything worth owning and, furthermore, smoking opium. On the other hand there are astute Occidentals who have watched the Shah work over a period of years and admire him greatly. First of all they argue that it is unfair to apply Western standards to Iran, and then they point to some of the flowers of civilization which have blossomed in the West since 1933. They recall that, unlike Kamâl Atatürk, he had no elite of Europeaneducated intellectuals to help him.‡ "Reza Khan made Iran out of nothing," they say and, knowing Persia and Persians, they insist that force was the only way. As for opium, 60% of the population smokes it. Descended from generations of opium smokers, it is said they are largely immune to its effects. Kismet, etc. One of the first acts of the new Government after the 1921 ride-in to Teheran was to tear up the treaty the bleak-brained Ahmad had signed with the U.S.S.R. The Bolsheviks condemned the aggressive policy of the Tsar, promised never to interfere in Persia's internal affairs, but reserved the right to occupy it temporarily in the event another power used Persia for an attack on Soviet Russia. As the Shah grew in power, his mistrust of British Imperialism grew with it and he began to spit in the Lion's eye. In 1931 he forbade Imperial Airways to fly over Iranian territory. Spit most staggering to the Lion was his sudden cancellation in 1932 of the old William Knox D'Arcy contract which had now burgeoned into the monster British Government-subsidized AngloPersian (later Anglo-Iranian) Oil Co. Iran was getting 16% of the net profits. The Shah wanted 21%. The British took the squabble before the League of Nations. The Shah got what he wanted; the British 30 more years on their concession. Things were great. He began hiring German technicians to work his railroads, install his industrial plants and operate them. He detested Communism, but kept up friendly relations with Russia. Then came August 1939 and the Russo-German Pact. Things were greater. The war started. His British oil royalties waxed. Russia and Germany bought more goods and products. Nothing could harm Iran now. More & more Germans entered the country. But eleven weeks ago Adolf Hitler turned on Joseph Stalin. Last week the two ends the Shah thought would never meet closed in on him.

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* With an Axis army on the Thracian border, Turkey last week worried lest the Nazis demand she eject all British and Russian "specialists" within her borders, then, if she

perfectly the political vacuum his once-great country had become.

did not, invade her and try to seize the Dardanelles.

† It has standard gauge track. Russia's has broad gauge.

‡ The Shah called in U.S. Economist ArthurChester Millspaugh to unsnarl the country's appalling financial tangle. For a time Iranian petitions began: "Oh, Allah! Oh, Shah! Oh, Dr. Millspaugh!".

Monday, Dec. 17, 1945 "The Rhythm Recurs" (See Cover) Whenever the Lion is in trouble the Bear takes a poke at Iran. Thirty-five years ago, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Sazonov made a formula of it: "The English, engaged in the pursuit of political aims of vital importance in Europe, may, in case of necessity, be prepared to sacrifice certain interests in Asia. . . . This is circumstance which we can, of course, exploit for ourselves, as, for instance, in Persian affair The formula was in full application last week. Britain no longer aggressively expanding her empire could scarcely count on firm U.S. support so remote a corner of the world as Irans northwest corner, Azerbaijan. Because the Russians knew this well the men of the Red Army who occupy northern Iran were appointed by Moscow as paladins of self-determination. Benevolently, they looked the other way while the new Communist-inspired "Democratic Party" led a revolt. The crooked streets of Tabriz, Iran's second city, were clouded with dust and excitement as the National Assembly prepared to proclaim the province an autonomous state, with only the most nominal allegiance to Iran's capital Teheran. A new National Assembly for Azerbaijan was ready to meet and Jafar Pishevari, whose enemies said he came from Russian Baku, was ready to tell the Assembly what to do. The revolt had made rapid progress since it welled up less than two months ago. Most of Azerbaijan (see map) was already in rebel hands. Rebel columns sped along the swampy Caspian littoral to seize the town of Bandar Shah; they headed east toward Iran's sacred city of Meshed. The Iranian Government complained that the Red Army had blocked its military units sent to put down the revolt. Aloofly, Moscow announced that the Red Army was merely maintaining order while Azerbaijanis demonstrated, as they had a right to do. Iranian protests to London and Washington evoked diplomatic notes to Moscow as strongly worded as Teheran could wish. But words had no great weight last week in the wooded hills and fertile valleys of Azerbaijan. The Teheran Government temporized by appointing a commission made up largely of former premiers to investigate the situation in the northwest. It was a weak expedient, but Teheran had probably heard that Washington's unoffi cial attitude was "What more can we do?" Iran stood on its dignity as a full-fledged member of UNO. But its intrinsic weakness was that of many small states, sovereign in name only, which became pawns of the great powers. It happened that Iran had a ruler whose amiable, feckless personality symbolized

The Old Man. All his life (26 years) sallow, dewy-eyed Mohamed Reza Pahlevi, Shah of Iran, had been anxious to please, an attitude largely conditioned by his autocratic father, the late, tough Reza Shah Pahlevi. Like his ten brothers and sisters, Mohamed Reza grew up in awe and admiration of the domineering old martinet who rose from the soil to root a dynasty in nothing more substantial than the high, dry air of Teheran's political intrigue. Old Reza Shah came from a family of small landholders in Mazanderan Province, rose to be colonel in the Iranian Army. When the decrepit regime of Ahmed Shah tottered after World War I, Reza Khan became successively Commander in Chief of the Iranian Army. Minister of War, Premier, finally Shah of Shahs—all in less than five years. Young Mohamed Reza was brought up in a palace atmosphere of despotic splendor. From Iran's jewelstudded Peacock Throne his father grimly ordered his enemies murdered or jailed, ruled his "court with a caprice that ranged from slapping ministers in the face to kicking subjects in the crotch. (Once, rumor had it, the young Prince himself felt the royal boot and landed in a palace fountain.) In 15 years the old Shah's splenetic energy also bulldozed medieval Iran into building an 860-mile railroad to span the country from north to south, erecting schools and factories, changing the country's name from provincial Persia to national Iran, abandoning the veil for women, accepting movies and traffic lights. This blend of barbarism and benevolence had its inevitable effect on the Crown Prince. He grew into a meek, friendly youth, given to expressing any inward effervescence by racing along the streets of Teheran in fast cars. The better to equip him for his royal duties, the Shah gave the boy five years of European schooling. The Shah had learned to read & write Persian only after becoming Minister of War; the Crown Prince became proficient in French, English and European manners in one of the most expensive private schools in Switzerland. But Mohamed Reza was not allowed to finish. The Shah, suddenly bitten with suspicion that his son was wasting his time, ordered him home for a more rigorous personal preparation in the duties of kingship. The Kingdom. In 1941, when Germany's attack made aid to Russia through Iran an essential of Allied victory, the Allies took a long, hard look at old Reza Shah Pahlevi. They suspected some of his hangers-on of intrigue with Germany and, in any case, Reza Shah was too strong a character to be left athwart the Lend-Lease supply line to the U.S.S.R. So he was deposed, last year in far away Johannesburg died, full of bitter memories. Mohamed Reza, the wavy-haired young playboy, ascended the jeweled Peacock Throne of Iran. Since the days of Darius and Cyrus, the kingdom had descended far. It was still large (a fifth as big as the U.S.) and its mountains and desert contrasts were still dramatically scenic. But of Mohamed Reza's 15 million subjects a few thousand lived in lavish luxury, and almost all the rest in ragged poverty. At least eleven million of them had venereal disease. Most of the adults were opium addicts. Four out of every five

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children born died in infancy. Three out of every four who survived never learned to read or write. And Fawzia, Too. The old Shah saw to it that Mohamed Reza on his return to Teheran had a plentiful supply of mistresses. When the time came for the Crown Prince to marry, nothing was too good for him. His bride was Fawzia, 17-year-old sister of Egypt's King Farouk, as beautiful a princess as a prince could wish. They had only one child, a daughter called Shahnaz ("the pet of the Shah"), born in October 1940. Thereafter, it became apparent that the Shah's tastes were quantitative rather than qualitative Fawzia, whose family with a century of rule be hind it looked upon the Iranian dynasty as an upstart, was enraged when her husband publicly brought other women into the Gulistan Palace. She consulted an American psychiatrist in Bagdad, and then came back to Teheran with a stern message for her husband. Things were better for a little while, but the young Shah soon relapsed. Last May Fawzia went home to Egypt on the pretext of ill health; last week she was still there. Court circles gossiped that an Egyptian divorce had been secretly granted. But the Iranian marriage was yet to be dissolved. King in Crisis. Preoccupied by these personal problems and pleasures, the Shah, Mohamed Reza, was scarcely the man to steer his country through a crisis. His Majlis (Parliament) of feudal landlords was not much help. Many of the abler members were instruments either of Britain or Russia, both of which continued to encourage the corruption of Iranian life. Both, too, disrupted Iran's economic life throughout the war. The British (with the Americans) monopolized the country's inadequate transportation system for Lend-Lease shipments to Russia; the Russians prevented shipment of grain from food-rich Azerbaijan to Teheran and other deficient areas. In the capital there were food riots that lasted three days. Inflation soared. By last year the cost of living had risen tenfold, preparing the way for Communist agitation. As for the Iranian Army, a story gives its quality. Not many years ago a battalion refused to obey orders. The commander disbanded it, sent the men to their homes. They came to the Shah to request an escort with the plea, "there are bandits on the roads and we are only a hundred men." So the Shah, Mohamed Reza had to do his diplomatic best. In occasional interviews he spoke hopefully to British and U.S. correspondents of democracy and postwar progress. When cabinets fell (a not infrequent occurrence), he labored dutifully to find a premier who would satisfy the conflicting requirements of the outspoken, hardheaded Russian ambassador, Mikhail A. Maximov, and the reticent, equally hardheaded British ambassador, Sir Reader William Bullard. At palace parties the balance was preserved with similar delicacy. U.S. Ambassador Wallace Murray would be invited to hear an American soprano, the Soviet ambassador, a Russian pianist, the British ambassador, a British actress. The Politics of Oil. But the niceties of palace protocol were surface symptoms. Beneath them stirred the tides of history. As a well-read Iranian, the Shah doubtless recalled the words of the Arabian Poet Abul Ala al Ma'arri: "History is a poem in which the words change, but the rhythm recurs." For Iran the rhythm of history was almost metronomic. Russia, in search of markets and warm water, has been in & out of Iran since the early 17th Century. The

British were there before them. In Iran the thin, red line of British west-to-east imperialism crosses the north-to-south axis of Russian expansionism. In Peter the Great's famed "testament" (even if he did not write it, historians call it an accurate expression of Russian policy), he exhorted his countrymen to "excite continual wars in Turkey and Persia." Iran had become a plaything of the powers through an accident of geography: now it bounced the faster between them through an accident of geology. Iran had oil. Iran's oil was part of the greatest known oil reservoir on earth. Only in the south had part of its riches yet been tapped, by the British, but the results were impressive enough. From the oil area around MasjidiSuleiman and the great refinery of Abadan at the head of the Persian Gulf, the Anglo-Iranian Oil Co. drew 350,000 barrels a day, with indicated reserves of six to seven billion barrels. Few oilmen doubted that the untapped fields north of Iran, especially round Lake Urmia and Samnan, held oil as well. The Shah's powerful friends were thirsty for his oil. Eager applicants for concessions had been sitting around in Teheran for months. Least pressing perhaps was the U.S.: Washington's concern with declining reserves had not yet reached the stage where it called for the use of aggressive oil diplomacy in Iran. The British thirst was sharper. Dependent entirely on oil from abroad, Britain could not afford to pass up any opportunity. She had played the politics of oil longer, more successfully than anyone else. Now she was ready to play again. Biggest thirst of all was Russia's. Until World War II her production (some 240 million barrels a year) and her reserves (some six billion barrels) had been enough to cover her prodigious economy. (Twenty years ago she had not even bothered to exploit a Russian-controlled oil concession in northern Iran.) The war had taught her a burning lesson: when she came closest to losing her oil, she came closest to losing the war. Now the Red Army was grabbing oil in Poland, Rumania, Hungary, Austria—wherever and whenever it could. At home, Russia was stepping up her own production. Abroad, she was searching for it with a determined eye. And abroad meant, currently, Iran. The U.S.S.R. took full advantage of the peoples in its southern states whose cousins live across the border in Iran. Azerbaijan's knife-wearing Kurds and ebullient Armenians spill over into adjoining countries (see map). Its 700,000 Kurds have kin in Turkey and Britishcontrolled Iraq. Its 65,000 Armenians identify themselves with Armenians in Turkey and in the Armenian Soviet Socialist Republic. Precept and propaganda had already aroused a strong separatist urge among Iran's Armenians. At any moment blood might call to blood across the boundaries. In skilled Soviet hands, this interplay of nationalisms would be a potent instrument of policy. Recently, in Azerbaijan, a pro-Russian Democratic Kurdish Party significantly burgeoned into being. Possibly Russia contemplated annexing Iranian Azerbaijan to the Azerbaijan Soviet Socialist Republic across the border. Possibly, too, she planned a sphere-of-influence solution like the Anglo-Russian Convention of 1907, which solved nothing. More likely was the less ambitious aim of a Communist-controlled, autonomous Az

8

erbaijan with a pro-Soviet Government in Teheran. These would be enough to secure her exposed southern flank.

firmly convinced that the U.S. was undecided whether to continue to recognize him as Iran's Premier.

In Iran, last week were three foreign armies — Russians in the north, British and Americans in the south. All were there by agreement; all by agreement should leave not later than next March 2. The U.S. contingent of nearly 4,000 men, smallest of the three, was preparing to depart by the end of the year. The other two would stay until due date, presumably to buttress their Government's diplomacy.

Happy to Oblige. Apparently this fitted together with other doubts and misgivings that were gathering in Mossadegh's mind. Shaken, the old man went to the phone and ordered his army and police to drive the rioting Reds off the street. That call, turning the army loose on the most powerful street support he had, was Mossadegh's fatal mistake. The troops were only too happy to oblige; they clubbed the rioters unmercifully and punctuated their thudding gun butts with shouts of "Long live the Shah" and "Death to traitors." Growing bolder, they forced the Reds at bayonet point to cheer the Shah, too. The next morning, the bruised and bitter Tudeh Central Committee proclaimed: "No more aid to Mossadegh, who is a compromising traitor," and the Reds retreated into hiding. He had disappointed them: Mossadegh in their eyes was to have been the Kerensky who preceded them to power. Now, suddenly, their fortunes had changed.

If the U.S. did not back Britain against Russia, the Shah, Mohamed Reza Pahlevi, with the fatalism of his race, might well ponder the philosophy of inevitability. Without much help from the Shah, Iran's fate would probably be decided at Mos cow's Big Three meeting. Nor was it likely that sweet reason would play much part in the settlements. The gentle Omar had said it well enough : Myself when young did eagerly frequent Doctor and Saint, and heard great argument About it and about: but evermore Came out by the same door as in I went. Monday, Aug. 31, 1953 The People Take Over The violent, hot land of Iran last week headed uncontrollably over the crumbling edge of the abyss, and then, during three wild days, pulled itself back to safety. When the week began, Mohammed Mossadegh seemed safely on top. The Shah was in flight; the fanatic mullahs' and the stubborn Majlis' opposition was hidden or cowed; the army was a sullen eunuch; the world resigned. Who was there to say him no? His street supporters celebrated with a carnival of destruction. Communist and Nationalist mobs swarmed deliriously over Teheran's principal squares, pulling down the great bronze statues of the Shah and his father. They opened and denied the Reza Shah's tomb, spat on the Shah's picture, applauded as Foreign Minister Hussein Fatemi cried: "To the gallows" with the young Shah. The Ambassador's Call. At sundown of the second day, wily old Mossadegh seemed to have all Teheran in his hand. But something was stirring in Teheran that could not yet be measured. Perhaps Mossadegh, unopposed, had gone too far and too fast and frightened the people. Perhaps the Shah's flight forced them at last to decide between monarch and Premier. Precisely at 6 p.m., U.S. Ambassador Loy Henderson (back the previous day from two months' vacation) mounted the stairs to Mossadegh's bedroom at 109 Kakh Street. Henderson stayed one hour; soon after he left, things began to happen. What went on up in Mossadegh's bedroom? Henderson began by protesting the stoning of six U.S. citizens' cars that day, and asked assurances that U.S. lives and property would be protected. Otherwise, he would order all American women and children evacuated. That startled Mossadegh. Then the ambassador inquired politely about the legal validity of Mossadegh's regime in view of the Shah's parting decree, in which he fired Mossadegh and named General Falzollah Zahedi in his place. When Henderson quit the room, Mossadegh was

The third day was the people's day. The shabbily dressed poor poured out of their south Teheran slums, chanting, "Long live the Shah." Others, armed with knives and clubs, joined them. Shopkeepers pulled down the shutters in front of their stores and swelled the march. Ordered to stop the parades, the soldiers turned, instead, on their officers. Eight truckloads of troops and five tanks, dispatched to the city to help Mossadegh, turned over their equipment to the first pro-Shah mob they met. Flanked now by soldiers, the mob began a nine-hour-long assault on one Mossadegh stronghold after another. When they finished, they had captured the police station and Radio Teheran: they had sacked eight government buildings and two pro-Mossadegh newspaper plants; they had smashed the headquarters of the Tudeh and the proMossadegh Pan-Iranian party. This was no military coup, but a spontaneous popular uprising; individual soldiers joined, but not a single army unit came in. Not until 4 p.m., when an air force general appeared before General Zahedi's hideout with a tank, did Zahedi emerge and take command of a field already won. The General-Premier and his officers were as surprised by the victory as the people themselves. The army had planned to counterattack Mossadegh on Friday; the people beat them to it by two days. Last Stand. Mossadegh's last stand came at 109 Kakh Street. U.S.-built Sherman tanks, ranged at each end of the tree-lined avenue, dueled for four hours, 75-mm. shells clanging off their World War II armor. The defending Mossadegh forces ran out of ammunition first, and it was all over. The losing commander was turned over to the royalist mob, which pulled him apart. A tank smashed the green grill gate, and thousands of attackers swarmed into the yard. Mossadegh had got away. The mob tore apart the famous iron cot on which Mossadegh had reigned so long with weepy-eyed, irrational stubbornness. The rioters ripped the house to pieces, hauled the furniture into the streets and auctioned it off (a new electric refrigerator went for $36). Soon, nothing remained of 109 Kakh Street but memories of a regime which had stood Iran and the Western world on its ear for more than two years. But, even in his last hours of power, Mohammed Mossadegh cost the nation dear: 300 died that day. Dressed in silk pajamas, Mossadegh surrendered 24 hours later to General Zahedi, was temporarily imprisoned in the

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luxurious Teheran Officers' Club and then carted off to a common jail cell. Tennis Partner. The man in whose name the street mobs prevailed had fled his native land three days before. Mohammed Reza Pahlevi, the Shahinshah, arrived in Rome with a two-day beard on his chin, accompanied by his disheveled, 21-year-old Queen, who was on the verge of tears. That night, unable to sleep, the Shah paced the living room of their three-room suite at Rome's showy Hotel Excelsior. With his personal pilot, Major Mohammed Khatami, he talked over future plans for a pleasant exile. "He asked me to stay with him," the major said later. "I told him I was afraid I would become a burden to him." "Who," asked the Shah plaintively, "is going to play tennis with me if you leave me?" The Shah bought himself four tennis rackets and a pair of black antelope shoes; Soraya bought lingerie and two crocodile handbags and, at a couturier's, ordered a dozen summer frocks. That noon, in the Excelsior dining room, Mohammed Reza Pahlevi began his shrimp cocktail, just another king in exile; by the time he reached his coffee, he was back in business as Shah. A reporter (see PRESS) rushed to his table with the news: "Mossadegh has been overthrown, Your Majesty!" The Shah's jaw dropped; his trembling fingers reached for a cigarette. "Can it be true?" he asked uncertainly. The Queen was quicker on the uptake. "How exciting," said Soraya, placing a calming hand on her husband's arm. "It shows how the people stand," said the Shah at last. "I have to admit that I haven't had a very important part in the revolution." Aides scurried off to check airline schedules. Now the Iranian chargé d'affaires in Rome and a functionary from the Italian Foreign Ministry, both of whom had ignored the Shah's harried arrival in Rome, came to pay their belated respects. On top of things again, the Shah refused to see the charge d'affaires who had snubbed him; later the Shah had him fired. Next morning, the Shah slipped out to a jeweler's and selected a variety of diamond baubles for Soraya. This was a consolation gift for her agreeing to remain a while in Rome for her "health." Then he boarded a chartered K.L.M. airliner for Bagdad, where he put on his gold-braided air marshal's uniform (specially flown from Teheran). He piloted his own twin-engined Beechcraft on the final leg to his capital. Triumphal Arches. Six days after fleeing into exile, the Shah was back in his capital, stronger than ever, without having lifted a finger. Though his flight had reflected his panic, it also served to precipitate the crisis and thereby, in the end, had proved beneficial. For the people had shown more faith in him and in the throne he occupied than he himself suspected. Premier Zahedi and the entire frock-coated diplomatic corps were at the airport to greet him. In the swirl of officials and newspapermen and honor guards, the Shah made his way with difficulty. Two bureaucrats flung themselves on the ground before him, embraced his legs and tried to kiss his feet; embarrassed in front of the foreign newspapermen, the Shah, after patting the bureaucrats' heads, tried to disengage himself. He looked tired, and as he made his way down the reception line past teary-eyed officials, his own eyes filled too. He clasped Ambassador Henderson's hand heartily; he gave Soviet Envoy Anatoly Lavrentiev a perfunctory handclasp. Then he was off to the palace in a limousine, under hastily erected triumphal arches and past cheering crowds.

Later he received newsmen in the fountain-echoing garden of Saadabad Palace and spoke some brutal truths: "The treasury is empty. We need help in the next few days. We do not ask any nation in particular, and we are not beggars, but if help does not come, we will have a nightmarish struggle." In the streets, Americans who had recently been greeted with cries of "Americans, go home," now found themselves welcomed happily by Iranians who let them know that the Iranians had done all of this for them and now counted on help from .the U.S. Monday, Sep. 12, 1960 Reformer in Shako (See Cover) At fever pitch, the crowd plunged through Teheran's vaulted bazaar, making its way past brilliant stacks of rugs, past squatting tinsmiths and hanging ranks of newly slain lambs and, at last, down a labyrinthine alley to the home of Ayatollah Mohammed Behbehani, Teheran's most powerful religious leader. In Ayatollah Mohammed's great walled garden, a white-turbaned mullah shouted over a microphone: "All elections must be canceled!" The crowd roared back: "We agree! We agree!'' White-robed and heavily bearded, bent by his 90 years, Ayatollah Mohammed shuffled slowly across the garden on the arms of two aides. "Shall we shut down the bazaar?'' shouted the crowd. "Wait." answered Ayatollah Mohammed. In his suburban palace north of Teheran, Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlevi, occupant of Iran's jeweled Peacock Throne, listened to the somber reports of his people's wrath. The blatant rigging of Iran's latest parliamentary elections was too much, and the Shah had to act. Scarcely had the roar of the mob in Ayatollah Mohammed's garden died away when the Shah last week accepted the resignation of Premier Manouchehr Eghbal. whose conservative Nationalist Party had just scored an unbelievably lopsided election victory. Three days later, with the crowd still unappeased, the Shah made a more drastic concession. "It seems." he proclaimed, "that the interest of the nation requires the mass resignation of all Deputies in order that new elections may take place." Dutifully, the newly elected members of Iran's 200-man Majlis fell in line, renounced their seats. Trouble is nothing new in Iran—or for Mohammed Reza Pahlevi. In his 19 years on the throne, Iran's Shah has been shot once, chased into exile once, and has seen his country occupied by foreign powers. But that corrupt elections—which have been standard through Iran's modern history—could produce a popular explosion told of a new sense of power, and new discontent, among the country's swelling city masses. It was also a tribute to the ceaseless campaign of radio abuse Soviet Russia has lately showered on its southern neighbor. Moscow is doing everything it can to topple the Shah. With its warm-water ports on the Persian Gulf, Iran has been a target of Russian imperialism since the days of Peter the Great. Its attraction for the Communists in the Kremlin is even greater than it ever was for the Czars. The world's fourth largest exporter of oil, Iran, as a member of CENTO (formerly the Baghdad Pact,), is an essential link in the defensive tier along Russia's southern border. The U.S. has poured more than $800 million into Iran since World War II. By bringing Iran under its influence, Russia would knock out the last anti-Communist alliance in the vast area between Western Europe and the Far East, and would

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acquire a land bridge to the troubled Arab world. Should the Shah lose his fight for his dynasty and his nation, the Soviets would at last be free to dominate the Middle East. Straight from Persepolis. The man who stands between the West and such an alarming prospect is one of the few remaining monarchs who is more than merely decorative. At 41, Mohammed Reza Pahlevi, Shahanshah (King of Kings) of Iran, is undisputed boss of his nation. "His Imperial Majesty is above everything," a Teheran newspaper recently explained to its readers. "Constitutionally. he can appoint or dismiss a Premier as he sees fit. He can also dissolve parliament if he so chooses. He decides on which projects his country needs, bills that should be presented for passage by the legislature, and on the conduct generally of home and foreign policy." A trim, broad-shouldered man, the Shah walks with the easy grace of the trained athlete and soldier, shows aware ness of his power with every toss of his silvery royal head. Though he is only the second ruler in the Pahlevi dynasty—which dates from 1926—his profile might have been lifted straight from one of the bas-reliefs in the ancient Persian capital of Persepolis that Alexander conquered. If the Shah has little sense of humor and a prevalent cast of melancholy, it is perhaps because his life has been a sobering affair. Everyone Rises. The Shah's father, known to his subjects as Reza Shah, was an old-style, absolute monarch who rose from noncom to colonel to King, overthrowing Iran's slack-chinned, 130-year-old Qajar dynasty by force of arms. A wiry, hot-tempered martinet, the old Shah set out to manhandle Iran into the mod ern world, and he did not mind machine-gunning obstreperous peasants to do it. He abolished the veil, and when a Moslem imam criticized the Queen for not wearing one, roared up to the mosque in a convoy of armored cars, marched in, and kicked the priest in the stomach. From the time Mohammed was a toddler, the old Shah paraded him about in gold-incrusted uniforms complete with shako, preaching dreams of dynasty and a rejuvenated Iran. "What is the use of leading a life of shame?" Shah Mohammed says today, recalling his father's struggles. "Our army was composed of a number of woodcutters and egg sellers. Civil servants' salaries were paid in bricks instead of money. Whenever the Ministry of Foreign Affairs wanted to give a banquet, it had to send someone to the bazaar to borrow 100 tomans ($172)." To prepare young Mohammed for power, Reza Shah relentlessly pushed him into the "manly sports," in 1931 abruptly packed him off (aboard a Russian cruiser) to La Rosee school in Switzerland. A U.S. schoolmate recalls that the experience was something of a shock all around. Striding into the school lounge, the young prince announced: "When I enter a room, everyone rises." His fellow students merely stared at him in polite amazement. In time, Mohammed won a kind of plebiscite from them by getting himself elected captain of the school soccer team. Back to Barracks. When Mohammed finally returned home, an attractive, smiling young man smartly clad in European clothes, Reza Shah took one disgusted look and slapped him back in uniform at the local military academy. His smiles gone, Mohammed went back to following Reza Shah to reviews and parades, and in 1939 just as obediently trekked off to Egypt and brought

back the bride his father had selected, the pretty Princess Faw-zia, sister of King Farouk. In wartime 1941 Britain and the Soviet Union, seeking a supply bridge, suddenly occupied Iran, dividing it in two. Only then did Mohammed escape his father's shadow. Suspecting the old Shah of German sympathies, the Allies shipped him off to bitter exile in South Africa (where he died in 1944) and propped 21-year-old Mohammed on the Peacock Throne. When Roosevelt, Churchill and Stalin chose Teheran as the site of their 1943 meeting, they did not even bother to let Mohammed know they were coming. On the Way. The Shah finally got his country back in 1946 and boldly sent troops into Azerbaijan, Iran's northernmost province, to throw out a puppet regime the Soviets had left behind. Three years later, he came within a hair's breadth of death at the hands of a leftist fanatic who opened fire with a pistol as the Shah was handing out diplomas at Teheran University. Three shots drilled the Shah's hat, another creased his lip and right cheek and, as he dived to the ground, a fifth hit him in the left shoulder. Bodyguards riddled the would-be assassin, and the Shah next day grimly returned from the hospital to the throne, declaring: "My will is unrelenting." He had not only political problems but domestic ones. Though his father sired four daughters and seven sons, the Shah still has no male heir to his throne. In 1948, after she had borne him one daughter, he divorced Egypt's Fawzia and three years later married the handsome half-German, half-Iranian Soraya. Despite Soraya's famed fiery temper, it was with regret that the Shah divorced her in 1958, apparently convinced that she was barren —a charge that makes Soraya angry. For a time the Shah retired to the com pany of other women, the glow of fine French champagne and the stimulus of high-stakes poker games with cronies at Saadabad Palace, where he glumly lost a reported 10 million rials ($130,000). Late last year, after his companions had searched far and wide for someone who met the royal standards, the Shah struck up a third match with 21-year-old Farah Diba, a pert Iranian art student in Paris who, after royal treatment by Dior, Revillon and Carita, easily equaled his first two wives in comely poise. Soon after their marriage, Farah Diba announced that a child was on the way. On the assumption that the baby will be the long-awaited heir, the Shah reportedly has already decided to name him Cyrus—after ancient Persia's Cyrus the Great. The baby is due in late October, and the Shah plans gala celebrations early next year for the 2,500th anniversary of Cyrus' empire. which once stretched from the Indus to the shores of Greece. Dry Domain. Like his father, the Shah longs to impart grandeur to his dynasty. But he has another objective more realistic and admirable: to convert Iran into a healthy and stable modern nation. It has an awfully long way to go. Still vivid in the Shah's mind is the reaction of Iran's comfort-loving old-line politicians when he first confided his goal to them in 1942. "Sixteen Majlis Deputies," he recalls, "met with me in one of the rooms of this palace to confer about political affairs of the day. I told them that we must establish social justice in this country and added, 'It is not fair that a number of people should be at a loss what to do with their wealth, while a number die of hunger.' Next day they said, 'The Shah has developed revolutionary ideas.' "

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In many ways Iran is a brown, unpromising ground for an economic and social revolution, 20th century style. A sprawl ing country that would stretch from Spain to Poland and from England to Italy, Iran is mostly arid plateau, where even under maximum irrigation a full 50% of the land would remain near-desert. Iranians all agree that life would be hopeless without the mountains: the Elburz range breaking the frosty blasts from the Russian north, the Zagros range towering over the Iraqi border to the east. On the mountain slopes the inhabitants of Iran's jam-packed cities find their vacation ground, and the migrant tribes their winter herding. More important, the snow-capped peaks send down the trickle of water that keeps the valley towns alive. Some of Iran's barrenness stems from its history. Ever since the decline of the ancient Persian empire,-it has been a crossroads nation—sacked bloodily by Alexander, Genghis Khan and Tamerlane. (One of Persia's last forays as conqueror was a 1739 raid on India, when troops pilfered from Delhi the emerald-incrusted throne on which the Shah now sits on cer emonial occasions.) Centuries ago, the average Persian retreated to his ridge-locked valley, where the keeper of the ritual hot baths still gets a cut of the villagers' crops, and where slim youths still build and maintain the tiledroofed qanats that tunnel water as far as 40 miles from the nearest mountain well. Even yet, the Iranian economy remains primitive enough that a whole family can make a living off a single walnut tree. In the rug shops of Tabriz, tiny children work at the looms all day for 20^ or less. And the country's exports remain highly selective: choice caviar from the lightly salted Caspian Sea, sheep intestine for sausage casing, 300 tons of dried rose petals—and 350 million barrels of oil a year. Reassuring Words. Even the oil—which Britain's AngloPersian Co. first began to exploit in 1909—long brought little to Iran but a more flagrant gap between rich and poor. The man who capitalized. on the oil-brought discontent is still widely revered in Iran. Mohammed Mossadegh, a wealthy landowner, started with no coherent platform except blind xenophobia and the understandable conviction that the British payment of four gold shillings a ton, plus a sum equal to about 20% of company dividends, was far too little for the right to exploit Iran's major resource. In 29 swirling months beginning in 1951, Mossadegh parlayed these prejudices into the premiership of Iran. When the Shah tried to curb him, worried both by Mossadegh's street popularity and the fact that his defiant policies threatened to land Iran in bankruptcy, the weepy little Premier turned to the Communist-led city mob and, in effect, replaced his royal master as ruler of Iran. The Shah bided his time until August 1953, then gave his backstairs blessing to a coup against Mossadegh. The first reports to reach the Shah at a Caspian resort were that the coup had failed. At the controls of his own twin-engined Beechcraft D185, the Shah fled Iran accompanied only by Soraya, the royal gamekeeper and Air Force Colonel Mohammed Khatemi (now commanding general of the Iranian Air Force and husband of the Shah's sister. Princess Fatemeh). Six days later, after holing up in Rome (where Allen Dulles, boss of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, just happened to be vacationing), the Shah realized that the coup was a success and flew home to a tumultuous wel come in Teheran.

Atonement. Perhaps as partial atonement for his flight, the Shah subsequently married his daughter, Princess Shahnaz. to the son of the general who led the coup. As a more permanent atonement, the Shah has tried conscientiously ever since to provide Iran, against uphill odds, with the prerequisites of stability. It required stout nerves in this young ruler to defy the bluff and threat of his northern neighbor. Sometimes the Shah, envious of the way the great powers wooed the neutralist Nasser, complained that he was not getting enough Western help. In one dangerous foray into the perilous waters of neutralism, the Shah, despite Iran's membership in the Baghdad Pact, made a red-carpet tour of Moscow and later dangled in front of the Kremlin the hint that he might be willing to sign a nonaggression treaty. Last year he abruptly called the whole deal off. Ever since, the Russians have ranked him with West Germany's Konrad Adenauer as a specially loathsome "cold-war criminal." Powerful Persianlanguage stations in Stalinabad, Baku, Tashkent and Yerevan blast away at him daily. "Such puppets as Mohammed Reza Shah ought to be dumped in the garbage bin. The regime must be overthrown." proclaimed the self-styled "National Voice of Iran" from near Soviet Baku last week. At the in frequent wattle villages along Iran's bleak, mine-infested 1000-mile frontier with Russia, batteries of Soviet loudspeakers steadily blare out anti-Shah propaganda. The ceaseless attacks from Moscow-repeated in whispers in every Iranian bazaar—make it all the more imperative for the Shah's reforms to succeed. Heart of his program is a sevenyear economic-development scheme called Operation Plan, backed both by U.S. aid and the revenues from Iran's oil—which is now produced and marketed by a four-nation (Britain, U.S., France, The Netherlands), consortium in partnership with the Iranian government. Virtually the only Iranian government agency bossed by bright young men. Operation Plan will have spent $1.2 billion by the time it is officially due to wind up in 1962. It has already done much to change the somber face of Iran. Teheran streets, which only a few years ago were the preserve of donkeys and camels, today are clogged by 100,000 automobiles. On the northern outskirts of the city, showplace villas, some with kidney-shaped swimming pools and lush green lawns as trim as pile carpets, dot the cool foothills of 18,600-ft. Mount Demavend ("Bride of the Gods"). Cement mixers growl at the sites of a new 2O-story hotel and the nearly finished 15-story headquarters of the National Iranian Oil Co. Auditoriums, stadiums and university buildings add relieving notes to what was once peripheral wasteland. A jeep assembly plant spews out new models, soon to be shod by an Iranian Goodrich factory. Nor is growth confined to Teheran, an unhandsome city.*At Azna, near unexploited iron-ore deposits, work is soon to start on that final modern symbol of sovereignty, a $165 million steel plant to be built by a 'combine including West Germany's Krupp. In the southern city of Shiraz, where a new hotel is going up, a natural-gas pipeline is burrowing into town to provide cheap fuel both for domestic use and the burgeoning textile industry. Most ambitious project of all is a land-reclamation scheme in southwest Khuzistan province, near the rich oilfields on the Persian Gulf, where a corporation bossed by former TV A Chief David Lilienthal is building a 620-ft. dam across the Ab-iDiz River to furnish power and irrigation to 160 villages scattered over 375,000 acres. Lilienthal hopes to restore the arid province to the fertility it enjoyed in the days when, as he is fond of noting, "the horses on the friezes of Persepolis were fattened on Khuzistan grain."

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The Shadow of Nuri Said. In making over his country, the Shah has not hesitated to spend his own private fortune as freely as public funds. In the past nine years, he has distributed 350,000 acres of crown land to the peasants who till it, using the low, interestfree payments for the plots to finance seed, fertilizer and machinery costs for the new owners. And this is only the beginning: the Shah's aides have stern orders to cut through red tape and give away within 18 months the rest of the 1,400,000 acres that old Reza Shah so lustily acquired only a generation ago. With the $6.000.000 annual income of his Pahlevi Foundation, the Shah supports projects ranging from 40 orphanages to the education of Iranian students abroad and winter fuel for needy farmers. Too much of Iran's money has stuck on hands along the way. Too much more of it has gone into what technicians call infrastructure, the little noticed underpinnings such as roads and education (since 1953, school enrollment in Iran has been boosted from 427.000 to 1,381,000) on which a modern economy is raised. The Shah's admirers, though conceding that this makes economic sense, cannot quite shake off the ominous shadow of Iraq's late Strongman Nuri asSaid, who built the finest infrastructure in the Middle East and lost his head in a bloody revolution. Even the enthusiastic Lilienthal admits that irrigating Khuzistan may take "a generation." The question is whether the Shah can count on his miserable people forbearing that long. Occupation Complex. History has left some psychological scars on the Shah's 20 million subjects. After centuries of conquest, Iran has a kind of occupation complex, vividly exemplified by a tenet of its Shi'ite sect of Islam, which holds that a man may legitimately disavow his religion in time of danger. ''Deep in the Iranian mind," says one Middle East expert, "lies the conviction that nothing ever happens in Iran except by the desire of a foreign power." Many of the middleclass Teheran intellectuals and business men who most heatedly denounced the recent election rigging had not even bothered to vote. Scoffed one educated Teherani: "That's for coolies." They also knew it was only a contest between two men outdoing each other in pledged subservience to the Shah. And what hangs most ominously over all Iranian life, too often at court as well as in business life, is the ingrained Iranian tradition of corruption and favoritism, casually explained away by the Persian saying: "Let no man of rank be a tree without fruit.'' Despite the Shah's best intentions, a shocking percentage of Iran's economic-development money turns into "fruit'' distributed at every level of officialdom. One foreign entrepreneur, after striking a bargain for some surplus airplane parts originally given to the Iranian Air Force by the U.S., resignedly paid off the colonels concerned only to have his loaded trucks held up at the gate by a young captain of the guard who inquired with pointed effect, "Don't you think captains are as good as colonels?" "They aren't even subtle about it," says one prosperous contractor. "We all regard it as merely part of the deal. Frequently, we negotiate to come to terms. But dealing with royalty, for example, remains pretty much of a command performance." Most notable of Iran's royal tycoons: the Shah's twin sister, Princess Ashraf, who has already made two husbands wealthy. Sporadically fired with determination to stamp out dishonesty in government, the Shah has fired 4,000 bureaucrats for corruption within a year, not long ago arrested 150 army officers on the same charge and put several colonels in jail. Corruption is in the air; but

it also exists because the hard-working Shah tries to run the government all by himself. His few trusted aides are mostly officers of Iran's 200,000-man army, which he relies on to keep him in power and hence pampers. As a result, generals abound, and every other automobile in Teheran seems to bear the yellow and white plates that denote an army car. Among civilian officials. the Shah depends on retainers like Eghbal. who once told the Majlis: "I am not interested in your criticism and your complaints. You may say whatever you like — I do not care. I do not depend on your votes. The Shahanshah ordered me to serve, and I am his servant." The III -Served Prince. Such faithful service is more apt to be fawning than effective or reliable. Last month, on a visit to the Abadan refineries on the Per sian Gulf, Farah Diba demanded to see the living conditions inside one of the worker's homes and, when she had, burst into tears. Solicitously, the official who was guiding her asked "to be allowed" to make a contribution to the families on the block. Ostentatiously, he collected identity cards, jotted down names — and, as Farah Diba drove away, tore up the list and tossed it into the gutter. The cost of that kind of officialdom could be seen in the recent elections. The Shah originally intended the elections as a way of cleaning out some of parliament's more notorious rascals. He personally approved the slates of candidates of the only two organized parties in the race, and seems to have hoped for a fair fight. But when a few independent candidates launched lively anti-Nationalist campaigns, Premier Eghbal and his cronies panicked. The resulting fraud was too blatant to be disguised. Cycling rapidly past a polling booth in downtown Teheran, one citizen let fall a pouch full of documents that included 40 personal-identity cards to be used in fraudulent voting. When the government ticket in one rural district seemed sure to lose, election officials simply stayed home "ill." The Perils of Ambition. By some Western diplomats, the Shah is rated as "the most intelligent ruler in the Middle East" — and he showed his sensitivity to his country's mood by his quick reaction last week to the election scandal. But whether he has done enough is less clear. The caretaker Premier he chose to replace the hapless Eghbal, ex-Minister of Mines and Industries Jaffar Sharif-Imami, 50, is an honest but uninspiring choice. His Cabinet gave no voice to the independent feeling that ran so high during the elections. More disturbing are the indications that the Shah, in a moment of peril, is veering back toward the dangerous game of trying to pacify the Russians. As one of his first official acts, Sharif-Imami ended the anti-Soviet radio broadcasts with which Iran has countered the Russian diatribes. In response to a planted pressconference question on the possibilities of a "new phase" in Soviet-Iranian relations, the Shah pointedly declared that Iran's foreign policy is based on "membership in the United Nations and friendship for all neighbors." Like all great tasks, the one which Mohammed Reza Pahlevi has set for himself involves great hazards. He has committed himself not just to a holding action for feudalism but to the evolution of a mod ern state. Sooner or later, the Shah must find trustworthy and independent subordinates to whom he can delegate authority and must create responsible institutions to close the gap between the court and the people. For, as last week's election fiasco showed, Iran can no longer

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be governed by the simple kingly fiat: "I have given orders. Let them be carried out."

of such charges as robbery, drug use, antistate activities and "plots against the monarchy."

-*The nation changed its name officially in 1935 from Persia to Iran, a variation of the

Another and perhaps more impressive affirmation of the Shah's position in Iranian life took place at Golestan Palace. He presided over a salam or birthday levee of a thousand courtiers and high officials. Some of the men were dressed in cream-colored trousers and high-necked gold-braided uniform jackets; it was a scene oddly reminiscent of the days of Metternich. At a signal from the master of ceremonies, they carried out a prescribed ritual: a bow, a kiss bestowed on the outstretched imperial hand and flowery salutations, "Tavalod-eShahanshah Aryamehr ra Tabrik Arz Mikonam [Greetings on your Imperial Majesty's birthday]."

word Aryan, one of its principal peoples. This was done in part to point up the ethnic contrast with its Semitic neighbors. Though Moslem, Iran is not Arab, a fact that has saved it from the Nasser-sponsored troubles that have rocked the rest of the Middle East. -Far more beautiful: the ancient tiled mosque city of Isfahan to the south, which in the 16th century reign of Shah Abbas was a greater city than Elizabethan London.

Monday, Nov. 4, 1974 Oil, Grandeur and a Challenge to the West The Shah is the Shadow of God. — Old Persian proverb Ever since the oil crisis that rocked the world last year, the autocratic ruler of Iran has, to many people, indeed seemed to be basking in the light of the Almighty. Iran sits atop an estimated 60 billion bbl. of crude oil, or roughly onetenth of the world's proven reserves. The disposition of "this noble product" (as Iranians like to call it), and the money to be made from it, is in the firm hands of one man: His Imperial Majesty Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, Aryamehr (Light of the Aryans), Shahanshah (King of Kings). Once dismissed by Western diplomats as an insecure, in effective playboy-King, this emperor of oil commands new respect these days, as much for his ambitions as for his wealth. By means of what he has called a "white revolution," the Shah is determined to transform Iran, a country that still includes nomads whose life-style has not changed in a thousand years, into a Middle Eastern superpower. Iran today has a unique position in the world: it is a Moslem nation but not an Arab one. For that reason, the Shah was not invited to last week's summit conference of Arab leaders in Rabat (see following story). Yet it plays a key role in the power politics of the Middle East, without being directly involved in the struggles between Israel and its Arab neighbors. Iran has a proud past and almost unlimited future potential, which the Shah intends to develop with his new-found oil wealth. Within the councils of OPEC, he has consistently argued for keeping prices high—essential, he believes, if the countries of the Middle East are ever to achieve the high standard of living taken for granted in the West. Laudable though that ambition may be, many Western leaders find it hard to accept the Shah's argument, especially since he frequently combines it with moralizing messages about the need for industrial nations to scrimp and economize. Iran is one of the handful of nations that has helped push Western Europe to the edge of economic disaster —and has begun a major redistribution of wealth. Whether he is seen as hero or villain, the Shah cannot be ignored. Thus it is no accident that U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger (see story page 40) will spend no less than three days of his current diplomatic junket in Tehran. In the eyes of Iran's 32 million people, the prosperity and national prestige the Shah is bringing them has bathed their ruler with new luster. Thus last week, when the Shadow of God celebrated his 55th birthday—his 56th by Iranian reckoning, which counts the day of birth as one's first birthday—the national holiday was observed with particular fervor. The capital city of Tehran (pop. 3.8 million) glowed from the light of millions of colored lamps. As part of the festivities, the Shah and lissome Empress Farah reviewed a mass exhibition of gymnasts in the $185 million sports complex built for the recent Asian Games. The Shah also grandly pardoned 148 prisoners who had been convicted

In the 33rd year of an often uncertain reign, Mohammed Reza Pahlavi has brought Iran to a threshold of grandeur that is at least analogous to what Cyrus the Great achieved for ancient Persia. Items: > Iran is now producing 6.1 million bbl. of oil daily and is the world's second-greatest oil-exporting nation, after Saudi Arabia. Iran's refinery at Abadan is the world's largest. More important, the Shah was one of the first oil potentates to take complete control of production and reserves: since 1954 all income from production has gone to the National Iranian Oil Co., which is completely controlled by his government. > Iran's oil revenues are increasing astronomically. Technocrats working on the country's latest five-year development plan have been forced to rejiggle the revenue side of the ledger almost daily; it now stands at $23 billion in oil income this year, v. $5 billion last year. Even if there is no further increase in oil prices, income next year should be more than $25 billion. > Unlike Saudi Arabia, whose resources are almost inexhaustible (see chart), Iran is expending both its oil and its oil income to create a broad industrial base in the country before the crude begins to run out (1990, by Iranian estimates). That involves a heavy investment in social development, since 40% of Iranians are illiterate. Outside the cities, many live in poverty; about 85% of Iran's land is untillable without artificial irrigation. This year Iran will spend $16 billion on projects ranging from dams to schools to hospitals. By the end of the current five-year plan, the Shah will have spent more than $68 billion on domestic improvements. > With excess oil income, Iran is also undertaking aid and investment abroad. This year's expenditures include $700 million to the International Monetary Fund to assist nations with balance of payment problems and $350 million to the World Bank. Additionally, Iran this year has committed $7 billion worth of grants, loans and deposits against future purchases from a dozen countries, including Britain and France. For an estimated $100 million, the government recently bought 25.04% ownership of the steel-producing branch of West Germany's 162-year-old Krupp steel empire. In August the Shah endowed a million-dollar chair in petroleum engineering at the University of Southern California. No other member of the club of suddenly wealthy oil nations is advanced enough or populous enough to match Iran's projected scale of social and economic growth over the next two decades. Certainly no other oil power has a leader quite as visionary and energetic in his planning. Even though the Shah's ambitious plans for

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Iran are barely under way, the country has already achieved such a pre-eminent place in the Middle East that businessmen and diplomats alike are beating a jetpattern path to the Shah's door. Great Civilization. Important visitors, naturally, are granted audiences with the man who makes the decisions. The Shah was educated in Switzerland and has traveled widely abroad; he converses with his visitors as fluently in French or English as in Farsi, the principal Iranian language. In any of the three tongues, he can evangelistically describe his goals for Iran's "Great Civilization"—a phrase redolent of the American "New Frontier" and "Great Society" of the '60s. When the civilization matures, the Shah believes, it will turn Iran into the "Japan of West Asia" —a Third World miracle the like of which has not been witnessed since West Germany's Wirtschaftswunder. Already oil money has begun to transform Iran into an empire of paradoxes. The old Persia remains for those who seek it: the Qashqai tribe in the southwest still graze their cattle in the Zagros Mountains and locate water in a 1,000-year-old system of interconnected wells known as qanats. In Tehran entrepreneurs who make $50,000 a day take jet flights to Europe to complete a business deal (and see banned-in-Iran movies like Last Tango in Paris) or perhaps buy a vacation villa in Provence. Some of the wives of these new middle-class millionaires, who celebrate Women's Emancipation Day each February and can divorce their husbands as easily as men once could divorce wives under Islamic law, are dressed by Balenciaga and Dior. But on the street they pass other women who still wear the traditional speckled chador, or robe of modesty. The bustling streets of Tehran are so clogged with automobiles, including the made-in-Iran Paykan (Hillman) and Chevrolet Iran (Opel) as well as double-decked Leyland transit buses, that the city has belatedly begun to consider building a mass-transit system. Contradiction leaps out everywhere in Iran nowadays. In Tehran, the mud huts of the poor lie hard by the condominiums of the rich. In the bazaars of Isfahan, a merchant accustomed to dealing with Iranians is likely to find himself negotiating simultaneously with a Russian steel-mill technician and an American helicopter expert. The glue that holds this disparate society together is the Shahanshah. "Who built your new mosque?" the headman of the village of Hesar Khorvan on the slopes of the Elburz Mountains is asked. "The Shah, of course," he answers firmly. For the bourgeois Tehrani, the Shah has grown to be a kind of imperial security blanket. "The middle class has become dependent on him," says one businessman. "They feel secure. They don't know what might come their way if he were not around, and that makes them pro-regime." The Shah's underlying aim in building his Great Civilization is to make Iran not only secure but selfsufficient. "Since World War II," says Premier AmirAbbas Hoveida, "we have seen that pacts and bilateral arrangements don't work when you need them. Our buildup is our only way of survival." The Shah is succeeding so adroitly that even old adversaries look at him with respect. The Arab states of the Persian Gulf, who share nothing culturally with Iran but religion,* are apprehensive about the massive military power the Shah has been building up with oil income. At the same time,

they are pleased with the Shah's insistence on higher oil prices. The Soviet Union, which during World War II occupied and attempted to annex Iran's northernmost province of Azerbaijan, is now almost purringly cooperative. Moscow has toned down the anti-Shah propaganda it formerly beamed forth as a way of promoting Iran's outlawed Communist (Tudeh) Party. In exchange for Iranian natural gas, which is piped over the border from Agajari, the Soviets constructed Iran's first super steel plant at Isfahan—now only 24 miles from an Americanstaffed helicopter school that is the world's largest. Relations with Moscow are so correct these days that the Russians made no complaints when the Shah recently raised the price of natural gas from 30.7¢ per 1,000 cu. ft. to 57¢. The Shah considers himself a good friend of the U.S. Indeed, relations between Washington and Tehran have generally been excellent since 1953, when the CIA fomented demonstrations that led to a coup against the late leftist Premier Mohammed Mossadegh, thereby allowing the fledgling Shah to return to power after a brief, humiliating exile in Rome. These days, however, there is more than a single view of the Shah in official Washington, and sometimes he is given to wondering which one reflects the real Government position. Hired Gun. At the Treasury Department, for instance, the Shah is generally thought of as a tyrant and a megalomaniac whose stubbornness and greed over oil prices represent a threat to the economic stability of the world. Treasury Secretary William Simon has publicly described the Shah as a "nut" and as "irresponsible and reckless." The Shah is somewhat more highly regarded at the Pentagon. The Defense Department is pleased with the Shah's massive purchases of sophisticated U.S. weapons, but some intelligence analysts cynically regard the Shah as little more than America's hired gun in the Middle East. At the State Department, by contrast, the Shah is considered an enlightened ruler who is propelling his backward people into prosperity and is defending his own country, as well as U.S. interests, against the spread of Communism. What makes the Shah a key figure in the Middle East, some U.S. diplomats believe, is the fact that like Secretary of State Kissinger, he has managed to deal equably with both sides. He considers the Israelis arrogant and even "masochistic." But Iran nevertheless provides Israel with 50% of its oil. In return, Israeli experts on irrigation and land reclamation have transformed Iran's Ghazvin Plain into a fertile oasis. At the same time, the Shah responded favorably last October to a request from Saudi Arabia's King Faisal and dispatched six Iranian air force C-130 transports to ferry Saudi troops and equipment to the war against Israel. High on the agenda of Kissinger's talks with the Shah will be the unresolved confrontation between their two governments over rising oil and commodity prices. Hard Words. The Shah, whose government will spend $1 billion this year to subsidize imports of meat, wheat, sugar and soybeans, insists that rising oil prices are no different than rising commodity prices. He seeks to tie the two together in an economic index that would help to limit further increases. The U.S. position is that oil is artificially priced, which the Shah himself admits, while agricultural increases are a response to free market conditions. President Ford, and Kissinger in his latest United Nations speech, abruptly cautioned

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the oil-producing nations not to price their product at disastrously high levels. The Shah, more accustomed to hand kissing than hard words, bristled. "Nobody can dictate to us," he told newsmen on a state visit to Australia and New Zealand. "Nobody can wave a finger at us because we will wave back." In his 90-minute interview with TIME (see box preceding page), the Shah warned, "If this is a serious policy of the U.S. Government, then on this subject we are going to have a very serious clash." When the Shah talks about clashes these days, other nations sit up and take notice. Undeniably, Iran is becoming one of the world's major military powers. To equip his 160,000-man army, 40,000-man air force and 11,500-man navy, the Shah recently contracted for such imposingly modern weapons as 70 U.S. F-4 Phantom jets, 800 British Chieftain tanks and an assortment of destroyers, Hovercraft and troop-transport planes. In a deal that probably saved Long Island's Grumman Aircraft Corp. from bankruptcy, the Shah earlier this year ordered 80 F-14s at a cost of nearly $1.5 billion. By 1980 Iran will have more fighter-bombers (839) than any NATO nation except the U.S. The Shah, a skilled pilot with more than 5,000 flying hours in fixed-wing aircraft and helicopters to his credit, insisted on checking out the Phantoms personally. Jugular Vein. Some of Iran's Arab neighbors wonder whether the Shah really needs all that expensive hardware and worry about his ambitions. "With each generation of weaponry," one Pentagon expert observes, "his defense perimeter expands." In answer, Iranians point out that they share a 1,100-mile border with the Soviet Union; and the Russians, they argue, have never really given up their interest in gaining control of Iran's oilfields some day. Iran also has an inimical and testy neighbor in Iraq, which has been massively supplied with Soviet weaponry. The forces of the two states frequently clash head-on along the border. In the most recent skirmish last spring, Iran lost 42 men in a fierce firefight but killed at least 39 Iraqis in return. The Shah maintains that he is building a force with the primary mission of protecting Arabs and Iranians alike in the Persian Gulf, from which 86% of the nonCommunist world's crude shipments originate. The gulf at its neck narrows until the supertanker channel is only twelve miles wide at the Strait of Hormuz, which Premier Hoveida calls "our jugular vein." Iran worries that dissident forces, like the radical Popular Front for the Liberation of Oman, which is currently fighting Sultan Qabus in Oman, could block the strait by sinking a supertanker. The Shah's response has been a pride of military powers so vast that he not only can neutralize the guerrillas but also dominate the gulf. Says one U.S. diplomat: "The Arabs like to call it the Arabian Gulf. But it really is the Persian Gulf. It's the Shah's lake." A well-equipped military loyal to the Shah would also be helpful in putting down any dissident uprising within Iran. The Emperor freely admits that opposition to the monarchy is not tolerated in Iran, and he has methodically repressed dissent. His principal instrument for maintaining internal security, as he sees it, is SAVAK, Iran's feared secret police organization which routinely scrutinizes even job applications and requests for exit visas. Its name is an acronym from the Farsi words Sazeman Ettelaat va Amniat Keshvar (Security and Information Organization). The Shah himself insists that SAVAK is not large, and some Western observers in Tehran wonder whether it is as efficient as Iranians believe. Nevertheless, the

secret police, through a large network of informers, have been responsible for making countless arrests of leftists on occasionally vague anti-Shah charges and for at least 200 executions. The Shah, who has twice been a target of assassination attempts, travels with a heavy security guard and makes fewer public appearances these days. If the Shah has both strong intimations of mortality and a divine sense of mission, it may well be because his dynasty is of surprisingly recent origin. His father, Reza Shah, was a swaggering 45-year-old army major in 1921 when he seized power from the corrupt Qajar dynasty. Harsh and intractable, Reza Shah was unable to cope with the world powers that interfered in Persian affairs after oil was discovered. Finally, in 1941, on the ground that he had become dangerously friendly with the Hitler regime, Reza Shah was packed off to exile in South Africa by the British and Russians. The throne passed to his shy, diffident 22year-old son. In his first years on the throne, the Shah was generally considered a figurehead monarch who cared more for fast cars, fancy living and pretty women than for the tasks of kingship. That impression was reinforced by his failure to deal firmly with Premier Mossadegh during the 1950s, and by his ineffectual early struggles with the landowning "thousand families" who largely controlled his country. In 1950 he attempted unsuccessfully to force them to hand over their land to their peasants; the Shah set an example by deeding 450,000 acres of crown property to the 42,000 farmers who worked the royal farms. Not until 1963, when he undertook Iran's white revolution (now officially known as the Revolution of the Shah and the People), was he able to break the power of the landlords and smash the vestiges of feudalism that paralyzed the country. The move gave him fresh strength from a new base of support in the middle and lower classes. Confident of his power, the Shah in 1967 finally decreed his coronation—after 26 years on the throne. Rather like Napoleon, he crowned himself with the 10,400-carat ruby and diamond royal crown. For Farah, the first Shahbanou (Imperial Consort) of Iran ever accorded the honor of being crowned, a special diadem was fashioned by Van Cleef & Arpels. Theoretically at least, Iran is a constitutional monarchy, with a Parliament consisting of the Majlis or lower house and a Senate and Premier. In fact, the Shah is one of the world's few remaining absolute monarchs. He guides all of Iran's essential business and makes the final decisions. Searching for a comparison to the Shah's power, Premier Hoveida considers the most recent parallel to have been the French presidency under Charles de Gaulle. "Parliament does not impede the executive," Hoveida explains, "so we have a more efficient system and there is a dialogue." To stress the strength of the throne, Iran lays heavy emphasis on kingly privilege. Not only do aides, including the Premier, kiss his hand, but peasants also kiss his feet as a mark of respect. When the Shah stands, everyone in his presence also stands until he sits again. Iranian public works, from the 609-ft.-tall Mohammed Reza Pahlavi dam, Iran's highest, to the Aryamehr steel complex, are named in honor of the Shah or the Shahbanou. "The outside world thinks that we want that sort of thing," said Empress Farah in an interview last week with TIME (see box, page 36). "We don't.

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But people want it, and if we don't accede, they think we are not interested." In the most lavish display of opulence in Iranian memory, the Shah three years ago celebrated 2,500 years of Persian empire with a $100 million extravaganza at Persepolis, attended by Ethiopia's Emperor Haile Selassie, nine other Kings and 16 Presidents. The Shah has five palaces. Each winter the family skis at St. Moritz from a villa named Suvretta that was once owned by Movie Actress Audrey Hepburn. The Shah moves between his residences by helicopter or JetStar corporate jet, using the national Iranair fleet for larger hops. His recent visit to Australia required three jets, including one Boeing 707 used solely for luggage. Inside Iran, where the alert ears of SAVAK may be tuned toward caustic remarks, there is little open criticism of the way in which the Shah is building his Great Civilization. Outside Iran his development has been praised by the United Nations and the Club of Rome. But there is also skepticism not so much about the laudable end of the Shah's programs but about the means. Allergic to Caviar. The most pointed criticism is that a nation of 32 million people cannot possibly be drawn into the technocratic 21st century by the fiat of a single man, no matter how good his intentions. The Shah at 55 is in good health—his worst indisposition, ironically, is an allergy that prevents his eating Iran's world-famous Caspian caviar —and he works a 15hour day with scant time out for family life. But for all the Shah's skill and experience, sooner or later decisions must be shared more than they have been up to now. One reason why so much power is kept in imperial hands is that Iran has a dangerously small pool of trusted technocrats capable of running the country. The armed forces, which have a lavish pay scale matching those of most corporations, constantly vie with private industry for talent. Universities have room for only one of every ten hopeful students who apply. The Shah's immediate circle of advisers is also surprisingly small. Among them are Premier Hoveida, 54, a dapper man who has held his job nine years; Hushang Ansary, 46, Minister of Economic Affairs and Finance; Amir Assadullah Alam, 55, who acts as the sovereign's right hand as minister of the court; and Jamshid Amuzegar, 51, who until recently served as the Shah's voice and goad at OPEC meetings. Amuzegar last April was shifted to Interior Minister, partly so that he might help ensure more honest elections than have been held in the past. "Even the dead voted," the Shah told TIME, recalling those elections, "and more than once." Far from having limitless funds to finance both a growing army and an expanding economy, the country will actually soon be capital-short. Says Dr. Abdul Majid Majidi, 46, a technocrat in charge of Plans and Budget Organization, the superagency that draws up and carries out the Shah's five-year development programs: "In three years' time we will be coming into U.S. and European markets to borrow. We can absorb it all." Already some inadequacies in rapid economic growth— Iran's G.N.P. is currently expanding at an astounding rate of 50% a year—are becoming clear. The five-year plan by 1978 will create 2.1 million additional jobs. But there will be only 1.4 million Iranians qualified to fill them. That opens up the prospect of importing vast numbers of guest workers from other nations, as Western European powers do. Iranians are not sure they like the idea. There are sizable groups of foreigners in Iran already; the U.S. community, many members of

which work on military-assistance programs (and who refer to the Shah as "Ralph" in conversations that his secret police might find critical, and thus un constitutional), is already 15,000 strong. Last month the Shah decreed free and compulsory elementary school education throughout the country. The problem, however, is that Iran does not have enough teachers. One reasonably successful palliative up to now has been the creation of a "literacy corps" of high school graduates who spend most of their two-year military service teaching school. The corps has a program in which teachers travel with nomadic tribesmen and at each stop pitch a white school tent alongside the tribes' black goat-hair tents. The Shah also decided that each schoolchild should have a free daily glass of milk — an impossible task for the country's modest dairy industry. Even imported powdered milk would not improve the situation. Iran's expanding economy, moreover, might easily be strangled by a tradition of bureaucratic bungling and red tape. Simply to retrieve an incoming airfreight package from Tehran's international airport requires 13 signatures from as many offices, a process that takes about three hours. A Tehran resident, complying with the law by paying an additional $1.20 tax assessment not long ago, had to try for nearly a month before he found the appropriate offices and could fill out the proper forms. "A thousand-rial [$13] bribe would have settled it in three minutes," he said bitterly. One byproduct of such bureaucracy, as the Shah is aware, is corruption. Foreigners flocking to Iran to do business have discovered that even in the army, payoffs have been demanded. Only at the very top, apparently, is there total honesty. But crackdowns have begun. Wealthy Businessman Hussein Hamadanian was recently arrested by the secret police for embezzling from one of his companies and is awaiting trial. He faces a prison sentence of up to 10 years and may well receive the maximum penalty as a warning to others. Another aspect of Iran's development that bothers critics is the Shah's unstated decision that political progress for the time being must take second place to economic growth. Decentralization of political power is moving slowly, and there is scant evidence of any quick shift from benevolent but absolute monarchy to at least limited democracy. Theoretically, Iran is a nation of competing political parties. Hoveida's Iran Novin (New Iran) holds power with a dominating 235 seats in the 267-seat Majlis. But Mardom (The People's Party), which has all but one of the remaining seats, was created on the Shah's order as a kind of loyal opposition. As it is, neither party is outspoken or forceful. Citizens of Tehran, who tend to be both apolitical and cynical, sardonically dismiss them as the "yes" party and the "of course" party. Clockwork Orangers. Younger Iranians chafe at such restrictions, but the government is in no hurry to change the situation. Premier Hoveida, in an interview with TIME Correspondent William Stewart, dismissed protesters as "a bunch of Clockwork Grangers." Said he: "The survival of the state cannot come about with a permissive society." The Shah himself is even blunter: "We want to catch up and do it quickly. In these very specific conditions, the blah-blahs of armchair critics are obviously ignored. If this is intolerance, I accept it." Convinced that change is impossible, many students simply remain abroad after they complete foreign

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studies, even though the Shah's social-minded program is as ambitious as anything they could prescribe for Iran. The shortage in doctors—presently 22,000—could be nearly wiped out merely if all the Iranian doctors living in the U.S. would come home again. In contrast with the dissident young, older Iranians appear to have accepted the priorities. In place of political freedom, they are willing to accept a stunning improvement in their lifestyles. Comments a Western diplomat in Tehran: "If you want to call that buying off —economic gain for the loss of political expression—you might be right." As the middle class is uneasily aware, Iran's new prosperity is unevenly shared. A scant 10% of the people control 40% of the wealth, while the bottom 30% enjoy only 8% of it. Inflation, now running at 20%, diminishes even these gains. Until the situation improves, the Shah's white revolution will be incomplete. In moments of reflection, the Shah has been known to confess some unease about aspects of his Great Civilization. He worries in particular about the contamination of Iran's proud cultural heritage by modern life. In fact, there is an untrammeled kind of frontier spirit on the loose in Iran today; past heritage is being bulldozed into rubble as the country tries to build a future. Grand Goals. But there are larger questions about Iran's future that remain unanswered. What if the Shah were to die suddenly? Would Empress Farah, who has been designated regent for Crown Prince Reza, 14, be able to carry on the great projects now under way? Is the Shah's imposing military buildup a deterrent against war or a provocation? The Shah has not only filled the power vacuum that existed in the gulf after the British left but has shown an interest in establishing a strong naval presence in the Indian Ocean. Inevitably, such a move would increase the fears of Iran's neighbors about the Shah's geopolitical ambitions. Will the people and, above all, the army remain loyal if the grand goals of the white revolution are unrealized and if untrammeled economic progress outstrips social growth? After all, some are still alive who witnessed the ouster of the last monarch but one by an ambitious, dissatisfied soldier. On the record so far, the future favors the Shah. Between oil and ambition, therefore, he and his developing nation are bound to be increasingly visible, increasingly vocal and increasingly vital. * There are differences even in religion. Most Arabs belong to the dominant Sunnite branch of Islam; Iranians adhere to the smaller Shi'ite sect.

Monday, Sep. 18, 1978 CENTO: A Tattered Alliance COVER STORIES CONTINUED Playing the great game in a geopolitical disaster area Twenty-three years ago Iran, along with Pakistan and Turkey, became America's Southwest Asian ally in the Central Treaty Organization (CENTO). Today these nations on the southern flank of the Soviet Union are more than ever distressed about the growing political instability in their midst—and the potential that this creates for Kremlin mischief. Last week, after touring the volatile CENTO countries, TIME Diplomatic Correspondent Strobe Talbott wrote this assessment from Tehran:

When the Shah of Iran looks at a map of his region he has a nightmare vision. He sees a Communist pincer movement closing in on him from South Yemen in the south and Afghanistan in the east. He once remarked, "Whenever I get up in the morning, I always ask what happened the night before on the Arabian peninsula and in Afghanistan." The Shah is convinced that the crisis facing his nation is the result of a cunningly executed master plan conceived years ago by the Soviet Union. In Washington, when U.S. policymakers look at the same map, they do not see a Kremlin blueprint taking form, but they are nonetheless deeply concerned. They can imagine a "Finlandized" or neutralized Turkey, a Sovietized Afghanistan, a Balkanized Pakistan and an Iran in some still unpredictable state of disarray. Politically tenuous and strategically crucial, this band of non-Arab Islamic countries stretches from the Bosporus in the west to the Hindu Kush in the east— nearly 3,000 miles of buffer between Russia and the warm waters of the Mediterranean, the Persian Gulf and the Arabian Sea. It is potentially a geopolitical disaster area, in which the strategic balance is shifting in favor of the U.S.S.R., and Washington has no clear idea of what to do about it. Since czarist times, the rulers of Russia have probed southward, seeking access to the southern sea lanes that are now major oil routes and thus the lifeline of the industrialized world. So far, the Western powers have succeeded in thwarting the Russians. In the 19th century the British Empire, from such places as Ottoman Turkey, Persia and the frontiers of India, intrigued and battled against Russian expansion. Britain's Prime Minister Lord Palmerston seemed to delight in all the machinations; to him, in a phrase first attributed to Rudyard Kipling, it was "the great game." In the 20th century the game has continued, with somewhat different rules and different players. The Soviets have replaced the czars, and the U.S. has supplanted Britain. Washington entered the game in 1955 with the creation of the Baghdad pact, a virtual invention of Secretary of State John Foster Dulles, who envisioned the alliance as a Southwest Asian counterpart of NATO. The original members, in addition to Turkey, Iran and Pakistan, were Iraq and Britain; the U.S. was an associate member. Iraq was dropped after a radical leftist government came to power in 1958, and the alliance moved its headquarters from Baghdad to Ankara. The diplomats and generals who renamed the organization CENTO presumably never bothered to check the dictionary, which defines "cento" as "a patchwork of incongruous parts"—hardly the most desirable connotation for a regional military alliance. Today the patchwork is in shreds. At every level its members are beset by serious, interrelated troubles, and some leaders fear the great game is in danger of being lost. Iran, for all its pretensions to being a modern arsenal, is torn by internal dissent. Insofar as the nation is able to look outward, it is the only regional CENTO power that regards the Soviet Union as its principal enemy. Turkey is preoccupied by its enmity with Greece. Pakistan is distracted by its fear and hatred of India. At the same time, Turkey and Pakistan both face their own versions of the resurgent Islamic anti-Westernism and conservatism that now threaten the Shah. Pakistani mullahs last year played a key role in bringing down the government of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and precipitating martial law. In Turkey, politically active Muslims could hold the balance in the next government crisis.

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These factors have all served to erode any feeling of collective security in CENTO. In Islamabad, officials fear that the Shah's troubles might spill over into Pakistan, and in Tehran it is the other way around. Says one Pakistani official: "If the Shah, with all his might and wealth, can't keep the lid on, that will only encourage elements here who would like to see us come apart at the seams." Warns a high-ranking Iranian: "If the Pakistanis start to have really serious trouble with Baluchistan [a province in the west of the country whose tribal population is demanding autonomy], you mark my words, we're going to have trouble with our own Baluch minority on our side of the border." CENTO was conceived as a mutual security pact, but at least two of its members, Iran and Pakistan, are undergoing paroxysms of mutual insecurity. Hence the decision of Pakistan's chief martial law administrator, General Mohammed Zia ul-Haq, to visit Tehran for consultations with the Shah last weekend. "It promises to be a most melancholy conversation," commented an official of the Iranian imperial court. Contributing to the anxiety of Iran and Pakistan is the recent shift leftward of their common neighbor Afghanistan. In April a leftist junta overthrew and killed President Mohammad Daoud. American policymakers are reserving judgment on the nature and course of the new regime, but in Tehran and Islamabad the judgment is in, and it is thoroughly pessimistic, if somewhat alarmist. Iranian and Pakistani officials are certain that the coup was instigated by Moscow. After more than a century as a neutral buffer state in the great game, Afghanistan, they say, is now a Soviet satellite. "We, Pakistan, are now the buffer state," argues a foreign office man in Islamabad. Tehran authorities are further convinced that the Soviet KGB has for years been patiently pursuing a plot to use Afghanistan as a base for stirring up trouble in the Baluch areas of Iran and Pakistan. These observers claim that they have seen a map, drawn in Moscow and secured by the Iranian intelligence service, showing a Greater Baluchistan that would connect the U.S.S.R. with the Arabian Sea. Similarly, an Islamabad diplomat refers darkly to the "Moscow-Kabul-Delhi axis." The Russians, he insists, "are now at the Khyber Pass." Certainly this is an exaggeration if not a delusion. It is also self-serving. The Pakistanis would like nothing better than to receive large-scale U.S. aid both to shore up the crumbling southern tier and to bolster their own security. But the alarmism may be self-fulfilling. Iranians and Pakistanis are convinced that Afghanistan is a dagger pointed at their hearts, and they are deeply annoyed by Washington's cautious, wait-and-see attitude toward the regime of President Noor Mohammad Taraki in Kabul. An official of the new Iranian Cabinet argues that it is "naive" of the U.S. not to recognize Afghanistan as the Russian bear's paw in the region. When asked what they think the U.S. should have done to stop the April coup or what the U.S. should do now about Afghanistan, Iranian and Pakistani critics merely lapse into vague expressions of frustration; they have few recommendations. But that, too, is part of the problem with CENTO: it is afflicted with a profound, inarticulate discontent with American policy, which is viewed as "retreat," "withdrawal," "failure of will" or "abandonment." In Rawalpindi last week, General Zia told TIME: "I have a feeling that the U.S. has given up its claims and

interests in this region." As for CENTO, he called it "a treaty on paper with no significance whatsoever—no teeth, no backing." Among other CENTO leaders there is mounting impatience with the vagaries of U.S. public opinion as reflected in such congressional actions as the Turkish arms embargo and aid cuts for countries that try to acquire a nuclear capability. They also regard Carter Administration policies as quixotic and punitive. Pakistan, for example, is furious over Washington's jawboning nuclear nonproliferation activities, which recently led France to cancel a contract to provide Pakistan with a nuclear reprocessing plant. The result, says Zia, is that "this is perhaps the lowest point the [U.S.-Pakistani] relationship has reached." Iranians, meanwhile, complain bitterly about the Carter human rights campaign, which they feel has spurred on the opposition that now threatens the survival of the Shah. There is scarce evidence that the human rights policy significantly influenced the outbreak of dissent in Iran, but the official perception—and resentment—is very real. The subject of Turkey comes up continually in Tehran and Islamabad. "Turkey is entering much more into talks with the Soviet Union than it has in the past," says Zia. "This is understandable because they've found that their so-called traditional allies have let them down." Pakistan is doing a little bridge building of its own with the Russians, despite its traditionally close ties with China. Earlier this year Zia dispatched a highlevel delegation to Moscow. The ostensible purpose was to secure an additional $250 million in credits to finish a steel mill in Karachi that the Pakistanis are building with Soviet help. But in an interview with TIME, Zia made clear that another purpose of the mission was to warn the U.S. that "I must have my own opening—I must have our options open." The Pakistanis and Turks also resent, and reject, what they have privately dubbed "the Brzezinski Doctrine." That describes the Carter Administration's policy of relying on "regional influentials" —Zbigniew Brzezinski's term—to shoulder much of the burden of maintaining security in their area. The "influentials" in this case are Iran and India—and the concept annoys Turkey and terrifies Pakistan. Says Zia angrily: "If the U.S. is thinking of aligning with pillars of strength in this region, then I'm not having any part of it. Instead of turning to Tehran and New Delhi, why can't Pakistan turn somewhere else?" Zia wants the CENTO charter rewritten so that Pakistan could call for alliance help if threatened by an "indirect" Soviet attack. Washington interprets this as an unwarranted commitment to defend Zia in the event of another Indo-Pakistani war, and will have none of it. In response, the Pakistanis talk about the advantages of withdrawing from CENTO and joining the nonaligned movement. Says Zia: "CENTO is becoming a hindrance to Pakistan's security." Besides, he adds, "in the current day, it's better to be nonaligned than aligned. Look at India and Afghanistan. Both under the Soviet Union, yet they're supposed to be non-aligned countries. Look at Cuba—a nonaligned country. Today there are countries that are nonaligned yet are much more secure than those that are aligned under the CENTO pact." Indeed, both Pakistan and Turkey seem to be veering toward the "nonaligned movement." Pakistan has already achieved "guest status" in the group, and Turkey is applying for the same.

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Like the Pakistanis, the Turks feel betrayed by the U.S. They provoked the wrath and sanctions of the U.S. Congress by using American weapons to invade Cyprus in 1974. The embargo was partly lifted this summer, but the government of Premier Bülent Ecevit in Ankara believes with some justification that the strength of the Greek-American lobby in the U.S. has tilted Washington's policy permanently against Turkey. As for the Shah, he has called CENTO "a nice club," although these days it is not all that nice and not all that clubby. For that matter, Washington also has long been disillusioned with CENTO. Henry Kissinger used to regard his yearly visits to CENTO ministerial meetings as little more than nuisances of protocol, redeemed only by the opportunity to discuss Cyprus with the Turks. An American diplomat stationed in the region dismisses the alliance as "little more than a symbol, and not a very shining one at that." His colleagues joke grimly that the telecommunication system linking Ankara, Tehran and Rawalpindi, installed by the U.S. in 1964, is so often out of order that phone calls are frequently routed from Tehran to Pakistan via New York. Ironically, one of CENTO's firmest boosters is the People's Republic of China. In Tehran last month, China's Chairman Hua Kuo-feng told the Shah that he was concerned about what an Iranian official later paraphrased as "the moral, physical and political deterioration of the traditional groupings in the area." China has close ties to Pakistan, even even though though it it is miffed with the Zia regime for last year's overthrow of Bhutto, whom Peking admired, and by Pakistan's tentative moves toward an accommodation with Moscow. So, in the geopolitics of the '70s, China ranks as a sort of honorary member of CENTO. The question is whether to let CENTO fade away or revitalize it. Some veteran American diplomats argue that it should have been dismantled years ago. But virtually no one proposes that this should be done now. However much an anachronism the alliance may have become, it would be a mistake for Washington to shut it down, especially in the wake of the post-Viet Nam retrenchment and the demise of CENTO'S Far Eastern cousin, SEATO. Says a top official of the Carter Administration: "Killing CENTO off now would be sending everybody all the wrong signals at the wrong time." Still, no one in Washington or elsewhere has been able to devise a plan for breathing life into the organization. Thus the U.S. and its mistrustful and divided friends continue to hold on to a tattered alliance as they play the great game. · Monday, Dec. 10, 1979 The Storm over the Shah When Mexico will not take him back, a painful search for asylum begins From its earliest beginnings, the U.S. has been a haven for refugees. But never has the country paid a higher price for this tradition than it has for allowing in the deposed Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi for treatment of his gallstones and cancer. For nearly a month, 50 Americans have been held hostage in Tehran under threat of execution by the revolutionary regime of the Ayatullah Ruhollah Khomeini, who demands the Shah's return.

The confrontation between President Carter and the fanatical Imam has caused a wave of anti-Americanism in the Muslim world, threatened the balance of forces in the Middle East and disrupted the world's oil and financial markets. All in all, it has been the most serious international crisis for the U.S. since Viet Nam. There was thus a palpable sense of relief in Washington last week when the Shah's doctors reported that his medical treatment was completed and he would be able to return to exile at his walled estate in Cuernavaca, about 50 miles south of Mexico City. For better or for worse, his exit from the U.S. would mark a new turning point in the stalemate with Iran. Some American officials saw his departure as a first step toward a settlement; others predicted that it might provoke the Iranians to carry out their threat to put the American hostages on trial. Then, Mexican Foreign Secretary Jorge Castaneda abruptly announced that the Shah would not be allowed to settle in Mexico. It was a stunning turnabout. Only two weeks earlier, Castaneda had promised that the Shah would receive "a pleasant welcome" in Mexico. Early Sunday morning the Shah left the hospital and was driven to New York's La Guardia airport. Accompanied by his wife, he boarded a U.S. Air Force DC-9, which flew directly to Kelly Air Force Base outside San Antonio. The Shah entered Wilford Hall hospital at nearby Lackland Air Force Base for what an Administration spokesman called "a period of recuperation under medical supervision." The White House, which had worked out the details of the transfer Saturday night, said that it would continue to assist the Shah in finding a permanent residence. He had very few choices. His old friend Anwar Sadat had invited him to stay in Egypt, as he had when the Shah was first ousted from Iran. But it was most unlikely that he would go to Egypt, partly because Sadat, already much criticized in the Muslim world for signing a peace treaty with Israel, might prove vulnerable to pressures from Iran. No matter where he went, the Shah would still be at the center of the storm between the U.S. and Iran over the hostages in the captured U.S. embassy. That storm grew more menacing at week's end. First, Iranian militants produced what they declared was "proof of spying by embassy personnel. Then, after learning of the Shah's flight to Texas, the students announced that the hostages would be put on trial "immediately" if he left the U.S. In response to Khomeini's demand for the Shah, Carter, in a forceful performance during a nationally televised press conference last week, renewed his vow never to yield to blackmail. His stand has won him the strongest support among Americans since he became President. For four weeks, the U.S. has experienced an outpouring of patriotism it has not seen in years. Americans deluged the White House with endorsements of Carter's policy toward Iran. Across the country, people rang church bells and wore white armbands to show sympathy for the hostages. This sense of patriotism reached even college campuses that not long ago seethed with unrest against some U.S. foreign policies. All week, the efforts toward achieving a diplomatic solution focused on the U.N. At the private urging of the U.S., Secretary-General Kurt Waldheim asked the Security Council to meet as soon as possible for its

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first formal debate on the situation in Tehran. The Council met on Tuesday and then adjourned until Saturday, so that Iranian representatives could fly to New York to present their country's position. But then Khomeini balked. He condemned the session as having been "dictated in advance by the U.S.," and Iran's Revolutionary Council voted to boycott the debate. The U.N. went ahead anyway, and in an extraordinary Saturday night session, speaker after speaker—including those from the Soviet Union and a number of African nations—denounced Iran for holding the Americans. When the debate ends this week, the Council is expected to approve a resolution calling formally for the release of the hostages. Some Council members also wanted the resolution to refer to the Iranian complaints against the U.S. Khomeini, refusing all talk of compromise, made repeated broadcasts from the holy city of Qum, whipping his followers into a mass frenzy that culminated in two vast outpourings of support. The first was on Friday, which to Iran's Shi'ite Muslims was Ashura, the holiest day of the year (and the anniversary of the demonstrations that led to the Shah's downfall). The second was on Sunday, when Iranians were to vote on a new constitution that would make Khomeini in effect dictator of the country. With the Imam flatly declaring that it was every Iranian's religious duty to vote for the charter, the outcome of the referendum was a foregone conclusion. Even before that vote, however, Khomeini made it clear once again who was in charge. The victim this time was Foreign Minister Abol Hassan Banisadr, the bushymustached economist who had been in office just 18 days, and who had seemed to be relatively moderate, or at least flexible. He had tried to attend the U.N. debate. Said he: "We want to demonstrate how the U.S. ruled our nation during the Shah's regime." Despite such rhetoric, U.S. officials hoped that private talks in New York might make some progress. Banisadr also opposed any trial of the U.S. hostages. He told a delegation of Western ambassadors that he would "do what I can to prevent it." (His chief accomplishment as minister, in fact, had been the release of 13 blacks and women from the captured embassy.) Last week he joined his colleagues on the Revolutionary Council in Qum for their regular weekly meeting with Khomeini. Soon afterward, Banisadr lost his job. He remains as Iran's Minister for Finance and Economics, but the new Foreign Minister and the new power in Khomeini's government is Sadegh Ghotbzadeh, who appears to be strongly anti-American. His hostility to the U.S. apparently dates from the 1960s, when he was expelled twice, or so he claims. (Though already in his 30s, he was a student at Georgetown University for five years.) Ghotbzadeh's political views are basically socialist. On his office wall hangs a poster celebrating the Mujahedin-e Khalq, an Islamic leftist group that probably forms the backbone of the militants who seized the U.S. embassy. But he is also aligned with the conservative mullahs on the Revolutionary Council. Some Western analysts have suspected him of Communist ties. But when the French weekly L'Express reported that he had "long served in Paris as liaison between the French Communist Party and the Iranian Communist Party," he replied that he had "always been against the Communist movement in Iran" and always refused to have "the least contact" with the party.

Though the new Foreign Minister's views may be somewhat murky, he is notable chiefly for his loyalty to Khomeini. After becoming Foreign Minister he promptly declared, "Our foreign policies are those defined by the Imam, and we will continue them carefully and firmly." And again: "I have known the Imam for 16 years. I think I know his thoughts and intend to carry them out." As director of state television, a job he retains, Ghotbzadeh replaced most entertainment shows with long readings from the Koran, interspersed with films of street demonstrations in support of the Ayatullah. His maxim: "We have the ideology to distinguish right from wrong, and we should not hesitate to tell misguided people, here and abroad, what is wrong with them." Still, no matter how intransigent Ghotbzadeh's rhetoric, his problem is the same one faced by Banisadr: the great gulf between Khomeini's determination to get the Shah and Jimmy Carter's refusal to hand him over. Moreover, Ghotbzadeh's task is complicated by the absence now of almost any moderating force in the country that could help build diplomatic bridges between Tehran and Washington. To stay out of trouble with the all-powerful Khomeini, most of the moderates are lying low. Asked three tunes at a news conference about the National Front, which for a time was Iran's leading moderate force, Ghotbzadeh asked with a sneer, "Does it exist?" He also warned that even if the Shah left the U.S., the hostages "definitely would not be released immediately." He refused to explain just what he meant by "immediately." Khomeini seems convinced that prolonging the crisis works to his advantage. Said a Western diplomat in Tehran: "He literally believes that he is forcing the U.S. to its knees, and at the same time rallying Islamic countries for an unprecedented reawakening. To achieve these objectives, the Imam is willing to practice the most brazen form of brinkmanship." Throughout the week, Khomeini issued a series of inflammatory proclamations, beginning with a call for Iranian youths to mobilize for war. "Prepare yourselves," he declared. "Get military training, give military training." He vowed that any U.S. invasion would be met by an army of 20 million defenders. The Revolutionary Guards immediately announced plans to give teen-agers military training. Nightly on television an instructor showed how to take apart and reassemble a semiautomatic rifle. Next day, Khomeini called on militant students to protest the Security Council meeting. In response, tens of thousands of young people demonstrated outside the U.S. embassy. They included the black-belt warriors of the Tehran Karate Club, who carried carnations and daffodils. From inside the compound, the militants issued a statement: "The U.S. doesn't seem to realize that it is fighting God." Khomeini heightened his almost rabid attack on Carter, accusing him of greed, warmongering and hypocrisy for "preparing to wage war and threatening countless lives for the sake of another term in the White House." Said Khomeini: "We appeal to all religious denominations —Christians, Jews, Zoroastrians—to support our just cause. It is blasphemy to think that Jesus Christ would have sided with the Shah and Carter." Unsuccessful in getting his

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hands on the Shah, Khomeini declared that he wanted to put Carter on trial too. The frenzy reached a climax at sundown Thursday, the eve of the tenth and most important day of the month of mourning and penance that begins the Muslim year. The ten days commemorate the death of the 7th century Imam Husain, a grandson of Muhammad, who was beheaded by Muslim rivals. The last day, Ashura, is traditionally observed throughout the country by mass marches of wailing penitents, which last year turned into huge demonstrations against the Shah. The mullahs took care to keep the crowds under control, lest they charge the embassy in their delirium. Radio announcers advised the faithful to stay away from the U.S. embassy. Militant students barricaded its gates and warned that the grounds were mined for protection against a threatened invasion by "filthy American agents" using Shi'ite marchers as shields. Hundreds of thousands of men paraded through Tehran's streets in the chill drizzle, reciting verses from the Koran and flailing at their backs with zanjirs, which are small iron chains. Most marchers wore light shirts that were torn and bloodied with each blow, struck to the rhythm of muffled drums. They were forbidden by the mullahs from another Ashura ritual: slicing then-shaved heads with scimitars. The mullahs feared that the rite would be "misunderstood" by Americans as evidence of a barbaric culture. Many marchers wore kafans, white burial shrouds that signified their willingness to become martyrs. Some of them carried placards: WE WILL SINK THE U.S. NAVY IN BLOOD and IF AMERICA ATTACKS, WE WILL FIGHT TO THE DEATH. On Friday, several hundred thousand Iranians surrounded the embassy, but dispersed peacefully after six hours of prayers. In Washington, Jimmy Carter responded to Khomeini's sharpening of the war of nerves with a series of escalated warnings of his own. To focus most of his attention on the crisis, the President canceled two political trips: one a quickie visit to the Northwest, the other a four-day cross-country swing. He also scaled down his plans for his formal announcement of candidacy this week. Instead of the extravaganza originally planned, he will probably make a low-key speech from the Oval Office, then briefly drop by a fund-raising dinner in Washington. To keep Americans' tempers from fraying further, and to demonstrate to the world that the U.S. public was solidly behind him, Carter last week made a considarable display of firmness. At breakfast Tuesday with congressional leaders, he declared that the U.S. was interested in a peaceful solution—but not at any price. According to Louisiana Senator Bennett Johnston, Carter told them that "the honor of the country comes first, before the lives of the hostages." Johnston reported that Carter then warned darkly: "Simply by releasing the hostages the slate is not wiped clean." Some participants interpreted this as a threat of military action, but White House aides denied it. Said one: "The President was merely stating the obvious. Any fool knows that an incident like this will affect relationships after the hostages are released."

since the Tehran embassy was seized. Because the 30min. appearance before reporters and TV cameras in the East Room was a calculated risk, he prepared himself with special care. He spent a whole afternoon reviewing the fine points of U.S. policy on Iran with National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski and Secretary of State Vance and fielding practice questions—about 25 in all — thrown at him by aides. Former Imagemaker Jerry Rafshoon rehearsed Carter on the brief speech that would open the news conference. The result was one of Carter's best performances. His unsmiling face looked pale without the makeup he usually wears before TV cameras, his eyelids sagged with fatigue and his hands gripped the lectern tightly. But he spoke in determined and sometimes angry tones, projecting with considerable success the sense of leadership that he has often seemed to lack. The President sternly accused Iran of violating standards of human behavior and international law in holding the hostages and warned of "grave consequences" if any are harmed. He vowed that the U.S. "will never yield to blackmail or international terrorism." Said he: "There are some conditions, prices, for the hostages that this country will not pay." Responding to a question about the debate that has already begun over whether he (hould have allowed the Shah to enter the U.S. in the first place, Carter stoutly declared that he had "no regrets and no apologies." The President reserved his bitterest tones for the condition of the hostages, who he said were "bound and abused and hreatened," despite Iran's assurances of good treatment. In private, Carter used even stronger language.* He complained to a delegation of New England Democrats that the Iranian militants were brainwashing the hostages by isolating them from each other and telling them that they had been abandoned by the U.S. The President said that the hostages have not been allowed to bathe or change their clothes, that some have been punished for speaking and that others have been threatened at pistol point. Said Carter: "This is a reprehensible thing, a disgrace to every person who believes in civilization or decency." At the State Department, officials issued a statement demanding that Iran permit a || neutral observer to check on the hostages. Hodding Carter, the dels partment's spokesman, told reI porters: "All the hostages have not been seen, and we have no way of knowing the condition of those people." According to aides, Carter is also angered by the duplicity of the Iranian militants at the embassy in pretending, as one aide put it, "that they are just a bunch of philosophy majors acting for reasons of conscience." Although the majority of the militants do appear to be students, Washington officials insist that the leaders are veteran leftists in their 30s and 40s, many of whom were trained in guerrilla tactics by Palestinian groups. At this press conference, Career replied to Khomeini's call for a holy war against the U.S. by insisting that the American quarrel was not with Islam but with the "misguided actions of a few people in Iran." For safety's sake, however, the U.S. ordered that nonessential embassy personnel and dependents be evacuated from eleven Muslim countries, which have become jittery because of the Ayatullah's calls to action and because of the approach of the aircraft carriers Kitty Hawk and Midway to the Persian Gulf.

At midweek, Carter decided to speak directly to the American people by holding his first news conference

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All week, Washington was awash in speculation that the President would soon take military action against Iran. But U.S. policymakers insisted that the rumors were untrue. General David Jones, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, repeatedly counseled caution; so, too, did the normally hawkish Brzezinski. Said a high Administration official: "Nobody but nobody believes the hostages can be saved with an air strike." Thus the operative phrase in Carter's press conference was his vow to pursue a "peaceful solution." Accordingly, the U.S. filed suit against Iran in the International Court of Justice at The Hague, asking that Tehran be ordered to free the hostages and return the embassy to U.S. control. The court can adjudicate disputes between nations under a 1961 convention that was signed by both the U.S. and Iran. Court President Sir Humphrey Waldock summoned the 15 judges to a hearing next Monday. He also asked Iran to send a representative. Nonetheless, the suit was largely a symbolic gesture. The court is traditionally cautious and may decide not to intervene in the Iranian crisis. Even if the U.S. were to win a favorable ruling, the court would have no way of enforcing it other than by appealing to world opinion, for which Khomeini and his followers have already demonstrated little respect.*His mother used stronger language yet. Said Lillian barter of Khomeini: "If I had a

the monarchy in favor of what he has somewhat vaguely termed an Islamic republic. Much of the population heeded Khomeini. It was popular uprisings in his name that forced the hated Shah to take a vacation that might well extend to exile, and left the government in the uncertain hands of Prime Minister Shahpour Bakhtiar. Iron-willed, giving little hint of compromise, Khomeini has rejected the Bakhtiar government and damned it as illegal because it was appointed by the Shah. But now on the scene, Khomeini faces far tougher tasks than rousing the people to fury against an unpopular autocrat. The Ayatullah has announced that he will set up a new revolutionary council for Iran. In so doing he risks a coup by an army whose generals, if not its soldiers, remain loyal to the Shah. He must pick up the numerous strands of opposition, united only in reverence for him and hatred of the monarch, and hold them together long enough to form a functioning government. It is a lot to expect from a spiritual leader wise in Koranic lore but woefully unskilled in Realpolitik. Perhaps aware of the huge risks involved, Khomeini after his return acted with uncharacteristic caution. Bakhtiar, for his part, kept the door open for negotiations with the Ayatullah, thereby raising hopes that a peaceful transition of power in Iran might still be possible.

million dollars to pare, I'd look for someone to kill him." Her audience at a New Hampshire men's club cheered.

Monday, Feb. 12, 1979 The Khomeini Era Begins There is hope for peaceful change as the Ayatullah returns from exile The chartered Air France 747 circled over the city and past the nearby Elburz Mountains three times before settling down gently on the tarmac of Tehran's Mehrabad Airport. As aides and reporters milled about, the frail old man, wearing a black turban and ankle-length robes, stepped out of the aircraft's door into the chill February morning. His back hunched, he clutched the arm of an Air France purser as he walked down the portable ramp to touch Iranian soil. After 15 years in exile, Ayatullah Ruhollah Khomeini. 78, spiritual leader of a revolution that has been building to a frightening climax, had come home at last. The moment was, conceivably, the start of a new era for a country that has seemed dangerously out of control. After all the demonstrations of anger and mourning that have punctuated the year-long crisis, Iran went wild with joy. From all across the country, millions of people thronged into the capital; they lined the 20mile route out to Behesht-Zahra Cemetery, where many of the martyrs of the revolution are buried, to catch a glimpse of the Ayatullah. "The holy one has come!" they shouted triumphantly. "He is the light of our lives!" So heavy was the crush of people that Khomeini had to be lifted from his motorcade and flown the last mile to the cemetery by helicopter. There, in Lot 17, he prayed and delivered a 30-minute funeral oration for the dead. "Is it human rights," he asked in a bitter if oblique reference to President Carter, "when we say we want to name a government and we get a cemetery full of people?" Then a boys' chorus sang: "May every drop of their blood turn to tulips and grow forever. Arise! Arise! Arise!" From his bungalow at Neauphle-le-Chateau outside Paris, the Ayatullah had been sending home a steady stream of Elamiehs, messages summoning the faithful to bring down

The on-again, off-again preparations for Khomeini's return began to take definitive shape early last week. Prime Minister Bakhtiar reopened Iran's airports, which had been closed solely to prevent the Ayatullah from coming back. Khomeini's representatives in Paris hurriedly chartered a jumbo jet from Air France, settled insurance terms and agreed that the plane would fly only half full. Thus if it were not allowed to land in Tehran, there would still be enough fuel aboard for a return flight to Paris. Because of fears of sabotage, no Iranian women or children were allowed on the flight (though several female journalists were along); Khomeini's wife, daughter, daughter-in-law and grandchildren would fly to Iran later by commercial airliner. During evening prayers on the day of the flight, Khomeini sought to comfort followers who were unable to accompany him because of the shortage of seats. "The important thing is not that you be at my side on the plane but that you continue the struggle with me," he told them. Before departing, he thanked the French government for its hospitality and the French people "who have followed with interest the struggle for freedom of conscience and the way of democracy desired by all clear-minded Iranians." Annoyed by the Ayatullah's rejection of their pleas that he not use French soil to foment revolution in Iran, officials in Paris were quite happy to see him go. Would Khomeini be welcomed back if he had to go into exile again? Said one ranking diplomat dryly: "We certainly wouldn't object if he were to distribute the benefit of his spiritual presence a bit more equitably." Along the 150 members of the international press aboard Khomeini's flight was TIME Correspondent Bruce van Voorst. "Shortly after takeoff, the Ayatullah climbed the spiral staircase to the jumbo jet's lounge section, removed his turban and sandals, curled up on several Air France blankets and slept for 2½ hours," reported van Voorst. "His personal security guard, suffering from a toothache and numb from aspirins, sat at the bottom of the steps. At sunrise, somewhere over Turkey, the Ayatullah said prayers, then was served an omelet for breakfast. When the captain announced that the plane had flown into Iranian airspace and would land in

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Tehran in half an hour, the Ayatullah craned his neck to look down on the magnificent spectacle of the snowcovered Zagros Mountains. 'The Ayatullah,' murmured one of his senior aides, 'is back in his country.' " Inside the terminal, the Ayatullah was instantly surrounded by 1,000 or so members of a welcoming committee shouting, "Allahu akbar!" (God is great). Praising all those who had suffered for the revolution, from the clergy to bazaar merchants to workers and students, Khomeini lashed out immediately at the Shah and his supporters, who "destroyed our culture and turned it into a colonial culture." Then came an ominous touch: "We are only victorious when we can cut the hands of the foreigners from our lands. The agents of the foreigners who are trying to cheat our interests must know that they are now part of history. All their struggles will be in vain. I pray to God for your glory and good health, and I pray to God to help us cut off the hands of the foreigners." With that the crowded terminal rang with shouts: "Allahu akbar! Allahu akbar!" In the days before and after the Ayatullah's return, Prime Minister Bakhtiar was almost compulsively busy: delivering lengthy radio and television speeches, introducing sweeping reform measures in parliament. To some extent, that burst of activity was a charade; almost daily, members of the Majlis (lower house) resigned in deference to the Ayatullah's commands. Said one European diplomat in Tehran: "Bakhtiar's performance is a pure piece of acting, but there's nothing behind it. I can't think of anything he's in charge of." Bakhtiar lost both face and prestige the weekend before, when he grandly announced that he would have a summit meeting with Khomeini in Paris, only to have the Ayatullah repudiate the conference. Said Khomeini: "I will not receive that illegal man." Actually, the Prime Minister was privately trying to negotiate an arrangement whereby he might resign in favor of a Khomeini-sanctioned transitional government that would preside over elections, a constituent assembly and a referendum on a new constitution. Bakhtiar said he had been negotiating with Khomeini's local representatives, but those plans may have already been jeopardized by the arrests of five leading journalists and the beginning of the army's bloody crackdown. Even more damaging to Bakhtiar's credibility was his open support of the military, which has tried to intimidate Khomeini's supporters by firing randomly at throngs of unarmed civilian demonstrators. On the "Bloody Sunday" of Jan. 28, the army fired directly into demonstrators gathered around 24 Esfand Square, near the university, and sniped at them from nearby rooftops for nearly four hours. By the end of the afternoon, there were 30 known dead and hundreds wounded; hospitals were jammed with the dying (see box). Bakhtiar defended the slaughter, which followed a similar assault two days earlier, as a retaliation by the army for an attack on police headquarters by civilians armed with machine guns. But in fact no eyewitness had seen the police building being assaulted. Iran's military was itself riddled with dissension. Some Shah loyalists among the top commanders undoubtedly favored a coup as the only way to keep Khomeini out of power. U.S. Air Force General Robert Huyser, the deputy commander of American forces in Europe, had been sent to Tehran a month ago to act as liaison officer with the Iranian military. He has forcefully argued that an army takeover would lead only

to anarchy, but U.S. diplomats are uncertain as to whether the military is really listening. One deterrent to a coup is widespread evidence that many soldiers would not follow their officers in an uprising against the revolution. Low-paid conscripts, who make up about 40% of the 340,000-man Iranian military, have stopped reporting for duty in many areas. The most frequent incidence of mutiny involves the air force, previously regarded as the favored elite service of the Shah. Military sources have denied rumors that 165 warrant officers were executed for taking part in anti-Shah demonstrations. They do admit that some soldiers have been arrested for treason and that a state of emergency has been declared for the armed services. During a show of force by the military the day before the Ayatullah's arrival, several truckloads of troops, some carrying Khomeini posters, waved sympathetically at the crowd. They burst into tears when other troops opened fire on the crowd, yelling at bystanders to get down or "the soldiers in back will shoot you." On Bloody Sunday, an ABC cameraman recorded an incident in which a soldier shot and wounded a colleague who was clubbing a youthful demonstrator with a rifle. Many Iranians believed that the anti-Khomeini actions of the military were being directly inspired by the Shah, who last week remained in seclusion in Morocco with his family. There were rumors that he was planning a triumphant return to the throne, as he did after a CIA-inspired coup against the government of Premier Mohammed Mossadegh in 1953. Fears about the Shah's return were fueled by a curious tape recording, allegedly made by a participant at a secret meeting of the Shah and his top generals before he left the country. The 20-minute cassette, popularly dubbed "the braying of the Shah," was widely circulated in Iran, even though its authenticity was doubtful. Three independent American voice experts hired by CBS insisted that the voice on the recording was indeed the Shah's. A spokesman for the monarch, however, dismissed the tape as "typical Communist agitprop," and officials in Washington were convinced that the recording was a "cut and splice job." The voice on the tape calls on the army commanders to foment civil war "so that we may hopefully begin again to recoup our power, being sure this time not to repeat our past mistakes." The speaker gives the generals "complete freedom to fire on the people and loll them" if necessary, to create hatred and dissension between the army and the people. The voice goes on to blame the inefficiency of SAVAK, Iran's feared secret police, for many of the current problems and vows that next time "we will set up a security apparatus more extensive than SAVAK." Meanwhile, other even more mysterious forces inside Iran were stirring up trouble. Several news agencies received warnings from a group calling itself the "Commando Organization of the Warriors of the Constitution." They threatened "guerrilla warfare" and "unprecedented slaughter" if the 1906 royalist constitution were overturned. These self-styled warriors also threatened to assassinate anyone who joined the Ayatullah's revolutionary council. Khomeini loyalists charged that provocateurs—suspected of being either agents of SAVAK or underground Communists, who have the most to gain from chaos—were inciting violence. Gangs of street toughs burned down a beer factory, a nightclub, and numerous slum dwellings in the city's red-light district. The apparent motive was to make the revolutionary movement seem fanatical and violent.

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Despite unconfirmed reports that Iran was being flooded with weapons, including some purportedly provided by the Palestine Liberation Organization, pro-Khomeini demonstrations have been remarkably peaceful and well disciplined. Only on occasion have crowds gotten out of control of the street marshals provided by Khomeini's amoeba-like organization. In one particularly grim example last week, a mob at the University of Tehran grabbed General Tagi Latifi, a police officer, from his car, screaming, "Kill him!" He was beaten senseless before being rescued by a group of clergymen. Such incidents have alarmed Iran's minorities, especially its 80,000-member Jewish community—one of the oldest in the Middle East—and 250,000 Christian Armenians. Although there have been no overt signs of antiSemitism, the Ayatullah's known antipathy to Zionism and Israel raises fears among Jewish families that there could be a repetition of the purges that took place in Egypt and Iraq after 1948. Khomeini has repeatedly assured Iran's minorities that their rights will be protected. Last month he sent a large floral wreath to the new "Hagh Horn," the leader of the Jewish community, with a note of assurance: "We are brothers living next to each other. It is only the government which tries to confuse everything." Nonetheless, an estimated 5,000 Jews have left the country, most for the U.S. and Europe. They were not alone. Alarmed by what the State Department called the "uncertain security situation," and fearing a tide of anti-American sentiment, Ambassador William Sullivan asked Americans whose presence was not essential to leave. Despite many Iranians' personal reassurances to foreigners of their friendship, there were two ugly incidents: Major Larry Davis was hit by two bullets as he returned home, and was rushed to the U.S. Army hospital; U.S. Consul David McGaffey was punched and beaten by an irate group of Iranians when he tried to intervene in an incident between an American and a taxi driver. By week's end, all but 5,000 of the 45,000 Americans who had lived in Iran up until September were gone. U.S. officials say that the American business community is cutting back to the bare minimum that can sustain their corporate operations. Administration officials were also concerned about the protection of sophisticated weaponry. At the Isfahan airbase, some of the 78 advanced F-14 fighter planes equipped to fire Phoenix missiles are housed within concentric rings of security; last week Iranian forces guarding the base suddenly excluded a number of American advisers. U.S. military officials have contingency plans to destroy or spirit out of the country some of the most sensitive equipment if necessary. The most important items are the fighters and 500 Phoenix missiles stored in igloos near by. If there was a clear danger that these missiles might fall into Soviet hands, Pentagon sources suggest, loyal Iranian pilots would fly the planes to safety, possibly Saudi Arabia. U.S. officials fear that any such plans, if carried out without consulting the Iranian government, would be construed, however, as an unwarranted interference in Iran's domestic affairs. Many Iranians were furious that the U.S. was sending emergency supplies of diesel oil to the country's military. The loan suggested to them that Washington was implicitly supporting the army's brutality against civilians. Those who know the Ayatullah expect that eventually he will settle in the Shi'ite holy city of Qum and resume a life of teaching and prayer. It seems improbable that he would try to become a kind of Archbishop Makarios of

Iran, directly holding the reins of power. Khomeini believes that Iran should become a parliamentary democracy, with several political parties. But he is unlikely to withdraw to shadows and silence until Iran adopts a new constitution and the threat of civil war is removed. To avoid more bloodshed, the Ayatullah may have to make some concessions. Says Massoud Behnoud, a Tehran lawyer: "If Khomeini reaches some kind of compromise with the Bakhtiar government, he can bring the country peaceably to a referendum on a new constitution. He doesn't even have to fear chaos too greatly. He already has 90% of the people with him. If he now begins to share his absolute power and allow other groups to speak out more, we will be on our way to liberty. Khomeini's real power will be that of the religious leader of Iran." Khomeini's success with the army depends largely on how he handles the sensitive issue of the constitution, which has become a rallying point for pro-monarchy commanders. Several of Khomeini's associates, including Karim Sanjabi, leader of the National Front, the main political opposition, believe that the Ayatullah might agree to use the present constitution as a device for the transition of power. "The army will go along with any government that is representative," says Sanjabi. "If Bakhtiar resigns, it is not difficult to find a solution based on a temporary government accepted by the people." At week's end, the Khomeini strategy seemed to be one of waiting for members of parliament and the regency council to resign. So far 72 out of 200 deputies in the legislature have resigned; if half do so, a Khomeini aide said, Bakhtiar's government has no legal basis. If a compromise is reached, the U.S. will have played a minimal role in it. The reason: anything that carries Washington's approval is now anathema in Iran. Some Administration advisers admit that open endorsement of Bakhtiar was a serious mistake, and that U.S. policy toward Iran should have remained noncommittal once the Shah's ruling days were clearly over. Particularly unfortunate was a statement by President Carter in January rebuking Khomeini and urging him to support the Bakhtiar government. State Department experts at that time were pretty well convinced that the Prime Minister had only the remotest chances of surviving. Belatedly changing a long-held policy of the U.S. embassy in Iran, Ambassador Sullivan has encouraged his subordinates to open a dialogue with the Khomeini forces. U.S. diplomats have initiated contacts with a number of the Ayatullah's key aides, both in France and Iran. By and large, they have been well received by Khomeini's representatives, who have stressed that it was not too late to repair relations between the Shilte leader and the U.S. Mehdi Bazargan, a Khomeini adviser in Tehran with broad political experience who is often mentioned as a potential government leader, emphasized to U.S. officials recently that a beneficial working relationship is "most definitely possible" with Washington. The crucial factor, he insists, is that any future trade relationship be based on an equitable exchange of goods and not distorted by extravagant sales of sophisticated weapons. At the same time, Khomeini's top economic adviser, Hassan Abdul Banisard, has implied that oil production will probably have to be cut in half to regulate the flow of capital into Iran. Another valuable ally, in the U.S. view, would be Seyyed Mohammed Beheshti, a well-educated and widely traveled Ayatullah who has been Khomeini's chief

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behind-the-scenes contact in Tehran. But observers say it may take a while to see who the key figures around Khomeini prove to be; the Paris advisers may well give way to those who have supported him in Tehran. Washington's greatest fear now is a military coup, which would inevitably spark a civil war and adversely affect any U.S. presence for many years to come. Says a State Department official recently returned from Tehran: "There is no question that a military takeover would be most dangerous for U.S. interests. It would blow away the moderates and invite the majority to unite behind a radical faction." Even if Iran gets a new government that has both popular support and Khomeini's blessing, the troubles plaguing the country will not vanish overnight. As one U.S. specialist noted: "The Shah left, but he didn't take the problems of the country with him." The best estimates are that it will take two months to get the oilfields back to export production lev el even if work starts at once. Meanwhile, the country has a paralyzed economy and shattered loan credibility. Except for two to three dozen firms, all of the country's 600 major industries have been shut down by strikes since early December. And, although they may not be missed, most of the once fabled Iranian rich have left the country. Significantly, this includes 120 of the country's 200 leading business and industrial figures. Estimates of the drain of capital that has left the country range into the billions of dollars. Yet, for all the problems ahead, there was a sense of controlled optimism in Iran last weekend. Now that the country's cry for the Ayatullah's return has been answered, Iranians will surely insist that the revolution live up to its democratic aims. "Democracy is a very difficult thing for a country that does not have a democratic tradition," Daryush Shayegan, a noted Islamic philosopher in Tehran, told TIME Correspondent David Jackson last week. "But Iranians are ready to learn it. Khomeini is an Islamic Gandhi. He is at the axis of our movement, and his greatest achievement will have been to have overthrown the regime. But there must be a democratic republic. In the Iranian character, miracles always happen at the last moment. I hope one will happen again.'' Monday, Nov. 26, 1979 Iran: The Test of Wills COVER STORIES Khomeini orders the release of a few hostages, but the crisis continues "Faith of our fathers, living still," sang a weary, anxious, deeply troubled Jimmy Carter, "in spite of dungeon, fire and sword. . ." And when it came time for the choir to respond with the eloquent verses of Psalm 130, the President sat, head bowed, in his front-row pew at the National Cathedral and listened intently to the ancient words of hope in a time of trouble: "Out of the depths have I cried to you, O Lord, hear my prayer." The President had joined last week with about 2,000 others in an ecumenical prayer service for 62 American hostages held under threat of death at the captured U.S. embassy compound in Tehran. At his right sat Penny Laingen, wife of L. Bruce Laingen, the imprisoned chargé d'affaires in Tehran. On his left sat Vice President Walter Mondale and Secretary of State Cyrus

Vance, whose tireless efforts through a fortnight of nerve-racking negotiations had achieved as little as those of the President himself. The service began with a military color guard presenting the flag, and it ended with The Battle Hymn of the Republic. "Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord. . . " For eight days the President had remained largely secluded in the White House, trying every weapon and maneuver he could imagine to resolve this most dangerous and infuriating crisis of his presidency. Most infuriating because the mightiest power on earth found itself engaged in a test of will with an unruly gang of Iranian students and an ailing zealot of 79. Most dangerous because a single miscalculation could lead to large-scale bloodshed and tear to shreds the tenuous balance of power in the Middle East. It was not until last Saturday, after a week of retaliation and counterretaliation, that the first apparent break in the conflict came. The Ayatullah Ruhollah Khomeini, Iran's de facto head of state, ordered the students to release the women and blacks, believed to number a dozen, who were being held hostage. "Islam grants to women a special status," explained Khomeini in announcing his decision, and blacks "have spent ages under American pressure and tyranny." But on Sunday, while the Iranians were still making preparations to release the first of the hostages, came a shocking announcement that promised only to worsen the crisis. Many of the remaining hostages, proclaimed a spokesman for the students, would now be tried for espionage in the Islamic Revolutionary Courts and "punished in accordance with the severity of their crimes." The Ayatullah himself later confirmed the scheme, adding that the trials would only be halted and the hostages let go if the U.S. returned the Shah. Warned a senior official of West Germany's foreign ministry when told of the threat: "With the turmoil and fanaticism in Iran, one has to be prepared even for the outrage of the hostages' execution, even though that would be international murder." As for the promise to release some of the hostages, the Iranians dawdled through the weekend and by early Monday Iran time, nearly 40 hours after the first announcement, not a single American had been freed. Instead, the students staged a circus act in the embassy compound, trotting out three of the captives who were slated to be released for a "press conference" before some 200 American and other foreign correspondents. The three—two 23-year-old black Marines and a 22-year-old female secretary—were seated at a table in front of three colored posters of the Ayatullah and slogans denouncing the exiled Shah of Iran and President Carter. Read—one misspelled poster: CARTER IS SUPPORTING THIS NASTY CRIMINAL UNDER THE PROTEX OF SICKNESS. Though the promised release of some hostages was a signal that progress was possible, the basic situation was totally unchanged. The Iranian students still held dozens of exhausted American hostages inside the U.S. embassy compound in Tehran. The Shah, whose temporary entry into the U.S. for medical treatment had precipitated the assault, still lay hospitalized in New York, despite rumors that, he might leave for Mexico at any moment. And in Washington, the options open to the President of the

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U.S. were still shockingly few, with the fate of the remaining hostages determining what actions could be risked. In a series of dramatic but carefully limited moves, the President fought back with economic reprisals. He ordered a stop to all purchases of Iranian oil, 700,000 bbl. per day, or 4% of U.S. consumption; he froze all Iranian government banking assets in the U.S. The Administration has not officially interrupted the flow of the nearly $500 million worth of food the U.S. ships to Iran annually. But the International Longshoremen's Association instructed all its members not to load any vessels bound for Iran, and the giant American Farm Bureau Federation offered to support a total boycott on food exports. Some militant superpatriots talked of blockading the Iranian coast, but the Administration consistently ruled out that and all other military measures. Yet when none of the U.S. retaliations brought any progress toward the release of the hostages, American anger and frustration became almost palpable.* New anti-Iranian demonstrations flared on campuses from coast to coast; three teen-agers threw a rock at the window of an Iranian in Denver, and he shot back, killing one of them. Eight Iranians, carrying rifles, telescopic sights and ammunition, were arrested at Baltimore-Washington International Airport as they prepared to board a flight to New York. Senate Majority Leader Robert Byrd, normally one of the mildest and most self-controlled of men, said he sympathized with the demonstrators, even the violent ones. "I'd feel like taking a punch at one [an Iranian] myself, if I could get to him," said Byrd. Added Carter: "Every American feels anger and outrage at what is happening." In an effort to cool tempers at home. Carter had previously asked the Immigration and Naturalization Service to press deportation proceedings against any Iranian students who were residing illegally in the U.S. Though the White House emphasized that the President had not ordered a "roundup and mass deportation," the action caused panic among many of the 50,000 Iranian students in the U.S. and thousands of other Iranians who have fled to the U.S. in recent years for political reasons. In Iran itself, the crisis ebbed and flowed. Early in the week there was talk of compromises, and hints that some of the hostages might be released, but as the American determination became obvious in Iran, the crowds around the U.S. embassy grew larger and uglier. On Friday a throng swarmed through the poplars and cypress trees that dot the once idyllic compound. Among them for the first time were soldiers and airmen. "Death to the Shah!" the demonstrators chanted. "Death to Carter!" The Ayatullah Yahya Nouri, one of the leaders of the revolution, gave a fiery speech outside the embassy gates calling for a "jihad [holy war] against the U.S." This might all be dismissed as rhetoric, but inside the compound remained the American hostages, haggard, some of them with their hands bound, totally vulnerable to the whims of their captors. One student gloated to TIME Correspondent Bruce van Voorst: "Our cup of hatred is filled to overflowing." Ayatullah Khomeini was being no less emotional. "All Western governments are just thieves," he declared to his followers in the holy city of Qum, 80 miles from Tehran. "We should simply cut all ties to them. Nothing but evil comes from them." Then the Ayatullah mysteriously canceled all appointments for three weeks. He was reported to be sick.

Jimmy Carter was dismayed by the confusion. Just before his appearance at the National Cathedral, he had made his one major public address on the Iranian crisis, and he had sounded tough and assertive. "This is an act of terrorism totally outside the bounds of international law and diplomatic tradition," he declared to 900 delegates to the AFL-CIO convention. "This crisis calls for firmness and restraint. The U.S. will not yield to international terrorism or blackmail." The Tehran authorities were "fully responsible" for the safety of the hostages, he said, and would be "held accountable." But at a meeting the next day with 39 Governors, whom he had summoned to Washington to urge cuts of 5% in their states' fuel consumption, Carter was asked whether the situation remained a total stalemate. "I'm afraid so," he said. He described the huge crowds outside the encircled embassy as "in a highly emotional state." And he told the Governors: "We're trying to protect the honor of our country and the lives of the hostages." He urged the Governors to "caution all Americans" to restrain themselves toward Iranians in the U.S. Said Carter: "It would be a serious mistake for us to deprive them of their rights or their citizenship or our friendship." At week's end, looking drawn and fatigued, the President retired to Camp David. The crisis had understandably driven Carter into virtual seclusion. Having earlier canceled a state visit to Ottawa, he last week dropped a political foray to Pennsylvania and another to Florida. "Iran has blown everything else off the map," said one aide. "That's all anyone here is thinking about." The Government's days began early, long before dawn. The sun rose at 6:47 over Washington last Monday, so the city was still pitch-dark when Carter picked up his Oval Office phone at 5:15 to talk to National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski about the impending oil cutoff. Carter was determined to prevent the Iranians from thinking they could use their oil as a bargaining weapon, and he also wanted to reassure Americans that Washington could and would take action, that there was a difference between caution and paralysis. At the close of a weekend meeting on the possibility of cutting off Iranian oil, he had simply said: "I want it done." But he was concerned about the reactions. All Monday morning, Administration aides broke the news to congressional leaders, OPEC governments, U.S. business executives and particularly the principal American oil companies affected by the decision (notably Amerada Hess and Ashland). At 2 p.m. that day, the President walked before the television lights, a layer of pancake makeup barely disguising the fatigue, and declared: "No one should underestimate the resolve of the American Government and the American people." Speaking as plainly and directly as a Georgia farmer, Carter outlined his decision in less than five minutes, then retired to the family quarters of the White House to await the reaction. It was quick and strongly favorable, an indication that the country had been waiting for just such a step. Said retiring AFL-CIO Chief George Meany, long a Carter critic: "He acted wisely and well." Secretary of State Vance wanted to make sure that the oil cutoff did not appear provocative to Tehran. Said he: "This should eliminate any thought that economic pressure affects our decisions. It is not provocative, but is an act of self-discipline on our part." The implication—and the hope—was that the U.S. would begin to cut back its imports and consumption of oil, though

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there may be no such reduction at all as long as Americans refuse to face up to the consequences of OPEC's tightening noose. The diplomatic benefits of the oil cut-off were more obvious. Said Energy Secretary Charles Duncan: "To the extent that the Iranians considered we were dependent on their oil, we want to tell them it is simply not true." Another Administration aide put it even more bluntly: "They thought it would be a useful card. Now they can't play it." Two days later the next retaliatory step came. Carter had asked leading U.S. banks to be on the watch for any movements in Iranian government accounts. Treasury Secretary G. William Miller telephoned the President at 5:45 a.m. Wednesday to give him the ominous message that Iran was threatening to transfer billions of dollars worth of deposits from U.S. accounts to other nations, presumably in Western Europe. Carter had ready an Executive order blocking such transfers; the funds involved amounted to $6 billion. Once again Carter aides took to the telephones, this time to advise U.S. bankers and several foreign governments, including Saudi Arabia, of the pending action and to assure them that the U.S. had no intention of freezing the assets of any other nation. At 8 a.m., just before a breakfast with Republican leaders, Carter formally signed the order. Again the President's action was praised. New York Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan said Carter was handling the crisis with "great competence, steadiness and assuredness." The show of strength earned the President badly needed support even from his opponents. Senate Republican Leader Howard Baker offered Carter the "unwavering" backing of his colleagues. Congressional criticism and post-mortem investigations will be stormy once all the hostages have been freed, but for the moment the President's political enemies held their fire. Anxious to take some specific action of support, the House voted to cut off all military and economic aid to Iran, including $20 million in U.S. funds allocated through the U.N. Development Program. The tally: 379 to 0. A major difficulty for the Administration was that throughout the week various Iranian authorities kept changing the terms of the bargaining. On Tuesday Acting Foreign Minister Abol Hassan Banisadr sent a letter to U.N. Secretary-General Kurt Waldheim. The letter implied that the hostages could be released if the U.S. agreed to turn over the Shah's personal fortune to Iran and "at least accept the investigation of the guilt of the former Shah and its consequences." The letter omitted any specific demand for the Shah's return. Some officials saw the beginnings of a compromise here, but Banisadr said later the new terms really meant "the return of the Shah." On Thursday, when Banisadr first said the Iranians might release some hostages, the student leaders actually occupying the embassy property quickly asserted that they took orders only from the Ayatullah Khomeini, and that nobody was going to be released until the U.S. had sent the Shah back to Iran. Admitted one White House official: "We don't know with any certainty who these students are or who's in charge. That doubles the trouble." At the State Department, Iran specialists were similarly uncertain about the degree of leftist and even Communist influence in the highly disorganized Khomeini regime. Was Khomeini really in charge or just presiding over an internal power struggle? Did the fall of the government of Prime Minister Mehdi Bazargan two weeks ago portend a new campaign by Iranian leftists to

seize power for themselves? One puzzling element in the recent unrest was the sudden fall from favor of Ibrahim Yazdi, who had been one of Khomeini's closest courtiers during the Ayatullah's last days in exile in France. Partly because he had spent 16 years in the U.S. and had become a naturalized American citizen (a fact that he denied steadfastly during his seven months as Foreign Minister), the U.S. had hoped that Yazdi would prove useful in rebuilding Washington's ties with Tehran. Yazdi had secured the release of American diplomats during the earlier, and much briefer (two hours), embassy siege last Feb. 14. In September Yazdi and Vance had talked at the U.N. for four hours about military supplies for Iran and the future of U.S.Iranian relations. Vance came away from that meeting thinking that the Bazargan government was slowly acquiring more authority over the rabble-rousing mullahs who surround Khomeini. It was a mistaken conclusion. The sudden fall of Bazargan and Yazdi evoked fears that both the more radical ayatullahs and the leftist secular forces were using the embassy assault as a pretext for pushing the country sharply to the left. The small but well-organized Tudeh (Communist) Party has been held in check by Khomeini, who denounces the Communists fervently, if redundantly, as "godless atheists." The prevailing view in Washington is that the extreme leftists will continue to ride the Khomeini whirlwind as they gain key positions in the ruling 15man Revolutionary Council, and will eventually try to brush Khomeini aside in a final grab for power. At this point, the principal bond that unites the different factions of the Iranian regime is an abiding hatred of the deposed Shah. The object of all that emotion was closely guarded in New York Hospital, where he was recuperating from his gall bladder surgery and undergoing a series of radiation treatments for lymphoma, a cancer of the lymph glands, from which he has been suffering for six years. For these treatments, he was taken at least three times through a heavily guarded underground passage to Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center. Some doctors said privately that the Shah could safely be moved within a few days, and that the treatment he needs could be administered in many places—in Mexico, Egypt or France, where he has been treated for his lymphoma in the past. The way for his return to Mexico was presumably cleared when the Mexican government announced that as a precaution, it had temporarily closed its Tehran embassy and that the Shah was welcome to return to his exile in Cuernavaca. It had been presumed for days that having the Shah leave the U.S. would be a useful first step in resolving the plight of the hostages. But typical of the unpredictability of events was an announcement by the students in the embassy late in the week, that the flight of the Shah to any third country could result in "harsher decisions being taken against the hostages." In Tehran, the political situation deteriorated markedly as the week passed. The rumors about Khomeini's health started after a Thursday meeting in Qum. "I'm not feeling well," confessed the Ayatullah to his followers. He then launched into a feverish attack on the U.S. Said he: "The U.S. has grabbed our money just like thieves. We should not fall for their propaganda." An aide reported that Khomeini was suffering from a flu virus communicated to him by "various visitors who have come to Qum in that condition." Said one observer: "The Imam has never sounded this bad before."

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Khomeini evidently insisted to his colleagues that they stand firm against the increasing American pressures. Hassan Habibi, the newly appointed spokesman for the Revolutionary Council, reaffirmed the government's position on the hostages: "We are not going to retreat in the face of U.S. imperialism. We are asking for the extradition of an international criminal, and the U.S. cannot long continue its aggressive reaction to our demand." He disclosed that Iran and Libya had agreed to re-establish diplomatic relations after a break of several years. The two countries had been especially at odds for the past year, following the disappearance and alleged assassination in Libya of the leader of Lebanon's Shi'ite community, Imam Moussa Sadr. The reconciliation was interpreted as a victory for the hardline Muslim radicals in the Iranian leadership, who have been arguing for closer ties with Libya in spite of the Moussa Sadr affair. Amid all its other difficulties, the government was also distracted by an earthquake that destroyed at least nine villages in northeastern Iran and killed several hundred people. (A far more serious tremor in the same region last year had killed 25,000.) Khomeini declared the situation a "national calamity" and appealed for "Islamic help" in providing doctors, medicine and food. The U.S., which has repeatedly provided such aid in the past, was not called upon. The focal point of the conflict remained the occupied American embassy in Tehran. Inside the compound, 600 members of the "Muslim Students of the Imam Khomeini Line" split the hostages into two groups. Half were in the ambassador's residence, half in two yellow bungalows near by. The treatment of the hostages was believed to have improved somewhat, though some of the men still had their hands tied. The women were guarded by chador-clad girls clutching automatic rifles. Early in the week the captors released a taped message from one of the Marine prisoners, Kevin Hermening, complaining that he didn't like "being a pawn used in a game" and urging the President to place a higher priority on the lives of the hostages than on the Shah. Outside the embassy was a far wilder scene as crowds of thousands gathered to shout their support. Above the embassy gate hung a portrait of Khomeini and a loudspeaker over which a voice intoned repeatedly, "God is great" and "There is but one God." At a midnight rally Thursday about 1,000 students, aligned with the leftist Islamic Mujahedin-e Khalq (People's Crusaders), tried to stage a demonstration but found themselves confronting a group of right-wing Islamic extremists. Moderates crying "Allahu akbar!" (God is great) quickly moved in to act as a buffer between the two groups. One day, three British members of an NBC television crew were arrested near the embassy, but were quickly released. On another occasion, a deeply distraught American woman, apparently the relative of a hostage, appeared at the gates with a child in hand. She suddenly began to shout obscenities at the guards. In an instant the mob started to surge toward her, but photographers provided a distraction, and in the confusion she was quickly led away. Behind her, the crowd kept murmuring, "Kill her, kill her." Said a Western diplomat: "The crowd now represents a 'third force,' and it has to be reckoned with. If either Khomeini or the students were to try to negotiate, I wouldn't rule out a mass attack by this mob." Every day after noon prayers, the students and the crowd went through a curious ritual that often ended in mass hysteria. The students came to the embassy gates to exchange political slogans with the people outside.

They threw carnations and tulips, an Iranian symbol of martyrdom, back and forth through the gates. Said one worried Iranian bystander: "I think the're is a national death wish emerging." Such scenes reinforced the U.S. concern that the Iranian government and even Khomeini himself were being swept along by events. But from the Ayatullah's point of view, there was ample reason to welcome some political diversion. He has fared poorly in bringing the Iranian economy back to prerevolutionary levels. Industry is estimated to be operating at only 40% of capacity. With workers' councils sitting in on managerial decisions, many managers are afraid to make decisions on anything but issuing paychecks. Chaos prevails at the docks and at highway customs posts along the main truck route from Europe. Inflation is running at 40%, unemployment at 25%. In Tehran the situation is further aggravated by the migration since the revolution of perhaps 1.5 million people to the city, bringing the population up to as many as 5 million. The streets are still packed with automobiles, however, and Tehran still has the worst smog east of Los Angeles. The privileged few, if there are any left, can buy vodka for $20 a bottle and on Fridays can place their wagers at the Farahabad race track. But the citizenry in general are visibly angry. Last week unemployed workers seized the Labor Ministry and held it for 24 hours. "They're bitter," said a ministry official afterward. "And they'll be back." One thing that should sustain Jimmy Carter during his current ordeal is the knowledge that, for the first time in his presidency, and indeed within recent memory, the U.S. enjoyed at least modest support from practically the entire world. Two weeks ago, members of the U.N. Security Council had voted unanimously to express their "profound concern" over Iran's detention of American diplomats, and last week the Council rejected a request by Iran to turn the matter into a sort of star-chamber proceeding on the fate of the deposed Shah. Even the Soviet leadership, perhaps because it remembers so clearly the attack on its embassy in Peking during the Cultural Revolution, was providing a degree of backing. After a State Department complaint about Soviet anti-American broadcasts being beamed to Iran, the Soviets curtailed them, and Tass referred, a bit obliquely, to "the true position of the Soviet Union with regard to. . .observing the norms and principles of international law." In the most pointed comment of all, the Soviet Ambassador to the U.S., Anatoli Dobrynin, told Secretary Vance: "Where hostages are concerned, politics should stop." In the Middle East, only Libyan Strongman Muammar Gaddafi came out in support of Iran in the present controversy. At last week's Arab summit meeting in Tunis, Libya further proposed that the other Arab oil producers join in imposing sanctions against the U.S.; the idea was unanimously rejected. Even the Palestine Liberation Organization, though it has close ties to the Iranian leadership, made an effort to act as a mediator, an initiative that ended in failure last week. (Another would-be negotiator, Carter's Special Emissary Ramsey Clark, the former U.S. Attorney General, gave up after Khomeini announced he would not see the President's representative.) Carter's strongest support in the region came from Egyptian President Anwar Sadat, who had also offered refuge to the Shah two weeks ago. By his invitation, Middle East experts believe, Sadat was telling the Saudis that he remains responsive to their fears about

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the rise of radicalism. He was also reminding them that he does not snub old friends when they need help. Sadat feels that the Sunni Muslims need a defender against Iran's assertive Shi'ites, and he would like to fill the role himself. The Saudis quickly assured Sadat through third parties that they will continue to ship their oil through the Suez Canal and will not withdraw the $2 billion that they and the Kuwaitis have on deposit in the Central Bank of Egypt. Sadat spoke for most of the moderate Arabs when he observed at week's end: "The situation in Iran is deteriorating badly and presents an extremely grave threat to the Arab gulf states." Though the Western European nations were all favoring Carter in the current crisis—the London Daily Telegraph even denounced Khomeini as "a stupid, vindictive old man"—their official support seemed tepid. Asked New York Times Columnist James Reston: "Where are the allies?" Where, he wondered, are the Europeans who always yearned for "collective security"? European diplomats retorted that they had backed the U.S. as well as they could and that West German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt and British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, in particular, had strongly supported Carter. Schmidt told colleagues: "The West must show unity. We must back the U.S." If the Europeans were restrained, it was probably because 1) it was a time for "cool professionalism," as an American diplomat put it; 2) the U.S. had not asked for or expected stronger public support; and 3) Iran supplies 9% of West Germany's oil imports and 20% of Britain's. President Carter was awakened at 5:35 Saturday morning with the news from Tehran that Khomeini had called for the release of a few of the hostages. But then followed a delay. On Sunday night, the students summoned foreign newsmen to a press conference with the first three of the hostages scheduled to be freed. The three introduced themselves as Sgt. Ladell Maples, 23, of Earle, Ark., and Sgt. William Quarles, 23, of Washington, D.C., both black Marines, and Kathy Gross, 22, of Cambridge Springs, Pa., a secretary to the embassy's Economic and Commercial Counsellor. For over two hours, they answered questions. "We were treated very good," said Gross. "We've been fed more than was adequate. We've slept nights." Later, however, she mentioned that for the first 16 hours of her captivity, she had been forced to sit in a chair with her hands tied to the armrests. It was also revealed that the hostages were not permitted to talk with one another or read newspapers. Said Maples: "We didn't know what was going on." Why these particular three were chosen for early release was not revealed. "I have learned a lot about the other side here," Quarles told reporters. "The people of the United States should turn around and look at things differently for a change." All three, however, did show a certain sensitivity to being the first freed. "I had no choice," said Quarles. "I would have liked to stay with them, but there's nothing I can do about it." Meanwhile, back in the U.S., the days of waiting were having an effect on the families of those still held in Tehran. Some wives all but charged the State Department with criminal negligence for having failed to protect its staff once the Shah had been admitted to the U.S. "I am so bitter I could scream," said Louisa Kennedy, wife of Hostage Mike Kennedy. She has been manning telephones in the State Department Operations Center, talking to families of other hostages.

Totally at the root of the present dispute between the U.S. and Iran is the deposed Shah. Though Americans themselves are divided on their views toward the Shah, few perceive him as an "Iranian Hitler," as Iranian revolutionaries now call him, charging that his forces slaughtered 10,000 Iranian civilians in the months before the monarchy collapsed. Even fewer Americans would be prepared to allow the Shah to be returned to Iran involuntarily to face the Ayatullah's revolutionary justice. The question of the Shah's character and what his monarchy brought to Iran can never be resolved to the satisfaction of all parties. But many diplomats throughout the world would agree that, as a starting point in settling the current crisis, it would be fortunate if the Shah should proceed to Mexico or some other third country to continue his treatment and recuperation. Alternatively, suggests one prominent American expert on the Middle East, the Shah could help by renouncing, once and for all, his family's claim to the Peacock Throne. This expert believes the Shah might well be willing to make such a sacrifice as the price of staying in the U.S. If the embassy crisis can be resolved and the hostages are uninjured, it is still possible that the U.S. and Iran could restore limited relations. The present Iranian government wants to sell the 77 U.S.-built F-14 jet fighters that the Shah bought for his air force. Contractual restrictions would prevent Iran from selling the planes to the Soviet Union, but it is likely that Iran could find a customer acceptable to the U.S. One possibility: Saudi Arabia. The sale of military spare parts could begin again. The U.S. still sells wheat and rice to Iran, and in time the sale of Iranian oil to the U.S. might be also resumed. If the crisis ends badly and any of the hostages are harmed, however, the U.S. will face a far more serious problem. Though the Administration has ruled out military intervention during the current impasse (there were naval exercises in the Persian Gulf last week, however), it might change its mind in the event of American casualties at the embassy. The Pentagon has advised that air raids, launched from carriers, could put the Iranian oilfields out of action for six months with a minimum of civilian injuries, but there has been no suggestion from any quarter that this would be a good course to follow. The resulting oil shortage would hurt U.S. allies more than it would hurt Iran—and would drive world oil prices through the roof. Another possibility would be a Government embargo on all trade with Iran, including food, but Carter would use the food weapon only as a last resort. Summarizing the planning difficulties, an Administration official noted last week: "The difference between minimum and maximum punishment is not all that great. This is very tough to calibrate." What worries many governments at the moment, apart from the impasse at the American embassy, is that Iran appears to be slipping ever closer to chaos. Using Khomeini as a cover, extremists of the left are trying to reinforce their position, thereby setting the scene for possible civil war. The Ayatullah Khomeini, old and ailing, does not understand modern statecraft, diplomacy or administration. Jimmy Carter does not know how to deal with him; neither does anybody else. Says a European diplomat: "What can you do when faced with a mad geriatric case?" Yet this remarkable old man, and he alone, seems to possess the power to preserve his volatile country from total anarchy—and to free the rest of the American hostages in Tehran.

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*;One intrepid entrepreneur, Joe Conforte, who runs the Mustang Ranch, a legalized bordello outside Reno, took advantage of the uproar to post a sign at his gates saying: "No more Iranian students will be permitted on these premises until the hostages are released."

Monday, Nov. 26, 1979 An Ideology of Martyrdom "Allahu akbar! Allahu akbar!" The Arabic pronouncement that "God is great" sustained the Iranian revolutionaries as they marched through the streets of Tehran in demonstrations against the Shah. The invocation was heard again as students attacked the U.S. embassy, and as mobs last week marched about the captured compound, demanding death for the hostages. To what extent was the student action—and the Ayatullah Khomeini's endorsement of it—in accordance with Islamic law? Experts differ. Zaki Badawi, Egyptian director of the Islamic Cultural Center in London, argues that "the demand for the return of the Shah to face trial in Iran is in agreement with Muslim law." Islam holds that "no one is above the law and law is supreme. If a crime is committed by a ruler, an emperor, he is as liable to punishment for it as the meanest and commonest of his subjects." As a precedent, one Cairo expert notes that in 1964 the late King Saud of Saudi Arabia was tried, deposed and banished by an Islamic court for conduct unbecoming a Muslim ruler—namely, drinking, gambling and womanizing. Islamic scholars are virtually unanimous in condemning the seizure of the hostages as contrary to the Shari'a (Islamic canon law). Says Badawi: "There is no basis in Islam for this. Islam does not justify the taking of hostages, and it also clearly states that one person cannot be punished for the crimes of another." Egyptian President Anwar Sadat, a devout Muslim, has denounced Khomeini as a "lunatic" and forthrightiy condemned the seizure of the hostages. "This is not Islam," he said. "Islam teaches love, tolerance and mercy." One of the ranking experts on Islamic law, at Cairo's ancient Al Azhar University, charges that the Ayatullah's "evil hunger for the death of a sick man is a towering crime under Islamic law." Islam "considers any sick or dying person with extreme humility," he says. Rouhollah Ramanzani, an Iranian scholar teaching at the University of Virginia, points out that according to the Islamic code, "if an undesirable individual enters into the Muslim domain, then that person must be protected and escorted to the boundaries of that domain to let him out safely." Most authorities doubted that the students would physically harm the hostages, or that Khomeini would tolerate their torture or death. Says Thomas Ricks, an Iranian expert at Georgetown University: "Nothing in Islam could justify the slaughter of the hostages, and it is unthinkable that the captors would do so, unless they were threatened by an outside attack." Professor Hamid Algar of the University of California at Berkeley notes that the Shari'a permits both the exchange of hostages and their unilateral release by captors. He also observes, however, that "one tradition is that hostages may be kept permanently." Islamic authorities point out that the vast majority of Iranians are Shi'ite Muslims, who have what one student in Tehran describes as an "ideology of martyrdom and expectation." Says Berkeley's Algar: "The Shi'ites are given to martyrdom—to defy the whole world. In the Shi'ite mind there is no compromise." Far more than in the dominant Sunni branch, the tenets of Islam can be and are used by Shi'ites to obtain political

objectives. This is particularly true in Iran, where the ayatullahs and mullahs have a long tradition of calling on the faith as a weapon against secular rulers in Tehran or unwanted foreign influences. Says Jean Calmard, a French expert on Shi'ism: "Once again the religious leaders are adapting Islamic rules to serve political ends." Sadat puts it more strongly: "I feel both angry and sad at what Khomeini is doing in Iran, because he is in flagrant violation of all Islamic principle. He is using Islam to exploit himself. He hides behind the students. He takes advantage of them and he deceives them into committing crimes for which there is no justification in Islam." Monday, Jan. 7, 1980 Portrait of an Ascetic Despot An earthy sense of justice, an all-embracing code of behavior There is no room for play in Islam. It is deadly serious about everything. Khomeini in speech at Qum All Western governments are just thieves. Nothing but evil comes from them. Khomeini counseling supporters The nation voted for the Islamic Republic, and everyone should obey. If you do not obey, you will be annihilated. Khomeini denouncing opponents Arogant and pious. Stubborn and vengeful. Humorless and inflexible. Ascetic and power hungry. These are some of the adjectives that experts on Iran use to describe the Ayatullah Ruhollah Khomeini. Much as his principles differ from those of the Shah, some analysts believe, Khomeini has many things in common with the deposed ruler—most notably, a sense of having been divinely ordained to guide and govern Iran. Marvin Zonis, director of the Center for Middle Eastern Studies at the University of Chicago, notes that the Ayatullah "has more titles now than the Shah ever had: Savior of the Generations, Defeater of the Oppressors, Imam of the Age." Zonis believes , that the Ayatullah and the Shah "are a lot alike as leaders. Neither is particularly intelligent, but each is shrewd and cunning. Each is determined to impose his views on the Iranian people. Khomeini is ending up the same kind of ruler that the Shah was—namely grandiose, arrogant, despotic." Khomeini is not a man given to self-doubt. Through 64 years of philosophical study and teaching, inclduing almost 15 years of exile, and now a year of adulation and power in his homeland, the Ayatullah has been wholly consistent—and totally unbending. Why not? In his own mind he speaks not for himself but for God, whose precepts never change. Says Richard Cottam of the University of Pittsburgh, one of the few American scholars who have held long conversations with Khomeini: "The trouble in talking to him is that you always run up against a wall called God."

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Khomeini and the world outside Iran have spent most of 1979 glaring past each other in mutual incomprehension. The barriers to understanding go well beyond the Ayatullah's lack of interest in explaining himself to foreigners. He spent most of his life in obscurity; he was an enigma even to many of the theological students who presumably knew him best. Some of the most basic facts about his life are matters of conjecture, largely because Khomeini regards such personal details as unimportant. It is not known whether his birth date is actually May 17, 1900, as Tehran newspapers assert, or whether his wife of 50 years—Quesiran, or Khadijah, as different spellings have it—is his first or second spouse. Almost all Western translations of his basic prerevolutionary teachings are of doubtful authenticity or accuracy. In particular, a howlingly funny French translation of some of his remarks—dealing with, among other things, the proper attitude of Muslims toward the meat of a camel that has been sodomized—is composed of random pronouncements from a thick book, deliberately excerpted out of context to make the Ayatullah look ridiculous. But from discussions with former students, talks with Western scholars who have visited Khomeini, profiles prepared by Western intelligence analysts, and the speeches and interviews he has given during his year on the world stage, it is possible to gain some insight into the Ayatullah's thinking. First and foremost, all sources agree, he is an Islamic mystic who believes that God tells him directly how to apply the principles of the Koran and the Shari'a (Islamic law) to life and politics. For Khomeini, the essence of the mystic attitude is detachment—serenity in accepting and preaching God's will. He does feel emotion; intimates insist that with students and his family, he weeps, laughs and even cracks jokes. In public, however, Khomeini will not permit himself to display joy, sorrow, rage or any other emotion. His angriest words are delivered in a soft, uninflected voice that seldom rises above a murmur. And what is it that Khomeini's God commands? An allembracing code of behavior. Says Chicago's Zonis, who is preparing an English translation of one of the Ayatullah's major works: "It is a rigorous, minute, specific codification of the way to behave in every conceivable circumstance, from defecation to urination to sexual intercourse to eating to cleaning the teeth. Khomeini does give attention to human frailties; he says, in essence, 'If you don't do it this way, well, if you feel bad, that's okay.' But the scheme is appallingly oppressive to us Westerners, in that there is a right way and a wrong way to do everything." As in personal routines, so in politics: to Khomeini the only just state is one ruled by Islamic theologians, who alone can be trusted to interpret God's commands correctly. There is no separation of church and state, or division between sacred and secular, in Islamic teaching. The Ayatullah, however, carries his theocratic vision much farther than most other Muslim scholars by insisting on the clergy's duty, not just to pass moral judgment on the acts of government, but to rule the state directly—a concept enshrined in the constitution that Iran adopted last month. The ideal Islamic government, Khomeini has declared many times, was the five-year reign over the Arabian peninsula of Muhammad's son-in-law Ah', who died in A.D. 661. Khomeini's zeal for theocracy has led to the charge that he is seeking to drag Iran back to the Middle

Ages. One scholar argues instead that the Ayatullah is something of an innovator in his application of the Shari'a to contemporary situations. Certainly his justification of the students' seizure of the hostages has no precedent in Muslim jurisprudence. Although he can be mysteriously vague about programmatic approaches to specific political and economic issues, Khomeini has a social philosophy that Hamid Enayat of Oxford sums up in this manner: "The country should be content with a simple way of life. His ascetic example should be the standard for all Iran." Says an American scholar: "He has an earthy sense of justice. He is for private property, cheap'meat and electricity and plenty of water. That makes him an Iranian populist. He has a George Wallace sense of how people think." Khomeini is not opposed to Western technology. Indeed, he has used it shrewdly—first in distributing cassette tapes of his anti-Shah sermons throughout Iran before the revolution, more recently by exploiting television to maintain his popularity with the people. He has read deeply in early Greek philosophy and can discuss Aristotle with animated admiration; Iran's new constitution is an Islamic version of Plato's Republic, with Khomeini as philosopher-king. His peers, however, generally believe that on matters of Islamic scholarship he is less profound than some of his fellow ayatullahs—notably Seyed Kazem Sharietmadari. Numerous Western scholars who have spoken to him have been shocked by his ignorance of modern life. He knows little of the non-Muslim world, and regards it with morbid suspicion. Ignorance and mystic certitude can be a dismaying combination. Some of Khomeini's preachments sound bizarre and even irrational to Western ears. He has justified polygamy, for example, on the ground that there are more women than men in the world, and that women without the protection of multiple marriages would be driven into prostitution. He asserts that the Shah's soldiers, who fired into crowds during the Iranian revolution, were imported Israelis dressed up in Iranian army uniforms; they must have been, he says because Muslims do not kill fellow Muslims. His vivid denunciations of assorted opponents as "devils" and "agents of Satan" have persuaded some American politicians that Khomeini is—in the words of Egypt's Anwar Sadat —"a lunatic." Not so, conclude most Iranian scholars. "I don't think he's crazy," says Columbia University Historian Richard Bulliet. "Most of his decisions have been taken quite logically as a consequence of his perception of the popular will." Richard Falk, professor of international relations and foreign policy at Princeton, concurs: "When he seems the most crazy to us, he appears most exemplary to the Iranian people. That suggests you would have to say all of Iran is crazy." Mehdi Haeri, a onetime student of Khomeini's who now teaches at Georgetown University, feels that Khomeini has changed over the years: "He's more militant now. He's more stubborn, less flexible, less subtle." As they try to analyze Khomeini from a distance, some Western intelligence sources conclude that he is an authoritarian personality who thinks almost totally in black-and-white terms, has only a limited tactical flexibility and is unlikely to tolerate any challenge to his power. He has strong narcissistic traits and reacts to threats by demagogy. But Khomeini is capable of backing away, albeit reluctantly, when his goals cannot be accomplished immediately. During the Tehran government's military campaign against the Kurds last

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spring, he denounced the separatist leaders as corrupt men deserving of punishment. Later he sanctioned negotiations to allow for some form of Kurdish autonomy. After mass protests he modified his rule that women must wear the chador to one requiring merely "modest dress"—even though he fumed to Italian Journalist Oriana Fallaci about "the coquettes who put on makeup and go into the street showing off their necks, their hair, their shapes." In the hostage crisis, some Western analysts believe, Khomeini is torn two ways. He seized on the Shah's admittance to the U.S. for medical treatment as a heaven-sent opportunity to focus all popular discontent and criticism on two hated scapegoats, the deposed monarch and the Americans, and incited a wave of fury that culminated in the seizure of the U.S. embassy. (Some intelligence sources think that the Ayatullah genuinely feared the Shah might die of cancer before Khomeini could exact his revenge.) But Khomeini did not think through the consequences, and—implausible though it now seems—may actually be looking for a way out. According to this analysis, Khomeini recognizes that the wave of anarchy unloosed in Iran by the violent emotions of the confrontation with the U.S. is a threat to his dream of an Islamic republic, the establishment of which is his overriding goal. At the same time, he will not accept any settlement that would appear to be a defeat. If he feels totally boxed in, he just might seek an outlet in national martyrdom, by provoking the U.S. to military action. In Qum, Khomeini lives as an unassuming man of God. In his sparsely furnished house, he is surrounded by the cheerful noise and confusion of a typical Middle Eastern home. He evidently enjoys the company of his 14 grandchildren. He is said to have a weak heart, has suffered from a form of undulant fever and can work for only a few hours a day. Still he performs the devout Muslim's daily ritual of prayer without visible effort. He subsists on a sparse diet of rice, bean curd, yogurt and raw onions, supplemented now and then by a slice of melon or a bit of mutton. There are some signs that power has begun to intoxicate him. He has admitted enjoying the adulation of the crowds, and he took personal command of the government, though he had originally said he would not, apparently because he decided no one else could be trusted to carry out God's will. Another Iranian ayatullah has observed that Khomeini, because of his long career in opposition to the Shah, is "a good wrecker but a bad builder." Indeed, Khomeini's Islamic state is planned and governed in conditions of primitive chaos. Ambassadors and government ministers as well as peasant petitioners wait for their audiences in an antechamber lit by a naked bulb hanging from the ceiling. Two mullahs stand guard over the residence's only link to the outside world: four single-line telephones. The mullahs or Khomeini's son Seyyed Ahmed, about 35, handle all the calls; the Ayatullah does not deign to use this modern invention. That disdain could well stand as a symbol of the Ayatullah's whole rule, which aims at creating, to ward the end of the 20th century, a modern version of his ideal 7th century state. In one sense he has succeeded: Iran is undoubtedly the only major nation that is ruled by a mystic philosopher-king sitting cross-legged on the floor of a bare room in a dusty provincial town. Monday, Jan. 7, 1980 "People Are Scared to Death"

There are still pop songs, peddlers and even discos, but life is much changed Clustered around the kebab and hamburger stalls behind Lala (formerly Farah) Park in downtown Tehran, young members of the postrevolutionary jet set are smoking a little hash and swaying to the music of Gougoush and Shoreh, two Western-style pop singers who have been barred from performing in public by the Khomeini regime. Elsewhere in the downtown area, near Mellat Park on a street that bears the nickname "Hippiabad," vendors sell Top Ten tunes on cassettes, blasting out their wares on expensive Japanese tape decks. In an apartment in North Tehran, at a birthday party for a well-known singer, champagne and Scotch flow as freely as they did in the days before prohibition was imposed last winter. Such scenes in Tehran are vivid reminders that two worlds coexist uneasily in Iran today. The first, the political world of the revolution, is currently focused on the U.S. embassy, where the crowds—smaller than they were a few weeks ago—still gather to shout antiAmerican slogans and epithets of Islamic fervor, especially when cameramen are on hand. This world also includes the universities and technical schools, the late-night meetings of the supreme Revolutionary Council, the intraoffice struggles within many government ministries and the intense rivalry between the new Pasdaran revolutionary militia and the now eclipsed armed forces. Surprisingly, the cataclysmic events of the past year have not drastically affected a second world that includes millions of Iranians, both city dwellers and peasants, who are struggling to maintain a semblance of normality in their lives. Tehran's traffic, which may be the worst in the world, is as bad as ever, and so is the smog. Most people still go to work and shop at corner groceries or reasonably well-stocked supermarkets. Their children still go to school, although classroom discipline is poor after a year of revolution. In the suburbs of North Tehran, people still line up to eat in a Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant (whose English-language signs, following a franchise dispute, now read simply FRIED CHICKEN). It is still possible to buy certain foreign-made luxury items, such as French perfume, that have been smuggled in from Europe. Sidewalk vendors with boiled sugar beets, pistachio nuts and sunflower seeds still do business in the streets. Peddlers hawk everything from blue jeans to plastic kitchen utensils. Even some discotheques continue to operate, illegally but discreetly, serving soda instead of booze. But there is a flourishing black market in liquor: Scotch, bootlegged from Iraq, sells for $60 to $90 a bottle and moonshine vodka from $15 to $30. A few items are in short supply. The government has banned the import of new cars, and spare parts for old ones are scarce. "Our people have learned to live under seemingly impossible conditions," notes a history teacher. Thus many of the people who trumpet their willingness to undergo "martyrdom" are also hoarding essential commodities as rumors of imminent scarcity spread. "I am ready to die for Iran and Islam," says a Tehran carpenter who has stockpiled about 100 packets of detergent powder in his bedroom. "In the meantime," he explains, "I prefer to have clean linen." Most essential imports, including food, that were formerly bought from the U.S. now come from other countries — wheat and beef from Australia, rice from Pakistan and Thailand, eggs and poultry from Turkey and Rumania.

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Nonetheless, daily life in Tehran is full of reminders of changes wrought by the revolution. Besides the new paper money, there are old bills in circulation that bear the likeness of the deposed Shah; on some notes his image has been overprinted with Islamic designs. Television carries the occasional old American and European movie but devotes most of its programming to news coverage of demonstrations, speeches by Khomeini and the like. Every night, as part of the "mobilization" of 20 million Iranian youths, TV audiences are given instruction in how to operate an automatic rifle or a submachine gun. A year ago, the staple fare in Iranian moviehouses consisted of the latest releases from the West, including a generous dollop of soft-core porn. Today strict censorship prevails, and the sellouts are movies with revolutionary, and preferably anti-American, themes. A big current hit is State of Siege, Costa Gavras' 1973 indictment of CIA activities in a Latin American country, for which Tehran moviegoers are paying ticket scalpers three times the regular admission price of $1.25. Iranians can also see occasional features produced by their own flourishing film industry, which until recently was noted mostly for its output of erotica but is now in the business of dramatizing the revolution. Pressure from Islamic extremists forced Tehran's two leading daily newspapers to close down last May. They were replaced by papers more openly committed to the Khomeini line. Officially, however, freedom of the press is not curtailed, and kiosks still sell American and European magazines (including TIME, despite the expulsion of its correspondents) as well as the International Herald Tribune. There are also several lively opposition publications. One of the most critical of the revolution, though not of Khomeini himself, is Khalq Musalman, organ of the Muslim Peoples' Republican Party, which is supported by the moderate Ayatullah Seyed Kazem Sharietmadari. In the immediate aftermath of the revolution, Iranian women went on the offensive to protect the rights they had gained during the Shah's regime. Led largely by educated, middle-class women, street demonstrations protested Khomeini's attempts to revive the chador. The women won their point: the chador remained optional. Even so, Iranian women wearing Western dress on the streets are sometimes subject to insults and harassment. Whether the rights of women are sufficiently protected under the new constitution is a major issue. The constitution approved last month abolished a 1967 law that restricted the number of wives a man could have by making additional marriages conditional upon the consent of his first wife. In effect, this clause had abolished polygamy in Iran. The new laws permit an Iranian man to have four wives if he is capable of treating them all equally; since that judgment is left to the man himself to decide, it is obviously not enforceable. Previous legislation also gave women the same divorce rights as their husbands, as well as the possibility of being granted custody of their children in the event of a separation. No longer. In questions of custody, all males of both sides of a family, including the wife's own uncle, now take precedence over the wife as potential legal guardians. Upper-class women in particular feel that their career hopes will be curtailed by the revolution. Says one elementary school teacher: "Women are being thrown out of their jobs on all manner of pretexts and being replaced by men. The only reason I'm still employed is

that only reason I'm still employed is that there is an extreme shortage of teachers." A housewife with four children acidly sums up Khomeini's vision of female life: "We are supposed to be good mothers and then go to heaven. Very holy but not very practical." If Iranian city dwellers have a serious common complaint, it is that the revolution has led to a sharp slowdown in the economy. Few factories are operating anywhere near capacity. Most privately owned companies have been taken over by the government-run Mostazafin Foundation, which inherited the assets of the deposed Shah's Pahlavi Foundation, or are being run by workers' councils. For the most part, these councils have shown themselves to be short on management skills and quick to vote themselves wage increases, fringe benefits and reduced working hours. Hardest hit is the construction industry, which has come to an almost total halt. Dozens of huge apartment complexes in Tehran stand unfinished. One example of the pervasive industrial malaise is the Melli shoe factory, which used to export 11 million pairs of shoes a year to the Soviet bloc. Production at the Melli plant, now run by production at the Melli plant, now run by a workers' council, is down to 2 million pairs a year, scarcely enough for domestic consumption. The council claims that the problem is lack of spare parts and materials; the real problem is the council's ineptitude. In Khuzistan, the big agribusinesses have been split into small-acreage plots by revolutionary farm workers, and production has dropped. Elsewhere in the countryside, farmers have grabbed land belonging to "feudal lords." Ironically, some feudal families, in the name of the revolution, have forcibly reclaimed land that had been distributed to peasant farmers during the Shah's reign. To reduce urban unemployment, the new regime is pressing a "return to the village" policy, hoping to send back to the farms some of the millions of peasants who migrated to cities during the past generation. Tehran officials tend to scoff at Washington's recent prediction that as the result of U.S. economic pressures, Iranians this winter would be "cold and hungry." Boasts Iran's Oil Minister Ali Akhbar Moinfar: "When you have oil revenues of $80 million or $90 million a day, you can always do business." Moinfar insists that the U.S. embargo on sales of oil equipment to Iran will not be insurmountable because "we have had no difficulty buying whatever we want through third par ties." As for reports that the departure of foreign technicians has caused problems in the oil industry, Moinfar declares: "I have piles of applications on my desk from experts who are eager to return." Despite such official optimism, it is obvious that many Iranians are very nervous about their future. "In the bazaar, nobody will give anybody credit any more," says Siamak Akha-van, a young businessman who runs his family's steel-importing company from the Tehran bazaar. "The system usually operates on a man's word. These days only cash works." The banks, suffering from a loss of both talented employees and nerve, have curtailed credit. "Most of them don't even have a manager," complains Akhavan, who predicts that "we are going to have to live with 100% inflation." (The present rate is 25%.) Still, Akhavan is hopeful that the Islamic republic will be sufficiently flexible in its policies to revive the economy.

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One significant change that the revolution brought to Iran has been the altered role of the armed forces. Like so many of the Shah's monuments—the industrial complexes that now stand idle, the telecommunications system that no longer works flawlessly—the army has found its role curtailed. In November, when the central government fought off a thrust for autonomy by Kurdish rebels, it did so by sending to Kurdistan a specially formed division made up of army and air force units. Why not a regular army division? Either because the army did not have a unit that was deemed capable of doing the job, or because the government does not altogether trust the army. Suspicion that the army has not yet proved its loyalty is a basic motive behind the formation of the Pasdaran (literally, Guardians), the revolutionary militia. The army was entrusted with the task of training and equipping the Pasdaran, an assignment the army deeply resented for two reasons: the army itself faced a shortage of equipment and a cutback in supplies, while the Pasdaran had a seemingly limitless budget. Army leaders did not hide their satisfaction when the Pasdaran, basically an urban force, fared badly in mountain warfare against the Kurds. The army, by contrast, refused to be drawn into hit-and-run encounters with the insurgents. The rivalry between the army and the Pasdaran has not deterred the revolutionary regime from its aim of setting up an independent force whose loyalty is beyond question. Pasdaran units were flown to Tabriz from Tehran last month to quell unrest in Azerbaijan. At last count, the Pasdaran numbered about 20,000, or roughly two-thirds of its planned total strength. The army is also suffering from a drastic drop in discipline. Top-ranking officers have been retired (or in some cases executed), and a mullah who acts as a kind of spiritual commisar has been attached to every unit down to the battalion level. Says a young soldier: "In the Shah's army, if you did not obey your officers, you were punished. Today you can argue with them because many of them are afraid to punish you." In addition, the break with the U.S. has halted the flow of spare parts and has deprived Iran's armed forces of essential U.S. maintenance crews. As a result, a good proportion of the $10.3 billion worth of military hardware purchased by the Shah in the past decade is out of service. The strengthening of the Pasdaran may be good for the Khomeini regime's internal security, but the weakening of the army does not bode well for the survival of a nation afflicted by powerful autonomy movements. Last week, as the first real snowfall of the winter fell on Tehran, the mood of the capital was one of unease. Remarked a businessman: "Any impression that life is normal is purely an illusion. The professionals, the government people, the idea men who keep a country moving are all scared to death." A university professor agreed. Said he: "Nobody I know expects things to go on this way much longer. But neither does anybody have any idea which way things are going to blow." The well-to-do of North Tehran are adapting to the strange new realities, but not without a sense of bitter irony. An Iranian exile in Los Angeles recalls a recent telephone talk with a friend who is still in Tehran. "How are things going?" he asked. "Well, it's all right," she answered grimly. "We have very slim figures because there is no vegetable oil or margarine, and fortunately we don't have too much meat, which is bad for the body anyway. The mullahs have done so much good for us. We don't need to eat, really, and since

we're devout Muslims who are supposed to abstain and fast, we do abstain and fast. Anyway, what's the good in going to parties? What's the good in dancing or wanting to be in the company of others? Why don't we just sit at home and read the Koran? Our Arabic has become so good lately, and we know the Koran by heart. I really read that holy book every night." Monday, Jan. 7, 1980 The Mystic Who Lit The Fires of Hatred Iran's Ayatullah Khomeini seized his nation and shook all Islam The dour old man of 79 shuffles in his heelless slippers to the rooftop and waves apathetically to crowds that surround his modest home in the holy city of Qum. The hooded eyes that glare out so balefully from beneath his black turban are often turned upward, as if seeking inspiration from on high—which, as a religious mystic, he indeed is. To Iran's Shi'ite Muslim laity, he is the Imam, an ascetic spiritual leader whose teachings are unquestioned. To hundreds of millions of others, he is a fanatic whose judgments are harsh, reasoning bizarre and conclusions surreal. He is learned in the ways of Shari'a (Islamic law) and Platonic philosophy, yet astonishingly ignorant of and indifferent to non-Muslim culture. Rarely has so improbable a leader shaken the world. Yet in 1979 the lean figure of the Ayatullah Ruhollah Khomeini towered malignly over the globe. As the leader of Iran's revolution he gave the 20th century world a frightening lesson in the shattering power of irrationality, of the ease with which terrorism can be adopted as government policy. As the new year neared, 50 of the American hostages seized on Nov. 4 by a mob of students were still inside the captured U.S. embassy in Tehran, facing the prospect of being tried as spies by Khomeini's revolutionary courts. The Ayatullah, who gave his blessing to the capture, has made impossible and even insulting demands for the hostages' release: that the U.S. return deposed Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi to Iran for trial and no doubt execution, even though the Shah is now in Panama; that America submit to a trial of its "crimes" against Iran before an international "grand jury" picked by Khomeini's aides. He claimed that Iran had every legal and moral right to try America's hostage diplomats, an action that would defy a decision of the World Court, a vote of the U.N. Security Council and one of the most basic rules of accommodation between civilized nations. The Ayatullah even insisted, in an extraordinary interview with TIME (see page 26), that if Americans wish to have good relations with Iran they must vote Jimmy Carter out of office and elect instead a President that Khomeini would find "suitable." Unifying a nation behind such extremist positions is a remarkable achievement for an austere theologian who little more than a year ago was totally unknown in the West he now menaces. But Khomeini's carefully cultivated air of mystic detachment cloaks an iron will, an inflexible devotion to simple ideas that he has preached for decades, and a finely tuned instinct for articulating the passions and rages of his people. Khomeini is no politician in the Western sense, yet he possesses the most awesome—and ominous —of political gifts: the ability to rouse millions to both adulation and fury. Khomeini's importance far transcends the nightmare of the embassy seizure, transcends indeed the overthrow of the Shah of Iran. The revolution that he led to triumph

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threatens to upset the world balance of power more than any political event since Hitler's conquest of Europe. It was unique in several respects: a successful, mostly nonviolent revolt against a seemingly entrenched dictator, it owed nothing to outside help or even to any Western ideology. The danger exists that the Iranian revolution could become a model for future uprisings throughout the Third World—and not only its Islamic portion. Non-Muslim nations too are likely to be attracted by the spectacle of a rebellion aimed at expelling all foreign influence in the name of xenophobic nationalism. Already the flames of anti-Western fanaticism that Khomeini fanned in Iran threaten to spread through the volatile crescent of crisis that stretches across the southern flank of the Soviet Union, from the Indian subcontinent to Turkey and southward through the Arabian Peninsula to the Horn of Africa. Most, particularly, the revolution that turned Iran into an Islamic republic whose supreme law is the Koran is undermining the stability of the Middle East, a region that supplies more than half of the Western world's imported oil, a region that stands at the strategic crossroads of superpower competition. As an immediate result, the U.S., Western Europe and Japan face continuing inflation and rising unemployment, brought on, in part, by a disruption of the oil trade. Beyond that looms the danger of U.S.Soviet confrontation. Washington policymakers, uncertain about the leftist impulses of Iran's ubiquitous "students" —and perhaps some members of Iran's ruling Revolutionary Council—fear that the country may become a new target of opportunity for Soviet adventurism. The Kremlin leaders in turn must contend with the danger that the U.S.S.R.'s 50 million Muslims could be aroused by Khomeini's incendiary Islamic nationalism. Yet if the Soviets chose to take advantage of the turmoil in Iran as they have intervened in neighboring Afghanistan, the U.S. would have to find some way of countering such aggression. Khomeini thus poses to the U.S. a supreme test of both will and strategy. So far his hostage blackmail has produced a result he certainly did not intend: a surge of patriotism that has made the American people more united than they have been on any issue in two decades. The shock of seeing the U.S. flag burned on the streets of Tehran, or misused by embassy attackers to carry trash, has jolted the nation out of its self-doubting "Viet Nam syndrome." Worries about America's ability to influence events abroad are giving way to anger about impotence; the country now seems willing to exert its power. But how can that power be brought to bear against an opponent immune to the usual forms of diplomatic, economic and even military pressure, and how can it be refined to deal with others in the Third World who might rise to follow Khomeini's example? That may be the central problem for U.S. foreign policy throughout the 1980s. The outcome of the present turmoil in Iran is almost totally unpredictable. It is unclear how much authority Khomeini, or Iran's ever changing government, exerts over day-to-day events. Much as Khomeini has capitalized on it, the seizure of the U.S. embassy tilted the balance in Iran's murky revolutionary politics from relative moderates to extremists who sometimes seem to listen to no one; the militants at the embassy openly sneer at government ministers, who regularly contradict one another. The death of Khomeini, who has no obvious successor, could plunge the country into anarchy.

But one thing is certain: the world will not again look quite the way it did before Feb. 1, 1979, the day on which Khomeini flew back to a tumultuous welcome in Tehran after 15 years in exile. He thus joins a handful of other world figures whose deeds are debatable—or worse—but who nonetheless branded a year as their own. In 1979 the Ayatullah Ruhollah Khomeini met TIME'S definition of Man of the Year: he was the one who "has done the most to change the news, for better or for worse." Apart from Iran and its fallout, 1979 was a year of turmoil highlighted by an occasional upbeat note: hopeful stirrings that offset to a degree the continuing victories of the forces of disruption (see page 34). On a spectacular visit to his homeland of Poland and to the U.S., Ireland and Mexico, Pope John Paul II demonstrated that he was a man whose warmth, dignity and radiant humanity deeply affected even those who did not share his Roman Catholic faith. Despite his rigidly orthodox approach to doctrinal issues, the Pope's message of peace, love, justice and concern for the poor stirred unprecedented feelings of brotherhood. The election of Conservative Party Leader Margaret Thatcher as Prime Minister of Britain was perhaps the most notable sign that many voters in Europe were disillusioned with statist solutions and wanted a return to more conservative policies. At year's end her government could claim one notable diplomatic success. Under the skillful guidance of Thatcher's Foreign Secretary, Lord Carrington, leaders of both the interim Salisbury government and the Patriotic Front guerrillas signed an agreement that promised—precariously—to end a seven-year-old civil war and provide a peaceful transition to genuine majority rule in Zimbabwe Rhodesia. There were other indications of growing rationality in Africa, as three noxious dictators who had transformed their nations into slaughterhouses fell from power: Idi Amin was ousted from Uganda, Jean Bédal Bokassa from the Central African Empire (now Republic), and Francisco Macias Nguema from Equatorial Guinea. Southeast Asia, though, as it has for so long, endured a year of war, cruelty and famine. Peking and Moscow jockeyed for influence in the area. China briefly invaded Viet Nam and then withdrew, achieving nothing but proving once again that Communists have their own explosive quarrels. Hanoi's Soviet-backed rulers expelled hundreds of thousands of its ethnic Chinese citizens, many of whom drowned at sea; survivors landed on the shores of nations that could not handle such onslaughts of refugees. In Cambodia, the Vietnamesebacked regime of Heng Samrin was proving little better than the maniacal Chinese-supported dictatorship of Pol Pot that it had deposed. Hundreds of thousands of Cambodians still faced death by starvation or disease as the year ended, despite huge relief efforts organized by the outside world. In the U.S., 1979 was a year of indecision and frustration. Inflation galloped to an annual rate of 13% and stayed there, all but impervious to attacks by the Carter Administration. The burden of containing inflation eventually fell on the shoulders of new Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker. His tough fiscal measures, including higher interest rates and a clampdown on the money supply, do promise to restrain price boosts—but only after a distressing time lag, and at the cost of making more severe a recession that the U.S. seemed headed for anyway in 1980. President Carter's energy program at last began staggering through Congress, but a near disaster at Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania raised legitimate questions—as well as much unnecessary hysteria—about how safe and

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useful nuclear power will be as a partial substitute for the imported oil that the eruption in Iran will help make ever more costly. The conclusion of a SALT II agreement with the Soviet Union—more modest in scope than many Americans had urged, but basically useful to the U.S.—led to congressional wrangling that raised doubts about whether the Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty will even be ratified in 1980. The SALT debate put a substantial strain on U.S.-Soviet relations, which were deteriorating for lots of other reasons as well. For much of the year, Carter appeared so ineffective a leader that his seeming weakness touched off an unprecedentedly early and crowded scramble to succeed him. Ten Republicans announced as candidates for the party's 1980 presidential nomination; at year's end, however, the clear favorite was the man who had done or said hardly anything, Ronald Reagan. On the Democratic side, Senator Edward Kennedy overcame his reservations and declared his candidacy, but early grass-roots enthusiasm about his "leadership qualities" dissipated in the face of his lackluster campaigning, his astonishing incoherence, and his failure to stake out convincingly different positions on the issues. At year's end Carter was looking much stronger, primarily because his firm yet restrained response to Iran's seizure of hostages led to a classic popular reaction: Let's rally round the President in a crisis. None of these trends could match in power and drama, or in menacing implications for the future, the eruption in Iran. A year ago, in its cover story on 1978's Man of the Year, Chinese Vice Premier Deng Xiaoping, TIME noted that "the Shah of Iran's 37-year reign was shaken by week upon week of riots." Shortly thereafter, the Shah fell in one of the greatest political upheavals of the post-World War II era, one that raised troubling questions about the ability of the U.S. to guide or even understand the seething passions of the Third World. Almost to the very end, the conventional wisdom of Western diplomats and journalists was that the Shah would survive; after all, he had come through earlier troubles seemingly strengthened. In 1953 the Shah had actually fled the country. But he was restored to power by a CIA-inspired coup that ousted Mohammed Mossadegh, the nationalist Prune Minister who had been TIME'S Man of the Year for 1951 because he had "oiled the wheels of chaos." In 1963 Iran had been swept by riots stirred up by the powerful Islamic clergy against the Shah's White Revolution. Among other things, this well-meant reform abolished the feudal landlord-peasant system. Two consequences: the reform broke up properties administered by the Shi'ite clergy and reduced their income, some of which consisted of donations from large landholders. The White Revolution also gave the vote to women. The Shah suppressed those disturbances without outside help, in part by jailing one of the instigators —an ascetic theologian named Ruhollah Khomeini, who had recently attained the title of Ayatullah* and drawn crowds to fiery sermons in which he denounced the land reform as a fraud and the Shah as a traitor to Islam. In 1964 Khomeini was arrested and exiled, first to Turkey, then to Iraq, where he continued to preach against the idolatrous Shah and to promulgate his vision of Iran as an "Islamic republic." The preachments seemed to have little effect, as the Shah set about building the most thoroughly Westernized nation in all of the Muslim world. The progress achieved in a deeply backward country was stunning. Petroleum revenues built steel mills, nuclear power plants, telecommunication systems and a formidable

military machine, complete with U.S. supersonic fighters and missiles. Dissent was ruthlessly suppressed, in part by the use of torture in the dungeons of SAVAK, the secret police. It is still not clear how widespread the tortures and political executions were; but the Shah did not heed U.S. advice to liberalize his regime, and repression inflamed rather than quieted dissent. By 1978 the Shah had alienated almost all elements of Iranian society. Westernized intellectuals were infuriated by rampant corruption and repression; workers and peasants by the selective prosperity that raised glittering apartments for the rich while the poor remained in mud hovels; bazaar merchants by the Shah-supported businessmen who monopolized bank credits, supply contracts and imports; the clergy and their pious Muslim followers by the gambling casinos, bars and discothéques that seemed the most visible result of Westernization. (One of the Shah's last prime ministers also stopped annual government subsidies to the mullahs.) Almost everybody hated the police terror and sneered in private at the Shah's Ozymandian megalomania, symbolized by a $100 million fete he staged at Persepolis in 1971 to celebrate the 2,500 years of the Persian Empire. In fact, the Shah's father was a colonel in the army when he overthrew the Qajar dynasty in 1925, and as Khomeini pointed out angrily from exile at the time of the Persepolis festival, famine was raging in that part of the country. But the U.S. saw the Shah as a stable and valuable ally. Washington was annoyed by the Shah's insistence on raising oil prices at every OPEC meeting, yet that irritation was outweighed by the fact that the Shah was staunchly anti-Communist and a valuable balance wheel in Middle East politics. Eager to build up Iran as a "regional influential" that could act as America's surrogate policeman of the Persian Gulf, the U.S. lent the Shah its all-out support. President Richard Nixon and Secretary of State Henry Kissinger allowed him to buy all the modern weapons he wanted. Washington also gave its blessing to a flood of American business investment in Iran and dispatched an army of technocrats there. The depth of its commitment to the Shah apparently blinded Washington to the growing discontent. U.S. policymakers wanted to believe that their investment was buying stability and friendship; they trusted what they heard from the monarch, who dismissed all opposition as "the blah-blahs of armchair critics." Even after the revolution began, U.S. officials were convinced that "there is no alternative to the Shah." Carter took time out from the Camp David summit in September 1978 to phone the Iranian monarch and assure him of Washington's continued support. By then it was too late. Demonstrations and protest marches that started as a genuine popular outbreak grew by a kind of spontaneous combustion. The first parades drew fire from the Shah's troops, who killed scores and started a deadly cycle: marches to mourn the victims of the first riot, more snooting, more martyrs, crowds swelling into the hundreds of thousands and eventually millions in Tehran. Khomeini at this point was primarily a symbol of the revolution, which at the outset had no visible leaders. But even in exile the Ayatullah was well known inside Iran for his uncompromising insistence that the Shah must go. When demonstrators began waving the Ayatullah's picture, the frightened Shah pressured Iraq to boot Khomeini out. It was a fatal blunder; in October 1978 the Ayatullah settled in Neauphle-le-Château, outside Paris, where he

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gathered a circle of exiles and for the first time publicized his views through the Western press. Khomeini now became the active head of the revolution. Cassettes of his anti-Shah sermons sold like pop records in the bazaars and were played in crowded mosques throughout the country. When he called for strikes, his followers shut down the banks, the postal service, the factories, the food stores and, most important, the oil wells, bringing the country close to paralysis. The Shah imposed martial law, but to no avail. On Jan. 16, after weeks of daily protest parades, the Shah and his Empress flew off to exile, leaving a "regency council" that included Prime Minister Shahpour Bakhtiar, a moderate who had spent time in the Shah's prisons. But Khomeini announced that no one ruling in the Shah's name would be acceptable, and Iran was torn by the largest riots of the entire revolution. The Ayatullah returned from Paris to a tumultuous welcome and Bakhtiar fled. "The holy one has come!" the crowds greeting Khomeini shouted triumphantly. "He is the light of our lives!" The crush stalled the Ayatullah's motorcade, so that he had to be lifted out of the crowds, over the heads of his adulators, by helicopter. He was flown to a cemetery, where he prayed at the graves of those who had died during the revolution. Khomeini withdrew to the holy city of Qum, appointed a government headed by Mehdi Bazargan, an engineer by training and veteran of Mossadegh's Cabinet, and announced that he would confine his own role during "the one or two years left to me" to making sure that Iran followed "in the image of Muhammad." It quickly became apparent that real power resided in the revolutionary komitehs that sprang up all over the country, and the komitehs took orders only from the 15man Revolutionary Council headed by Khomeini (the names of its other members were long kept secret). Bazargan and his Cabinet had to trek to Qum for weekly lunches with Khomeini to find out what the Ayatullah would or would not allow. Some observers distinguish two stages in the entire upheaval: the first a popular revolt that overthrew the Shah, then a "Khomeini coup" that concentrated all power in the clergy. The Ayatullah's main instrument was a stream of elamiehs (directives) from Qum, many issued without consulting Bazargan's nominal government. Banks and heavy industry were nationalized and turned over to government managers. Many of the elamiehs were concerned with imposing a strict Islamic way of life on all Iranians. Alcohol was forbidden. Women were segregated from men in schools below the university level, at swimming pools, beaches and other public facilities. Khomeini even banned most music from radio and TV. Marches were acceptable, he told Italian Journalist Oriana Fallaci, but other Western music "dulls the mind, because it involves pleasure and ecstasy, similar to drugs." Fallaci: "Even the music of Bach, Beethoven, Verdi?" Khomeini: "I do not know those names." In power, Khomeini and his followers displayed a retaliatory streak. Islamic revolutionary courts condemned more than 650 Iranians to death, after trials at which defense lawyers were rarely, if ever, present, and spectators stepped forward to add their own accusations to those of the prosecutors; death sentences were generally carried out immediately by firing squad. An unknown but apparently large number of other Iranians were sentenced to life imprisonment. Khomeini preaches the mercy of God but showed little of his own to those executed, who were, he said, torturers and killers of the Shah's who got what they deserved.

Some were, including the generals and highest-ranking politicians, but the victims also included at least seven prostitutes, 15 men accused of homosexual rape, and a Jewish businessman alleged to be spying for Israel. Defenders of Khomeini's regime argue with some justification that far fewer people were condemned by the revolutionary courts than were tortured to death by the Shah's SAVAK, and that the swift trials were necessary to defuse public anger against the minions of the deposed monarch. As usually happens in revolutions, the forces of dissolution, once let loose, are not so easily tamed. Iran's economy suffered deeply, and unrest in at least three ethnic areas—those of the Kurds, the Azerbaijanis and the Baluchis—presented continuing threats to Tehran's, or Qum's, control. Many Western experts believe Khomeini shrewdly seized upon the students' attack on the U.S. embassy, which he applauded but claims he did not order, as a way of directing popular attention away from the country's increasing problems. It gave him once again a means of presenting all difficulties as having been caused by the U.S., to brand all his opponents—believers in parliamentary government, ethnic separatists, Muslims who questioned his interpretations of Islamic law—tools of the CIA. When the United Nations and the World Court condemned the seizure, he labeled these bodies stooges of the enemy. It was Iran against the world—indeed, all Islam against the "infidels." When Bazargan resigned to protest the capture of the hostages, the Ayatullah made the Revolutionary Council the government in name as well as fact. Then, during the holy month known as Muharram, with popular emotion at a frenzied height as a result of the confrontation with the U.S., Khomeini expertly managed a vote on a new constitution that turned Iran into a theocracy. Approved overwhelmingly in a Dec. 2-3 referendum, the constitution provided for an elected President and parliament, but placed above them a "guardian council" of devout Muslims to make sure that nothing the elected bodies do violates Islamic law. Atop the structure is a faqih (literally, jurisprudent), the leading theologian of Iran, who must approve of the President, holds veto power over virtually every act of government, and even commands the armed forces. Though the constitution does not name him, when it goes fully into effect after elections this month and in February, Khomeini obviously will become the faqih. How did the Ayatullah capture a revolution that started out as a leaderless explosion of resentment and hate? Primarily by playing adroitly to, and in part embodying, some of the psychological elements that made the revolt possible. There was, for example, a widespread egalitarian yearning to end the extremes of wealth and poverty that existed under the Shah —and the rich could easily be tarred as clients of the "U.S. imperialists." Partly because of the long history of Soviet, British and then American meddling in their affairs, Iranians were and are basically xenophobic, and thus susceptible to the Ayatullah's charges that the U.S. (and, of course, the CIA) was responsible for the country's ills. Iranians could also easily accept that kind of falsehood since they had grown used to living off gossip and rumor mills during the reign of the Shah, when the heavily censored press played down even nonpolitical bad news about Iran. When Khomeini declared that the Americans and Israelis were responsible for the November attack by Muslim fanatics on Mecca's Sacred Mosque, this deliberate lie was given instant credence by multitudes of Iranians.

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By far the most powerful influence that cemented Khomeini's hold on his country is the spirit of Shi'ism—the branch of Islam to which 93% of Iran's 35.2 million people belong. In contrast to the dominant Sunni wing of Islam, Shi'ism emphasizes martyrdom; thus many Iranians are receptive to Khomeini's speeches about what a "joy" and "honor" it would be to die in a war with the U.S. Beyond that, Shi'ism allows for the presence of an intermediary between God and man. Originally, the mediators were twelve imams, who Shi'ites believe were the rightful successors of the Prophet Muhammad; the twelfth disappeared in A.D. 940. He supposedly is in hiding, but will return some day to purify the religion and institute God's reign of justice on earth. This belief gives Shi'ism a strong messianic cast, to which Khomeini appeals when he promises to expel Western influence and to turn Iran into a pure Islamic society. The Ayatullah has never claimed the title of Imam for himself, but he has done nothing to discourage its use by his followers, a fact that annoys some of his peers among the Iranian clergy. Ayatullah Seyed Kazem Sharietmadari, Khomeini's most potent rival for popular reverence, has acidly observed that the Hidden Imam will indeed return, "but not in a Boeing 747"—a reference to the plane that carried Khomeini from France to Iran. Iran and Iraq are the main Muslim states where the majority of the population is Shi'ite; but there are substantial Shi'ite minorities in the Gulf states, Lebanon, Turkey and Saudi Arabia. Khomeini's followers have been sending these Shi'ites messages urging them to join in an uprising against Western influence. The power of Khomeini's appeal for a "struggle between Islam and the infidels" must not be underestimated. In these and many other Islamic countries, Western technology and education have strained the social structure and brought with them trends that seem like paganism to devout Muslims. In addition, Muslims have bitter memories of a century or more of Western colonialism that kept most Islamic countries in servitude until a generation ago, and they tend to see U.S. support of Israel as a continuation of this "imperialist" tradition. With Khomeini's encouragement, Muslims —not all of them Shi'ites—have staged anti-American riots in Libya, India and Bangladesh. In Islamabad, the capital of Pakistan, a mob burned the U.S. embassy and killed two U.S. servicemen; the Ayatullah's reaction was "great joy." In Saudi Arabia, possessor of the world's largest oil reserves, the vulnerability of the royal family was made starkly apparent when a band of 200 to 300 wellarmed raiders in November seized the Sacred Mosque in Mecca, the holiest of all Islamic shrines, which is under the protection of King Khalid. The raiders appeared to have mixed religious and political motives: they seemingly were armed and trained in Marxist South Yemen, but were fundamentalists opposed to all modernism, led by a zealot who had proclaimed the revolution in Iran to be a "new dawn" for Islam. It took the Saudi army more than a week to root them out from the catacomb-like basements of the mosque, and 156 died in the fighting—82 raiders and 74 Saudi troopers. In addition, demonstrators waving Khomeini's picture last month paraded in the oil towns of Saudi Arabia's Eastern Province. Saudi troops apparently opened fire on the protesters and at least 15 people are said to have died. Such rumblings have deeply shaken the nerves, if not yet undermined the stability, of governments throughout the Middle East. Leaders of the House of Saud regard Khomeini as an outright menace. Egypt's President Anwar Sadat denounced Khomeini as a man who is trying to play God and whose actions are a "crime against Islam [and]

an insult to humanity." Nonetheless, the Ayatullah's appeal to Muslims, Sunni as well as Shi'ite, is so strong that even pro-Western Islamic leaders have been reluctant to give the U.S. more than minimal support in the hostage crisis. They have explicitly warned Washington that any U.S. military strike on Iran, even one undertaken in retaliation for the killing of the hostages, would so enrage their people as to threaten the security of every government in the area. The appeal of Khomeini's Islamic fundamentalism to nonMuslim nations in the Third World is limited. Not so the wave of nationalism he unleashed in Iran. Warns William Quandt, senior fellow at the Brookings Institution: "People in the Third World were promised great gains upon independence [from colonialism], and yet they still find their lives and societies in a_ mess." Historically, such unfulfilled expectations prepare the ground for revolution, and the outbreak in Iran offers an example of an uprising that embodies a kind of nose-thumbing national pride. Selig Harrison, senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, says the overthrow of Iran's Shah "is appealing to the Third World as a nationalist revolution that has stood up to superpower influence. At the rational level, Third World people know that you cannot behave like Khomeini and they do not condone violation of diplomatic immunity. But at the emotional level, mass public opinion in many Third World countries is not unfriendly to what Khomeini has done. There is an undercurrent of satisfaction at seeing a country stand up to superpower influence." The Iranian revolution has also had a dramatic impact on Western economies. 1979 was the year in which the world economy moved from an era of recurrent oil surpluses into an age of chronic shortages. Indeed, it was a year in which the frequent warnings of pessimists that the industrial nations had made themselves dangerously dependent on crude oil imported from highly unstable countries came true with a vengeance. For more than three centuries the industrial West had prospered thanks partly to resources from colonies or quasicolonies. Now a great historical reversal was at hand. "If there had been no revolution in Iran," says John Lichtblau, executive director of the Petroleum Industry Research Foundation, "1979 would have been a normal year." The strikes that accompanied the revolution shut off Iranian production completely early in the year. Though output resumed in March, it ran most of the time at no more than 3.5 million bbl. a day—little more than half the level under the Shah. Khomeini made it clear that no more could be expected. In fact, Iranian output has dropped again in recent months, to around 3.1 million bbl. a day. Oil Minister Ali Akbar Moinfar says it will go down further because "at the new price levels, Iran will be able to produce and export less and still cover its revenue needs." The cutback in Iran reduced supplies to the nonCommunist world by about 4%. That was enough to produce a precarious balance between world supply and demand. Spot shortages cropped up, and the industrial West went through a kind of buyers' panic; governments and companies scrambled to purchase every drop available, to keep houses warm and the wheels of industry turning, and to build stockpiles to guard against the all-tooreal prospect of another shut down in Iran or a supply disruption somewhere else. The lid came off prices with a bang. OPEC raised prices during 1979 by an average of

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94.7%, to $25 a bbl.—vs. $12.84 a year ago and a mere $2 in 1970. Moreover, oil-exporting nations shifted a growing proportion of their output to the spot market, where oil not tied up under contract is sold for whatever price buyers will pay. Before the Iranian revolution, the spot market accounted for only 5% of the oil moving in world trade, and prices differed little from OPEC's official ones. During 1979, anywhere from 10% to 33% of internationally traded crude bought by the industrial countries went through the spot market, and prices shot as high as $45 a bbl. The runaway price rises will fan inflation in the U.S., Western Europe and Japan. Affected are not only the price of gasoline and heating oil but also the cost of thousands of products made from petrochemicals—goods ranging from fertilizers and laundry detergents to panty hose and phonograph records. Oil price hikes will bear on apartment rents and the price of food brought to stores by gasoline-burning trucks. The price boosts act as a kind of gigantic tax, siphoning from the pockets of consumers money that would otherwise be used to buy non-oil goods and services, thus depressing production and employment. In the U.S., which imports about half its oil, a 1980 recession that would increase unemployment might happen anyway; the oil price increases have made it all but inevitable. At year's end OPEC had almost come apart; at their December meeting in Caracas its members could not agree on any unified pricing structure at all. So long as supply barely equals demand, there will be leapfrogging price boosts; four countries announced 10% to 15% price hikes last Friday. In the longer run, the disunity could lead to price-cutting competition, but only if the industrial countries, and especially the U.S., take more drastic steps to conserve energy and reduce imports than any they have instituted yet—and even then OPEC might come back together. It is presumably not in the cartel's economic or political self-interest to bankrupt its major customers, especially since many of OPEC's member states have invested their excess profits in the West. Yet even moderate nations like Saudi Arabia, which have fought to keep price boosts to a minimum, argue that inflation price hikes will be necessary as long as oil prices are tied to a declining dollar. A still greater danger is that the producers may not pump enough oil to permit much or any economic growth in either the industrial or underdeveloped worlds. The producers have learned that prices rise most rapidly when supply is kept barely equal to, or a bit below, demand; they have good reason to think that oil kept in the ground will appreciate more than any other asset, and the Iranian explosion has demonstrated that all-out production, and the forced-draft industrialization and Westernization that it finances, can lead not to stability but to social strains so intense that they end in revolution. The result of a production hold-down could be a decade or so of serious economic stagnation. Oil Consultant Walter Levy sees these potential gloomy consequences for the West: "A lower standard of living, a reduction in gross national product, large balance of payments drains, loss of value in currencies, high unemployment." Warns Mobil Chairman Rawleigh Warner: "The West can no longer assume that oil-exporting countries, and specifically those in the Middle East, will be willing to tailor production to demand. The safer assumption is that the consuming countries will increasingly have to tailor their demand to production. And the factors that determine the ceiling on production are more likely to be political than economic or technical."

The West will be lucky if oil shortages are the worst result of Khomeini's revolution. An even more menacing prospect is a shift in the world balance of power toward the Soviet Union. The Ayatullah is no friend of the Soviets. Far from it: while in his mind "America is the great Satan," he knows, and has often said, that Communism is incompatible with Islam. Tehran mobs have occasionally chanted "Communism will die!" as well as "Death to Carter!" Indeed, Islamic fundamentalism could become a domestic worry to the Kremlin. Its estimated 50 million Muslims make the Soviet Union the world's fifth largest Muslim state.* For the Kremlin, Muslims represent a demographic time bomb. By the year 2000, there will be an estimated 100 million Soviet Muslims, vs. about 150 million ethnic Russians. Most of the Muslims live in areas of Central Asia, bordering on Iran, that were subjugated by czarist armies only a little more than a century ago—Samarkand, for example, fell in 1868. The Soviets have soft-pedaled antireligious propaganda and allowed the Muslims to maintain mosques and theological schools. Consequently, the Azerbaijanis, Turkmen and other Muslim minorities in the U.S.S.R. could eventually become targets for Khomeini's advocacy of an Islamic rebellion against all foreign domination of Muslims. Yet Moscow can hardly ignore the opportunity presented by Khomeini's rise. An Iran sliding into anarchy, and a Middle East shaken by the furies of Khomeini's followers, would offer the Soviets a chance to substitute their own influence for the Western presence that the Ayatullah's admirers vow to expel. And the Middle East is an unparalleled geopolitical prize. Whoever controls the Middle East's oil, or the area's Strait of Hormuz (40 miles wide at its narrowest) between Iran and the Sultanate of Oman through which most of it passes, acquires a stranglehold on the world's economy. The U.S.S.R. today is self-sufficient in oil, but it could well become a major net importer in the 1980s—and thus be in direct competition with the West for the crude pumped out of the desert sands. The warm-water ports so ardently desired by the Czars since the 18th century retain almost as much importance today. Soviet missile-firing submarines, for example, now have to leave the ice-locked areas around Murmansk and Archangel through narrow channels where they can easily be tracked by U.S. antisubmarine forces. They would be much harder to detect if they could slip out of ports on the Arabian Sea. The conflagration in Iran, and the threat of renewed instability throughout the region, could open an entirely new chapter in the story of Soviet efforts to infiltrate the Middle East. So far, the Soviet leaders have played a double game in the hostage crisis. Representatives of the U.S.S.R. voted in the United Nations and World Court to free the hostages. At the same tune, to Washington's intense annoyance, the Soviets have proclaimed sympathy for Iran's anger against the U.S. The Kremlin apparently wants to keep lines open to Khomeini's followers, if not to the Ayatullah himself, while it awaits its chance. Meanwhile, Moscow has been acting more brazenly throughout the entire region of crisis. Around Christmas, the U.S.S.R. began airlifting combat troops into Afghanistan, reinforcing an already strong Soviet presence. Last week the Soviet soldiers participated in a coup ousting a pro-Moscow regime that had proved

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hopelessly ineffective in trying to put down an insurrection by anti-Communist Muslim tribesmen. At week's end, Washington charged that Soviet troops had crossed the border into Afghanistan in what appeared to be an outright invasion (see WORLD). Who or what follows Khomeini is already a popular guessing game in Tehran, Washington and doubtless Moscow. Few of the potential scenarios seem especially favorable to U.S. interests. One possibility is a military coup, led by officers once loyal to the Shah and now anxious to restore order. That might seem unlikely in view of the disorganized state of the army and the popular hatred of the old regime, but the danger apparently seems significant to Khomeini; he is enthusiastically expanding the Pasdaran militia as a counterweight to the official armed forces. A military coup might conceivably win the backing of the urban intelligentsia, which resents the theocracy, and Washington analysts think that even some mullahs might accommodate themselves to it if they see no other way of blocking a leftist takeover. Whether such an uneasy coalition could fashion a stable regime is questionable. Another potential outcome is a takeover, swift or gradual, by younger clergymen in alliance with such Western-educated leaders as Foreign Minister Sadegh Ghotbzadeh. A government composed of those forces would be less fanatical than the Ayatullah but still very hard-line anti-U.S. Another possibility, considered by some analysts to be the most likely, would be an eventual confrontation between Khomeini's religious establishment and members of the urban upper and middle classes, who applaud the nationalistic goals of the revolution but chafe under rigid enforcement of Islamic law—and have the brains to mount an effective opposition. A leftist takeover is the most worrisome prospect to Washington policymakers. The Mujahedin (Islamic socialist) and Fedayan (Marxist) movements maintain guerrilla forces armed with weapons seized from the Shah's garrisons during the revolution. Both groups disclaim any ties with the U.S.S.R., and some Iranian exiles believe a dialogue between them and moderate forces would be possible. However, they are very antiWestern. A third contender is the Tudeh (Communist) Party, which has a reputation for loyally following Moscow's line. It is currently voicing all-out support of Khomeini because, its leaders disingenuously explain, any foe of America's imperialism is a friend of theirs. In gratitude, the Ayatullah has peralism is a friend of theirs. In gratitude, the Ayatullah has permitted them to operate openly. Any of these potential scenarios might draw support from Iran's ethnic minorities, whose demands for cultural and political autonomy — local languages in schools, local governing councils — have been rebuffed so brusquely by Khomeini's government as to trigger armed rebellion. Iran, a country three times the size of France, was officially designated an empire by the Shah, and in one sense it is: its 35.2 million people are divided into many ethnic strains and speak as many as 20 languages, not counting the dialects of remote tribes. The 4 million Kurds, superb guerrilla fighters who live in the western mountains, have at times dreamed of an independent Kurdistan, and today have set up what amounts to an autonomous region. The Baluchis, a nomadic tribe of Sunni Muslims, boycotted the referendum on the Iranian constitution, which they viewed as an attempt to impose Shi'ism on them. The 13 million Azerbaijanis, a Turkic people, also boycotted the constitutional referendum and in recent weeks have

come close to an open revolt that could tear Iran apart. Some Washington policy planners have toyed with the idea of encouraging separatism, seeing the breakup of Iran as a kind of ultimate sanction against Khomeini. But the hazards of doing this far outweigh the advantages; true civil war in Iran would be the quickest way of destroying whatever stability remains in the Middle East. The lands of the Azerbaijanis stretch into Turkey and the Soviet Union, those of the Kurds into Turkey and Iraq, those of the Baluchis into Afghanistan and Pakistan. Successful secessionist movements could tear away parts of some of those countries as well as of Iran, leaving a number of weak new countries — the kind that usually tumble into social and economic chaos — and dismembered older ones. All might be sub to penetration. Anarchy in Iran could also trigger a conflict with its uneasy neighbor, Iraq, which shelled border areas of Iran three weeks ago. The geopolitical stakes there would be so great that the superpowers would be sorely tempted to intervene. The options for U.S. policy toward Iran are limited. So long as the hostages are in captivity, Washington must use every possible form of diplomatic and economic pressure to get them released. The Carter Administration has all but said that military action may well be necessary if the hostages are killed. But if they are released unharmed, many foreign policy experts think that the U.S. would be well advised not to retaliate for the seizure but simply to cut all ties with Iran and ignore the country for a while — unless, of course, the Soviets move in. Primarily because of the intimate U.S. involvement with the Shah, Iran has turned so anti-American that just about any Washington attempt to influence events there is likely to backfire; certainly none of Iran's contending factions can afford to be thought of as pro-U.S. Iran needs a demonstration that the U.S. has not the slightest wish to dominate the country. The U.S. must try to contain the spread of Khomeiniinspired anti-Americanism in the Middle East. The best way :o do that would be to mediate successfully the Egyptian-Israeli peace negotiations, to ensure that they will lead to genuine autonomy for the Palestinians of the West Bank and Gaza. The degree to which the Palestinian problem has inGaza. The degree to which the Palestinian problem has inflamed passions even among Arabs who consider themselves pro-U.S. is not at all understood by Americans. Says Faisal Alhegelan, Saudi Ambassador to the U.S.: "All you have to do is grant the right of Palestinian self-determination, and you will find how quickly the entire Arab world will stack up behind Washington." There are also some lessons the U.S. can learn that here are also some lessons the U.S. can learn that might help keep future Third World revolutions from taking an anti-American turn. First, suggests Stanley Hoffmann, Harvard professor of government, the U.S. should stop focusing exclusively on the struggle between the U.S. and Communism and pay more attention to the aspirations of nations that have no desire for alliance with either side. Says Hoffmann: "To me, the biggest meaning of Iran is that it is the first major international crisis that is not an East-West crisis, and for that very reason we find ourselves much less able to react. There is very little attention given to the problems of revolutionary instability and internal discontent. Americans don't study any of this, and when such events happen, we are caught by surprise."

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A corollary thought is that the U.S. must avoid getting tied too closely to anti-Communist "strongmen" who are detested by their own people. Says Selig Harrison: "We should not be so committed that we become hostage to political fortune. We should have contact with all the forces in these countries, and we should not regard any of them as beyond the pale, even many Communist movements that would like to offset their dependence on Moscow and Peking." Such a policy, of course, is easier proclaimed than executed. In some volatile Third World countries, the only choice may be between a tyrant in power and several would-be tyrants in opposition. But when the U.S. does find itself allied with a dictator, it can at least press him to liberalize his regime and at the same time stay in touch with other elements in the society. Finally, Khomeini has blown apart the comfortable myth that as the Third World industrializes, it will adopt Western values, and the success of his revolution ought to force the U.S. to look for ways to foster material prosperity in Third World countries without alienating their cultures. Says Richard Bulliet, a Columbia University historian who specializes in the Middle East: "We have to realize that there are other ways of looking at the future than regarding us as being the future. It is possible that the world is not going to be homogenized along American-European lines." It is, unfortunately, almost surely too late for any such U.S. strategies to influence Ayatullah Khomeini, whose hostility to anything American is bitter, stubborn, zealous—and total. But he may have taught the U.S. a useful—even vital —lesson for the 1980s. He has shown that the challenges to the West are certain to get more and more complex, and that the U.S. will ignore this fact at its peril. He has made it plain that every effort must be made to avoid the rise of other Khomeinis. Even if he should hold power only briefly, the Ayatullah is a figure of historic importance. Not only was 1979 his year; the forces of disintegration that he let loose in one country could threaten many others in the years ahead. *An appellation that means "sign of God." There is no formal procedure for bestowing it; a religious leader is called ayatullah by a large number of reverent followers and is accepted as such by the rest of the Iranian clergy. At present, Iran has perhaps 50 to 60 mullahs generally regarded as ayatullahs. * After Indonesia (123.2 million), India (80 million), Pakistan (72.3 million) and Bangladesh (70.8 million).

Monday, Jan. 7, 1980 An Interview with Khomeini Harsh words, in a soft voice, about the Shah, Carter and America Qum is a city of 250,000 people that is drenched in dust, swept by howling, bitter-cold winds in winter and scorched by an angry sun in summer. A 19th century British traveler, James Morier, described Iran's religious center as a place in which, "excepting on the subject of religion, and settling who are worthy of salvation, and who are to be damned, no one opens his lips. Every man you meet is either a descendant of the Prophet or a man of the law. All wear long and mortified faces ... These priests will harken to no medium—either you are a true believer or you are not." Blessed with 18 seminaries, as well as a 1,100-year-old shrine, Qum, appropriately, is the Ayatullah Khomeini's home. Three days before being expelled from Iran, TIME Middle East Bureau Chief Bruce van Voorst went to Qum for an exclusive interview with the Ayatullah. It was the first such interview Khomeini had granted to a U.S.

magazine since the fall of the Shah. The interview is greatly revealing, first as to how implacable is Khomeini's hate for all things American, and second for how strikingly it shows the vast gulf that separates Islamic and Western perceptions of the same events. The interview took place at Khomeini's residence, a modest, single-story four-room house on a side street that is blockaded at either end and guarded by soldiers carrying German-designed G3 automatic weapons. The Ayatullah receives visitors in what was once his living room, a bare 15-ft. by 20-ft. chamber with six clusters of tungsten spotlights along one wall; cameras of the National Iranian Radio and Television network record every audience. "Khomeini's entrance for the interview was almost regal," reported Van Voorst. "His black turban was carefully drawn over his forehead, and a well-cut dark gray cape, obviously his only self-indulgence, covered a light gray vest and a simple, collarless white shirt. Khomeini showed neither comprehension of nor interest in the brief introduction. There was no handshaking, merely a nod. He sat down, crosslegged, to take the first question—which, as usual, he ignored. Instead, he launched into an unbroken 20-minute monologue. He spoke in a soft voice, difficult to hear even from a foot or two away, and stared steadfastly at the floor all the while. Occasionally, his sensitive hands trembled. The interview was terminated when Khomeini abruptly rose. As the translator repeated a final question, the Ayatullah, eyes unblinking, left the room, pausing only to autograph Koransfor his guests." Excerpts from the interview: Q. Anti-American feelings in Iran are intense. Americans, in turn, are angry with Iran. How do you assess prospects for bilateral relations after the resolution—whatever form it might take—of the current crisis? A. Iranian feelings are not against the American people, but against the American Government. When they refer to America in their slogans and denunciations, they mean the U.S. Government, not the U.S. people. I have received reports about large-scale, Administration-orchestrated anti-Iranian propaganda in the U.S. The Zionists especially are doing all they can to poison U.S. public opinion against Iran. As a result, there may be ill feelings toward Iran in the U.S. as reported. But if the facts penetrate the Zionist-imperialist propaganda screen, if we succeed in explaining the truth to the American citizenry through the mass media, then the Americans will most probably have a change of heart about us and reciprocate our amicable attitude. But we are under no illusion that the U.S. Government might change its hostile attitude. The U.S. Government has lost great interests in Iran. Still worse, the Administration has lost its political prestige in other countries as well. We have been screaming for justice, for having our grievances redressed. The U.S. Government placed the Shah on the throne—that is, the Allies appointed him [in 1941] after ousting his father Reza Khan [who was] a British stooge. The U.S. Government consistently helped him stay in power in the face of our people's opposition to him. The Shah squandered all our resources—our national dignity, our natural assets, the talents of our youths and everything else we had. Obviously, Iranians cannot have a good view of the U.S. Government. And recently our people discovered that the Administration had turned its so-called embassy into a base for espionage and conspiracy against Iran. Spies were operating there under the pretext of being embassy

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personnel. Now that our people know this fact, they consider the Administration their No. 1 enemy. In our view, the American people are not to blame for their Government's behavior in Iran. Americans should recognize the fact that the Administration has wronged not only us, but them as well. It has deprived us of everything through its lackey, the Shah. And it has placed the U.S. citizenry's honor in jeopardy. Because of U.S. Government behavior, Eastern peoples may now develop a pessimistic view of the American nation. The Americans should take this fact into consideration. Carter's continued presidency is a danger for America. It poses a threat to American national honor. If the U.S. Government —through military intervention, economic blockade, bully tactics and similar actions— succeeds in depriving us of justice, then the crisis will never be resolved, it will always rankle in the mind of our people. The American people should not allow Carter to follow this course because, gradually, Iranians will suspect that the U.S. people share Carter's ill will toward Iran. Then, enmity might set in between the two peoples. Another option is for the U.S. Government to admit its misdeeds in Iran. These are numerous. Allowing a murderer to enter the U.S. is one of them. Still worse is the U.S. Government's imposition of a murderer as ruler of Iran. When Carter became President, he continued the policies of his predecessors —that is, he tried to perpetuate the rule of the criminal Shah and plunder Iran. When our nation rose against Pahlavi tyranny, Carter did all he could to keep him in power. He failed. Our people's hatred for the Shah was too obvious for Carter not to notice. But still, in blatant disregard of the Iranian nation's feelings, Carter offered the deposed Shah refuge in the U.S. Not even the American people, I think, believe Carter's claim that he allowed the Shah to enter America on humanitarian grounds. Humanitarian considerations do not enter the American Government's thinking at all. Washington is prepared to do anything, kill 200,000 people in an atomic raid, in order to gain some profit. No one can believe these officials were humanistically motivated in giving the Shah an entry visa. In a sense, they have abducted the deposed tyrant to make sure he will not divulge their secrets. If we try him, all the facts the U.S. Government wants to cover up will surface. The whole world will know who has aided the Shah in his crimes. Of course, once the American people discover what their President has done, they will not vote for him any more. In our view, all Carter is interested in is a second term in the White House, and he is prepared to do anything, even to sacrifice American national honor, in order to achieve his goal. We cannot believe the U.S. Government's claims to humanitarian motives. Is the Shah alone a human being? Aren't 35 million Iranians human beings? Weren't the Vietnamese human beings? We clearly see what crimes are committed now in southern Lebanon ly see what crimes are committed now in southern Lebanon with Carter's approval. For us, [the resolution of the crisis] means the extradition of the deposed Shah to Iran and measures to compensate Iran for damages caused by his tyranny. There are, of course, damages that cannot be repaired. For instance, we have sustained about 100,000 fatalities tin the struggle against the Shah]. The labor and human talents wasted in pursuit of his harmful objectives cannot be retrieved. But we expect the repatriation of the wealth plundered from Iran.

The main point to bear in mind is that there is a new era. Iran today is not what it was under the Shah. A miracle has occurred. Under the previous regime, a single policeman could force all merchants in a huge bazaar to hoist flags to mark the Shah's birthday. These very people stood up against tanks and artillery with their bare hands. Even now, they wear burial shrouds, come here [to Qum] and declare their readiness for martyrdom. A nation thus transformed cannot be pushed around. Mr. Carter has not understood this transformation yet. He thinks a dictator can be imposed on the country again. But he must understand that Iranians will never put up with such actions. Carter must wake up. And the Americans should vote Carter out of office. They should elect a suitable President. Then Iranians, if convinced that the U.S. Government does not intend to wrong them, will have normal relations with the U.S.—the kind of relations we have with other countries. Q. You have called the Shah a criminal, but you have not been specific. Could you give a rundown of what you feel his crimes were? A. The crimes of the Shah are innumerable. Even a synopsis would be too long for me to present in a single session. In the last two years of the Shah's reign alone —when people rose to crush the imperial regime and establish an Islamic republic —this criminal killed more than 60,000 and maimed more than 100,000 of our people. During his reign, the Shah made us economically dependent on the U.S. and turned Iran into a bankrupt state. Our industry is dependent on the West. He has destroyed our agriculture. Politically, he toed the U.S. line and placed Iran in league with the oppressors and tyrants. The Iranian position in international forums during the reign of the Shah clearly demonstrates this fact. Even when the Shah, for fear of incurring the people's wrath, adopted apparently anti-U.S. positions, he would, behind the scenes, remain hand in hand with America. For instance, although he publicly supported the Palestinians, he gave oil to Israel, the enemy of Islam and Muslims. He fed Israel militarily—that is, he assisted Israel, this archaggressor, wholeheartedly. Militarily, the Shah made us thoroughly dependent on the U.S. [To perpetuate his monarchy] he gave our oil to the U.S. and used the proceeds to build military bases for America in Iran. Worst of all, he was determined to annihilate Islam and Muslims. By pushing our youth toward the West, he created a painful cultural dislocation. He brainwashed the people with Western propaganda. It takes gigantic efforts to liberate our society from the evil effects of his cultural treason. Q. How do you feel qualified to judge him? How can you be sure that your measures are truly in keeping with the law of Islam and the will of God? Does God ever speak to you or send you guidance? A. What I said in response to the first question sums up the judgment of all Iranians. I have repeatedly stressed that I simply reflect the views of the Iranian people. Q. Doesn't the fact that virtually every government in the world condemns the seizure of the hostages raise doubts in your mind about your own position? A. Most governments that have condemned Iran [for the embassy seizure] have done so under superpower pressure. We want to prove to the whole world that the

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superpowers can be defeated with the power of faith. We shall stand up against the U.S. Government with all our might. We fear no power.

if the United Nations agreed to investigate your grievances? At the same time, should all dictators in the world be investigated by the U.N.?

Q. You have objected to the West's efforts to impose its values on Iran. Why are you trying to impose Islamic values and Islamic justice on representatives of the West?

A. In fact, we understand America well. We know that we can resist it and defend our honor. We have proved that we can resist its great injustice—harboring the Shah. We shall overpower America. We shall defeat it in the whole region. The [departure of the] Shah from the U.S. will not solve the problem. An international organization should make serious efforts to convince the U.S. to extradite the Shah to Iran. This organization should return all the wealth the Shah has plundered to its rightful owners—the people of Iran. Such an organization should also try all dictators. We will not surrender to injustice. We will not compromise with the oppressors.

A. We definitely do not want to impose Islamic values on the West. Islam will never be imposed—neither on the West, nor on the East, nor on any particular individual or region. Islam is opposed to coercion. Islam stands for freedom in all its dimensions. It is up to the people them selves to accept or reject it. Q. Even if he wished to, the President could not legally hand the Shah over to Iran or to a third country with the intention of extraditing him to Iran. Do you expect Carter to violate the basic principles of his nation? Isn't that inconsistent with your moral and ethical goals? A. Did the U.S. Government legally place Iranians under the Shah's machine-gun fire? And now, is it the same law that prevents the U.S. from extraditing the Shah? What kind of law is this? It permits the U.S. Government to exploit and colonize peoples all over the world for decades. But it does not allow the extradition of an individual who has staged great massacres in Iran. Can you call it law? Q. You talk so readily of the embassy as a "nest of spies." But there has been precious little evidence for this. Aren't you aware that it is the function of all diplomats to gather information about the country they are in, and this is considered legitimate? When there is evidence of espionage against diplomats, they are simply deported, not tried by the host country. If you objected to the activities, why didn't you just shut the embassy down? A. There is a difference between gathering information and conducting espionage. Evidence so far collected proves that they ["the American spies"] had charted different conspiracies for different parts of Iran. They had plots for creating armed clashes in different regions. Is this how diplomats gather information? God willing, the Muslim students [holding the U.S. hostages] will reveal the details in the future. It is the government's job to close the embassy or allow it to function. I do not interfere in these affairs. Q. Are you aware how isolated you have made Iran? Even Islamic nations have condemned the hostage taking. You have pushed the U.S. out of Iran, but who will free you from pressures by the Soviet Union? A. We have pushed the U.S. out of Iran in order to establish an Islamic government. We have not ousted the U.S. in order to replace it with the Soviet Union. Our people's slogans clearly demonstrate this fact. Throughout their struggle, our people would chant, "An Islamic republic—neither Eastern nor Western." If the Soviet Union should one day try to pressure us, we will deal with it with the same force that enabled us to oust the will deal with it with the same force that enabled us to oust the U.S.—the force of our faith. We trust in God and the boundless might of the people. Q. You must accept the fact that America will never surrender the Shah to you. If you doubt this, you do not understand America. Would you release the hostages

Q. Why can you not mediate this dispute in a reasonable manner? You have turned down Ramsey Clark, U.N. Secretary-General Kurt Waldheim, the P.L.O., and barely listened to the papal representative. Don't you think these are honorable and serious individuals? A. I have never said that these gentlemen are not honorable and serious. I have defended the Palestinians against Israel for more than 20 years. I used to point out the danger of Israel at a time when Israel and Palestine were unknown in Iran. We support the Palestinians' cause of justice against Israel, but a more significant issue is at stake now. I want to drive home to all peoples throughout the world the point that they should not try to mediate between the oppressor and the oppressed. Such mediation itself is a great injustice. We do not want any [would-be mediators] to commit this injustice. The right approach, under these circumstances, is to rush to the side of the oppressed and implacably attack the oppressor. It is for this reason that we rejected offers of mediation and will continue to do so. You may consider the mediation of your representatives between Israel and Palestine logical. We don't. The only logical course is defending Palestine. We approve those who strive for the international recognition of our just demands, but we shall never endorse oppressors, even if they act in our interest. It is among the eternally valid principles which we must always uphold. Q. If the hostage crisis is peacefully resolved, can you foresee a normalization of relations with the U.S., such as by the renewed sale of military spare parts and commercial ties on terms acceptable to Iran? A. We will certainly reject any deal that harms the interest of Muslims. Otherwise, commercial ties and other exchanges, as long as they are in the interest of our nation, are agreeable to me. However, the government is responsible for signing such agreements, not I. Q. The economy has not revived. The poor in south Tehran are as poor as ever. The armed forces probably could not defend Iran against attack. There is no normal political activity. In light of this, is it not fair to say that the revolution has failed? A. All these observations might be true. But the revolution has not failed. Indeed, the pillars of the revolution have been strengthened. It is a fact that our people have become accustomed to the revolution. They are all revolutionaries. They all welcome martyrdom. I declare, in all seriousness, that we can easily stand up against U.S. aggression. The U.S. may destroy us, but not our revolution. It is for this

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reason that I am confident of our victory. Listen to the people's slogans. For instance, AIRCRAFT CARRIERS IMPRESS NO ONE. CARTER DOESN'T KNOW ABOUT THE LOGIC OF MARTYRDOM. The U.S. Government has no idea what martyrdom is. In this spirit, we will solve all the problems of Iran. Although, I must point out, the damages we have sustained stem from more than 50 years of Pahlavi treason and will take at least 20 years to repair. Freedom and the Islamic republic have been established. But complete independence requires the dispossession of the East and the West, an objective we shall undoubtedly achieve. Q. Haven't you really lost a measure of control? The embassy takeover was allegedly undertaken without your knowledge or the support of the Revolutionary Council. Didn't the students take policymaking out of your hands? Do you really control the crowds? A. Failure to understand Iranians leads to such mistakes in reading the situation. Iranians harbor profound enmity toward the U.S. Government because of the wrongs it has done them. We lead our people along the path to independence and liberation from U.S. domination. It is for this reason that our people have occupied the American nest of spies. The so-called embassy is certainly a nest of spies, and, in principle, what do we need the U.S. Government for? All Iranians are asking this question. Q. Sometimes you issue elamiehs ordering the people what to do, and then when you want to avoid responsibility, you reply you can do nothing, it is in the hands of the people or the students. Aren't you trying to have it both ways? A. It is a fact that I, as Khomeini, express my views like all other people, comment on what should be done. But you should have no doubt that the hostages are in the hands of the students. Q. You have not studied seriously economics, international political relations. Your education is primarily theological. Doesn't this raise doubts in your mind that there may be factors in this equation you don't grasp? A. We have discarded equations and social and political terms of reference so far used for assessing all the world's problems. We have built a new framework of values standing up for justice and fighting injustice. We will defend any upholder of justice and attack any perpetrator of injustice. You may name this value system whatever you like. We are laying the foundation of this value system, which, we hope, will one day replace—in the U.N., the Security Council, and other world bodies—the influence of the capitalists and the great powers that can now condemn out of hand anybody they want to. Yes, with your criteria, I understand nothing—and I am better off for it. Q. Have you ever been wrong about anything? A. Only the Prophet Muhammad and other saints have been infallible. Everybody else makes mistakes. Monday, Jul. 26, 1982 A Quest for Vengeance By WILLIAM E. SMITH. Khomeini's legions invade Iraq and threaten the whole Arab world

"Your Iranian brothers, in order to defend their country and push back the attacks on the enemy of Islam, have been forced to cross over into Iraq to save the oppressed Iraqi people. Rise up and install the Islamic government that you want!" So declared Iran's Ayatullah Ruhollah Khomeini last week as he launched his army along the Shatt al Arab waterway in a huge invasion of Iraq. For the first time in the 22 months since Iraq initially attacked Iran, heavy fighting was taking place on Iraqi territory. Khomeini's objective was not just the overthrow of his bitter enemy, Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, but the creation of an Iraqi Islamic Republic modeled on Iran's own. To moderate rulers throughout the Arab world, the threat was even more awesome: a rising wave of Islamic fundamentalism, reinforced by an Iranian victory in Iraq, that could topple Arab governments from the Persian Gulf to the Mediterranean Sea. After 48 hours of rising artillery exchanges, the Iranian high command last Tuesday night broadcast a coded message: "Ya Saheb ez-Zaman! Ya Saheb ez-Zaman!" (Translation: Thou absent Imam!) That was the order for as many as 100,000 soldiers and militiamen to begin the march toward Basra, Iraq's second largest city and the nerve center of its oil-producing region, and to engage an Iraqi army of about the same size. "Operation Ramadan" had begun. The first Iranian goal appeared to be the capture of Basra and much of southern Iraq, from which the invaders could either press on to Baghdad, the Iraqi capital 280 miles to the northwest, or pin down Iraqi divisions while a second invasion force was launched directly at Baghdad, which is only about 75 miles from the border. Within 24 hours the two armies were locked in what was believed to be one of the biggest land battles since World War II. In the intense fighting that followed, thousands were killed and scores of tanks were destroyed as the Iraqis fought off the first wave of invaders. Said an Iranian officer of the packed battle scene: "Even if you shoot with your eyes closed, you are bound to hit someone." It was also a time of fervor and of exaggerated claims. In Tehran, masses of Khomeini supporters ignored the wail of air-raid sirens and marched through the capital in support of their leader. The Iranians announced they had destroyed two Iraqi divisions, but by the end of the week their offensive appeared to have stalled, leading the Iraqis to proclaim a "great victory." Meanwhile there were numerous indications that Khomeini's forces were preparing another major attack, which would probably take place some time this week. With the outbreak of righting on Iraqi territory, one of the most feared of Middle East scenarios was unfolding. The Arab world was already in disarray over Israel's invasion of Lebanon seven weeks ago in an attempt to dislodge the Palestine Liberation Organization. With no end to the siege of West Beirut in sight (see following story), another non-Arab country, Iran, had invaded Arab territory and seemed, moreover, to have a better-than-even chance of unseating the ruling government. At immediate risk were the moderate, hereditary regimes of Saudi Arabia and the rest of the gulf. But the Ayatullah Khomeini's vow was even more explosive: to press on to Jerusalem, to liberate the Holy City and overwhelm all enemies of Islam. More serious still, the pressures induced by the wars in the Middle East have drawn the U.S. and the Soviet Union into dangerously confrontational positions, for the struggles involve not only the warring armies of

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Islam but future control over the Persian Gulf and the largest known petroleum reserves on earth. The worst worries of the U.S. and of the moderate Arab leaders presuppose an Iraqi defeat by the Iranian invaders. But the outcome of the war is not clear by any means. The Iraqis appeared by week's end to have blunted the initial Iranian attack on Basra and driven the Iranians back almost to the border. The Iraqis were fighting harder in defense of their country than they had fought during their long, misguided adventure in Iran. U.S. intelligence sources confirmed that Iraqi MiG-21s had staged an air attack on the Iranian petroleum facilities at Kharg Island. Damage was said to be light, but the incident was bound to have a discouraging effect on tankers bound for the island. "Iraq wanted peace," declared Iraq's Saddam, triumphant for the moment and ignoring the fact that he had sent his army into Iran in the first place. On Friday, two days after the initial Iranian attack had subsided. TIME Photographer Peter Jordan visited the battlefield and found it bare except for hundreds of bloating bodies, burned-out tanks and artillery pieces, and a handful of Iraqi soldiers. Reported Jordan, the only Western newsman on the scene: "The stench from the bodies was so intolerable that the Iraqis stuffed tissues or cotton into their nostrils. Among the Iranian prisoners were children, boys of twelve and 13, who wore the colors of the Revolutionary Guards. When the Iranians, who had fought their way to within eight miles of Basra, realized that they were surrounded on three sides by Iraqi forces, they reportedly broke ranks in panic. Some surrendered, later acknowledging to interrogators that they had been assured by their superiors that their victories inside Iran last spring would lead to further triumphs once they had entered Iraq." That may yet prove to be true, but it did not work out that way last week. Meanwhile, Iranian officials angrily denied that they had become the aggressors in the war. Declared Iran's United Nations Ambassador Said Rajaie-Khorasani to TIME Correspondent Raji Samghabadi: "The Saddam Hussein regime has inflicted stupendous losses of life and property on us. It has done everything within its power to humiliate the Islamic Republic. Now we are expected to give the war criminals a chance to rebuild their forces and spring at our throat again. Sorry, no deal." For weeks the revolutionary government in Iran had debated how far the country should go in "punishing" Saddam Hussein. Iranian moderates, led by Majlis Speaker Ali Hashemi Rafsanjani, suggested that the $150 billion in reparations demanded of Iraq by President Ali Khamene'i, a hardliner, was negotiable. But the fanatics wanted nothing less than the destruction of Iraq's Baath Party and the establishment of an Islamic republic in Baghdad. Until June 21, Khomeini deliberately remained neutral in the debate, allowing subordinates ample time to state their positions. Then, characteristically, he made a speech fully supporting, and indeed surpassing, the positions of the extremists. Khomeini even criticized some of his own aides for paying more attention to the Israeli invasion of Lebanon than to the Iran-Iraq war. "We shall get to Lebanon, and to Jerusalem, through Iraq," said Khomeini, but "first we have to defeat this sinister [Baath] party." Khomeini's "Iraq first" policy quickly gained the support of Iran's two Arab allies, Syria and Libya, and soon Iran's Revolutionary Guards command was issuing a

call for volunteers. Syria's position is based on its longstanding hatred of Saddam and the enmity between the Iraqi and Syrian branches of the Baath Party. Syria had sided with Iran while Iraqi forces were on Iranian soil, but its continued support of Iran, now that Khomeini's forces have invaded Arab Iraq, is a somewhat more awkward position for Syria to be taking. Syria has also been embarrassed by recent events in Lebanon. It has refused to offer temporary sanctuary to the leadership and guerrillas of the P.L.O., possibly because it is holding out for a better deal from the Saudis and the other oil-rich Arabs who would finance such a solution to the problem of the trapped P.L.O. forces. Furthermore, in battles with the Israelis last month, Syria lost at least 86 MiG aircraft. One apparent reason: Syria lacks skilled fighter pilots, partly because it prefers that its new pilots be members of the minority Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shi'ite Islam to which President Hafez Assad belongs. Like Assad, Saddam Hussein is a member of a minority group within his own nation. He is a Sunni Muslim in a country whose population of 14 million is 55% Shi'ite. Iran has assumed that this fact alone makes Saddam vulnerable to being overthrown, but that reasoning may not be correct. Saddam has created a cult of personality around himself. Today his face can be seen everywhere in his capital city, in a wide variety of sizes and demeanors. A huge painting on Rashid Street, for example, shows him in uniform, leading a tank assault, while in the background swirls a visionary horse charge by the Iraqi cavalrymen who routed a Persian invasion in the 9th century. Though outnumbered ten to one, the horsemen were victorious in an epic three-day battle, and saved Iraq. Not unlike the Shah of Iran, Saddam has been devoting enormous effort and expense toward turning his backward country into a modern state. In addition, he has tried to make the Shi'ite community feel that it is being well taken care of. Italian and Korean workmen are laying marble in the inner courtyards of the principal shrines in the sacred Shi'ite cities of Najaf and Karbala; gold leaf is being splashed over mosques throughout the country. The poorer Shi'ite communities that once spawned opposition to the Baathist regime now have new schools, hospitals, roads, sewers, electricity and water lines. Even during the months of war, while many public works activities were postponed (and while the gulf states were contributing at least $20 billion to the Iraqi war chest), the projects in the Shi'ite areas continued. Whether Saddam has succeeded in gaining the loyalty of Iraq's Shi'ite community is a question that will probably be answered all too obviously within the next few weeks. For the U.S., the crisis had been looming since the fall of the Shah in 1979. U.S. strategists, their Iran policy paralyzed, were reduced to speculating that the Ayatullah, who is now 82 and ailing, would soon die or become incapacitated, and that his fanatical regime might then collapse. The U.S. considered seeking closer ties with Saddam, a longtime ally of the Soviet Union who suddenly was sending signals that he was trying to extricate his country from the Soviet orbit. But once the U.S. hostages were released by Iranian authorities on Jan. 20, 1981, the new Reagan Administration decided to do nothing and hope for the best in Iran. The war between Iran and Iraq, which Saddam had launched in September 1980 in an effort to make Iraq the prominent power in the gulf, sputtered along inconclusively, a problem for the Iranians but a matter of little concern to the U.S.

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But late last year the gulf war suddenly heated up again, culminating in the battle of Khorramshahr two months ago. There, after a few hours of combat, the Iranians drove the discouraged Iraqis back across the western shore of the Shatt. In June, Saddam declared a unilateral ceasefire, withdrew the last of his forces from Iran and asked for peace. Absolutely not! cried the old Ayatullah. Khomeini responded with a set of demands that Saddam could not accept. Besides calling for the resignation of Saddam and the overthrow of the ruling Baath Party, Khomeini declared that the Iranian armed forces would seek to enable the people of Iraq to form "a government of their own choice—that is, an Islamic government." When Iraq's friends in the gulf suggested that he settle for $50 billion in reparations, which they promised to raise, Khomeini turned down the offer as insufficient. "Why should he accept $50 billion?" an Egyptian official commented last week after the fighting shifted to Iraqi territory. "He thinks he can have it all." For the past year the Khomeini government has been gaining increasing support from the Soviet Union and its allies, including North Korea, Cuba and East Germany. Most helpful, perhaps, has been Syria, an Arab neighbor with a long history of hostility toward Iraq. Through Syria, Iran received large shipments of Soviet weaponry, including 130-mm artillery pieces, antiaircraft guns and tank engines. In the meantime, Washington remained silent while Israel sold Iran an estimated $120 million worth of military hardware, including spare parts and ammunition for Iran's American-made equipment, which had been acquired during the rule of the Shah. Nor did the U.S. openly complain that the Israelis were sending experts to Tehran to help the Iranians use their American-made weapons. With apparent shortsightedness, the government of Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin was supporting Iran in order to cause trouble for Saddam, whom it has long regarded as its primary enemy in the Arab world. Thus the ancient adage "The enemy of my enemy is my friend," which guides the convoluted politics of so many nations in the Middle East, had reached its ultimate absurdity in revolutionary Iran: both the Soviet Union and a U.S. ally were contributing to the Ayatullah's war machine. From the beginning, the Soviets have moved with extreme caution in Iran. They ordered the local Tudeh (Communist) Party to infiltrate organizations of clerical power but to avoid any actions that could arouse official suspicion. Meanwhile, Moscow provided Iran with increasing amounts of military and economic aid, though always by proxy. Indeed, to hedge their bets, the Soviets continued giving token support to Iraq, with which they have had a friendship treaty since 1960 and whose army they have largely supplied. As an indication of how secure the Iranians have become about their relations with the Soviets, Iran decided several weeks ago to move eight divisions away from its border with the Soviet Union in order to relocate those forces along Iran's border with Iraq. It was the first time since the end of World War II, when the Soviets occupied Iran's northern province of Azerbaijan, that the Iranians had left their 1,090-mile border with the Soviet Union virtually unguarded. When King Hussein of Jordan visited Moscow late last month, Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko told him that when the Iranian invasion of Iraq began, Moscow would be supporting Iran. It was the Soviet official's unsubtle way of hinting to Hussein that even though Jordan was Iraq's most faithful ally, the King would do well to remain on the sidelines of the forthcoming battle.

Within the U.S. foreign policy establishment, there is disagreement about the degree of Soviet involvement in Iran. Soviet Expert Helmut Sonnenfeldt, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, believes the Soviets cooled on Saddam because he wanted unconditional support from Moscow for whatever he proposed to do against Israel or Iran, and was angry when he failed to obtain it. Moreover, Sonnenfeldt says, the Soviets were tilting increasingly toward Iran after the fall of the Shah, because they regarded Iran as a greater strategic prize. William Quandt, a former National Security Council official now at Brookings, doubts that the Soviets played a significant role in Iran's decision to invade Iraq. Says he: "Khomeini is a genuine revolutionary, and he would like to export his revolution. He is also a man who personalizes his quarrels—he 'brought down the Shah,' he 'brought down Jimmy Carter,' and he wants to bring down Saddam Hussein. If he could bring into power an Islamic regime in Iraq, so much the better." In early June, the Soviet Union urged Iran to make peace with Iraq under some of the terms Iran had demanded but with "modifications." The Soviets even proposed that the two countries join them in establishing an "anti-imperialist front." Had the Soviets brought about a peace agreement, it would have enabled them to retain close relations with both Iran and Iraq, and would have greatly bolstered their position in the region. Khomeini said no. On June 21, he made a speech in which he not only rebuffed Moscow's peacemaking efforts but denounced the whole Soviet role in the Middle East. Said Khomeini: "The Americans fear the Soviet Union might do this or that in the region if we defeat Iraq. The Soviet Union can do nothing. It has proved to be capable of nothing." Having put the Soviets in their place, Khomeini continued to accept support from them, just as he has accepted clandestine help from the Israelis. Iran's plan to attack Iraq, with Soviet acquiescence, was in the formative stages when the Israelis launched their invasion of Lebanon. The Israelis gambled that with a quick strike at their northern neighbor's heartland, they could impose a solution of sorts on their 34-year-old conflict with the Palestinian Arabs. They bought Defense Minister Ariel Sharon's argument that such an assault could free northern Israel from occasional P.L.O. attacks, break the organization's leadership and perhaps even create pressure on the Palestinians to make Jordan their homeland. If Syria attacked Israel's invasion force, so much the better, because Sharon was prepared to carry his antiPalestinian offensive all the way to the Syrian capital, Damascus. Their campaign in Lebanon has generally produced the results the Israelis were seeking, but it has spilled enough blood to worry the Reagan Administration and its allies. The spectacle has been observed by 100 million or more citizens of the Arab world on their TV sets: the siege of Beirut, the brutality of the ceasefire violations, the Beirut negotiations leading toward the Israeli goal of expelling the P.L.O. fighting force from Lebanon. Even Arabs with the highest stakes in the gulf war, the emirs of Kuwait and princes of Saudi Arabia, have been traumatized and distracted from their more immediate problems by the war in Lebanon. They have watched the first siege of an Arab capital by an Israeli army, and they have become alarmed at the emotions aroused in their own countries. For the Soviets, according to most Western analysts, the long-term goal is control of Middle East oil. In

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Afghanistan, they have built a new airfield in the corner of the country closest to the mouth of the Persian Gulf. In the Horn of Africa last week, Sovietbacked Ethiopia attacked its traditional enemy next door, Somalia, probably with the help of Cuban and East German advisers. If the Ethiopians should defeat Somalia, they and their Soviet allies would gain a position of influence over a country that is strategically located at the southern end of the Red Sea. Moscow could then, if it wished, call South Yemeni troops back into combat with Oman, which, like Somalia, is scheduled to provide facilities for the U.S. Rapid Deployment Force. Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak has sold Iraq $500 million worth of arms and ammunition since the IranIraq war began. Nonetheless, Mubarak fears that Saddam may not be able to stand up to the Ayatullah's army and Revolutionary Guards for long. Iran is four times the size of Iraq and has a population that is three times as large. The Egyptian government believes that the fighting may be over by September at the latest. And after that? Would Khomeini rule Iraq as the reigning ayatullah, as he does Iran, or through a Shi'itedominated political mechanism more closely attuned to the Arab traditions of Iraq? That question matters less to Arab leaders than the fact that Khomeini's forces are already plotting the overthrow of every government in the gulf. TIME has learned that a new corps of revolutionaries is being trained under the name of the Popular Front for the Liberation of the Gulf. The group is led by a noted ayatullah operating out of Tehran. Recruits are being trained in camps in South Yemen and Libya and in a new facility recently opened for a class of 600 in northwestern Iran. The initial graduates began to filter into the gulf states two years ago. Some of them bungled their first coup attempt last December, when Bahrain police arrested 80 terrorists trained and armed by Iran for the purpose of overthrowing the government of Sheik Isa Al-Khalifa. Other subversive activity in the gulf sponsored by Iran is known to be under way. One plan being discussed among Iraq's Arab allies for countering subversive activity calls for the establishment of an Arab rapid deployment force. The proposal would involve an Egyptian contingent of several divisions and would perhaps be deployed along the borders of Iraq in Kuwait and in the Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia. As a down payment, Egypt would insist on the restoration of diplomatic relations that were broken off by most of the gulf states following the conclusion of Egypt's peace treaty with Israel. The Egyptians would also require ample supplies of U.S. equipment and strong American support, including air force and naval assistance if necessary. But Mubarak must be cautious about committing his troops to foreign service. After the late Anwar Sadat made his historic trip to Jerusalem in 1977, with the full support of his military commanders, they told him that in the future they would fight only for Egypt. They did not want to fight for Palestinians or for the anti-royalists in the civil war in Yemen. Egypt's commanders were prepared to accept peace with Israel, provided that they would never again have to send Egyptian troops to fight outside their own country. Mubarak knows it could be a mistake for him to send troops to assist Saddam in Iraq. Such a move not only might antagonize Egypt's generals, but would also anger the Islamic fundamentalists in the country. It was the

fundamentalists who assassinated President Sadat last October, and they remain a threat in spite of Mubarak's crackdowns. Nonetheless Mubarak is prepared to offer Egyptian troops to defend Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and the other gulf states, under the terms of the 30-year-old Joint Arab Defense Pact, if the arrangement is approved by the states involved and supported militarily by the U.S. Considering Mubarak's reluctance to send forces anywhere outside Egypt, the current discussion of such a mission is an indication of how worried he is about the spread of Islamic revolution. Even some of Khomeini's friends are upset about the Iranian invasion of Iraq. The P.L.O., which has generally supported Khomeini out of deference to Syria, is furious with the Iranians for launching an invasion that can only divert attention from the Palestinians' plight in Lebanon. Arab and Western diplomats feared that the Iranian attack would enable Israel to move briskly into West Beirut to settle the problem of the stubborn P.L.O. Not that such an argument would carry much weight with the ruler of Iran, which has once more become the primary power in the gulf. If the Palestinians want Jerusalem as the capital of a state of their own, Khomeini wants it as the goal of a holy crusade. Officially, Iranians quarrel with the notion that they are committed to the overthrow of Arab governments. They also deny that they have fallen under the influence of the Soviet Union. As Iran's Ambassador to the U.N., Rajaie Khorasani, said last week, "We have proved that a nation armed with the ideology of Islam need not choose between the superpowers but can stand on its own feet." It is true that a wave of Islamic revolutionary fervor moving across the Middle East would not necessarily serve the interests of the Soviet Union any more than it would help the West. But since it would damage existing ties of all kinds, cultural as well as political and economic, it would have a greater impact on the Arab world's links with the West than on those with the Soviet Union and its allies. Still to be determined is the effect of the gulf war on world oil prices and markets. Taken together, Iran and Iraq have about half the oil reserves and export capacity of Saudi Arabia, the world leader. In recent months, Iran's refusal to abide by production ceilings set by the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries has helped keep world prices down as global output continued to exceed demand. There was no evidence last week that either prices or supplies had yet been affected by the fighting in Iraq. But the petroleum industries of both countries, and particularly Iraq, are quite vulnerable. After its attack on Iran's Kharg Island faculties last week, Iraq reportedly warned Japan that its tankers should stop using the island. If Iran decides to retaliate in kind, it would probably aim first at the Iraq-Turkey pipeline, the only export route now available for Iraqi oil, and at the scattered fields to the west of Basra. A determined Iran could take Iraq out of the oil business for as long as two years. But even if warfare should paralyze the oil industries of Iran, Iraq and neighboring Kuwait, thereby removing about 4 million bbl. per day from world oil markets, the loss could be overcome by Saudi Arabia, which could increase production from its current 6.5 million to 10.5 million bbl. per day. What seems indisputable, as the two Middle East wars continue, is that they are costing the U.S. dearly in

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prestige Arab rulers who privately would welcome American assistance at the moment fear that they would only inflict damage on their regimes by appearing to be in league with the U.S. The Reagan Administration last week offered to hold joint milltary exercises with Saudi Arabia and any other gulf states that might feel threatened by the Iran-Iraq conflict, but so far there have been no takers. The most critical problem afflicting U.S.-Arab relation at the moment stems from the link that many Arabs believe exists between the U.S. and Israel's operation in Lebanon. But the Arabs also deeply resent the fact that the Israelis chose to give military support to Khomeini's Iran. The Israelis respond that the aid effort was based on their traditional enmity toward Iraq. They claim their aid was halted several months ago, long before the Iranian invasion of Iraq began. Other sources say that some Israeli aid, including the training of Iranian military personnel in the use of American arms, is continuing. What the Reagan Administration still needs most, after 18 months in office, is a strong policy for the Middle East. Another central problem has been its un willingness to say in public what it has been telling the Israelis in private. According to most observers, the U.S. op posed the Israeli invasion of Lebanon, though this did not have any effect on the Israeli government. But by failing to state its position forcefully, the Administration appeared to the Arab states to be a silent partner in the attack or at the very least an overly indulgent ally. Until the U.S. can distinguish openly between American policy and Israeli policy, and rein in some of the more expansionist tendencies of the Begin government, it cannot make real headway in improving its relations with the Arab world. Theoretically, the Administration was correct to hew a neutral line between Iran and Iraq, but changing circumstances call for a defter touch than the U.S. has displayed thus far. Says Richard Helms, a former U.S. Ambassador to Iran (and onetime head of the Central Intelligence Agency): "Now is the time to come to the aid of our moderate Arab friends. We shouldn't tilt toward Iraq so much that we throw Iran into the arms of the Soviets, but we can tilt a little bit, enough to encourage the Saudis and some of the others to conclude that we are still their friends and would come to their rescue if worst comes to worst." The first step for the U.S. is to deal forthrightly with the Palestinian question. This, in fact, is exactly what Secretary of State George Shultz promised at his confirmation hearing last week. The Lebanese crisis had made it "painfully and to tally clear," Shultz told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, that the "legitimate needs and problems" of the Palestinian people must be resolved. He might well have added that the West's failure to solve the Palestinian problem has had a lot to do with giving Islamic fundamentalism its anti-Western basis of action. The more ambitious Khomeini's forces become, and the more expansionist his goals in the name of Islam, the more vital it is that the U.S. have a Middle East policy that is perceived to be consistent and fair by all moderate parties in the Arab world.

—By William E. Smith. Reported by Murray J. Gart/Middle East and Dean Brelis/Baghdad With reporting by Murray J. Gart, Dean Brelis Monday, Aug. 17, 1987 At War on All Fronts Once again, a frenzied Iran lashes out with fury and fanatic zeal By JOHN GREENWALD They jammed Revolution Avenue in the heart of Tehran last week, a million Iranians raising their fists and shouting as if with one voice, "Revenge! Revenge! Revenge!" The clutches of women dressed in black chadors, the phalanxes of men bearing placards that said DOWN WITH U.S.: the angry scene had been played out before. This time, however, the crowd seemed reinvigorated, its fury fresh and lethal. "Death to America!" they chanted in the near 100 degrees heat. Their rage rose higher still as Hashemi Rafsanjani, the speaker of Iran's parliament, called upon Allah to "avenge the blood" of nearly 300 Iranian pilgrims who had been killed a week earlier in Mecca, Islam's holiest city. Rafsanjani also uttered a demand that sent a tremor through the Arab world and beyond: the rulers of Saudi Arabia, the keepers of Mecca, must be "uprooted." Then came the hypnotic voice of Ayatullah Ruhollah Khomeini, 87, still the country's supreme leader. Speaking in fierce whispers over nationwide radio, Khomeini first lashed out at the "inept and spineless" Saudi Arabian royal family. But he placed the blame for the bloody deaths in Mecca squarely on the U.S., still the "Great Satan" in the eyes of the fevered Iranian nation, and vowed vengeance. Promised Khomeini: "God willing, at the opportune time we shall deal with her." That confrontation suddenly seemed at hand last week -for America and for the world. Since he took power in 1979, the Ayatullah has threatened to spread his uncompromising brand of Islamic fundamentalism across the fragile, oil- rich states that line the Persian Gulf and to upset the global balance of power. He has sought his goals openly in Iran's seven-year war with Iraq, and he has promoted them stealthily through terrorist bombings and kidnapings abroad. Now Khomeini's brooding presence loomed larger than ever as he seemed ready, even eager, to take on a host of nations. Angered by Washington's decision to reflag and escort Kuwaiti tankers through the gulf, Iran announced with great fanfare that it would stage four days of war games in the Strait of Hormuz, the entryway to the gulf. In case there was any doubt about the intent of the maneuvers, they were code-named "Martyrdom." One of the reflagged ships, the fully loaded Gas Prince, slipped quietly out of harm's way and toward its destination in Japan before the exercises began. But the supertanker Bridgeton, damaged last month by a mine that may have been planted by the Iranians, remained in Kuwait. Meanwhile, Washington found itself in the humiliating position of pleading with its European allies to send minesweepers to the gulf, a request that all spurned. At week's end the U.S. was rushing eight Sea Stallion minesweeping helicopters to the region, while three more Kuwaiti tankers moved into the gulf escorted by American warships. Khomeini's anti-American fervor echoed those 444 days in 1979-81 when Iran held 52 Americans captive in the U.S. embassy in Tehran. "The American presence in the

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gulf has turned back the clock to the years of the hostage crisis," said an Iranian journalist. "That is the atmosphere now." But a major factor in the new frenzy was the congressional hearings on the U.S. armsfor-hostages deal with Iran, which Iranians followed closely by newspaper and radio. The public revelations of those dealings last November and the fresh airing given the scandal on Capitol Hill over the past three months revealed Khomeini's willingness to traffic with the Great Satan and thus deeply embarrassed Tehran. In order to restore its credibility, Khomeini's regime apparently felt it imperative to demonstrate anew its hatred of America. "It all was like waving a red flag in front of Iran," says Gary Sick, a former Carter Administration official and expert on Iran. "They had to respond, to redeem themselves both domestically and internationally."

Two weeks ago, however, the Saudis were not as lucky. According to accounts pieced together last week, the trouble began on Friday, only minutes after the end of midday prayer services. In 115 degrees heat, a whiterobed sea of penitents swarmed around the Sacred Mosque, where the devout come to touch the Black Stone, a meteorite inside the shrine that millions of pilgrims have worn smooth over the centuries in the belief that it will absolve them of sin. Suddenly the worshipers' hymns and shouts of Allahu-Akhbar! (God is great) were drowned out. Crying "Death to America! Death to the Soviet Union! Death to Israel!," ragged lines of Iranian demonstrators began weaving through the crowds. Many carried posters of Khomeini that they waved over the heads of the faithful. Their alleged aim: to seize the Sacred Mosque and proclaim Khomeini leader of all Islam.

But the U.S. is only one target of Khomeini's wrath. Iran has been locked in a face-off with France since the two nations broke off relations last month. The French aircraft carrier Clemenceau last week steamed to the gulf as Iranian police continued to hold 15 French citizens hostage in the French embassy in Tehran. Tensions remained high between Iran and Britain over earlier incidents involving their diplomats. After the Mecca tragedy, gangs ransacked the Kuwaiti and Saudi Arabian embassies in the Iranian capital and took four Saudis prisoner.

Police rushed in as the pilgrims and intruders began to clash. Waves of Iranians charged the officers, hurling rocks and other objects. Some agitators brandished clubs and knives. Others set fire to nearby cars and motorcycles. Terrified bystanders dashed for cover, their white robes frantically flapping. By the time police regained control, 402 people, including at least 275 Iranians, lay dead or dying and an additional 649 had been injured.

Amid the rage, however, Tehran was still capable of making shrewd diplomatic maneuvers. In one such move that promised to heighten superpower tensions in the region, Iran and the Soviet Union last week began to negotiate plans to reopen oil pipelines and build a second rail link from Iran to Soviet Central Asia. While the Soviets and the U.S. are officially neutral in the Iran-Iraq war, the superpowers appeared to be moving into opposite corners: Washington seemed to tie itself to Baghdad by aiding its ally Kuwait, while Moscow warmed to Tehran. The Soviet pact spotlighted Iran's strategic importance. One of the world's leading oil producers, Iran (pop. 50 million) has more people than all the other gulf states combined and geographically dominates the richest petroleum- producing region on earth. The country is a vast land bridge between the gulf and the Soviets on the north, the Turks on the west, and the Asian nations of Afghanistan and Pakistan on the east. Washington rightfully views any increase in Soviet influence in Iran as worrisome indeed. But it is the gulf states that fear their brawling neighbor the most. As the world's only Shi'ite-ruled Muslim country, Iran seeks to export its brand of Islamic revolution throughout the region and to overthrow the Sunni-ruled Muslim regimes in countries like Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. The two religious factions have been fierce rivals for centuries. Painfully vulnerable to Iranian subversion, the Sunni gulf nations have been understandably reluctant to alienate Tehran. Since Khomeini came to power in 1979, tensions have been especially high during the hajj, the pilgrimage to Mecca that annually attracts more than 2 million Muslims from some 130 countries. Khomeini viewed the sacred occasion as the ideal time to deliver his revolutionary message, but the Saudis blocked that goal by banning demonstrations and limiting the number of Iranians allowed into the country. Last year Saudi police discovered more than 110 lbs. of explosives hidden in the luggage of 500 Iranian pilgrims.

Tehran quickly claimed that the Saudis had machinegunned the victims in cold blood. Riyadh replied that the Iranians had charged police and were trampled to death in the melee.The Saudis buttressed their story with videotape clips that showed an Iranian rampage. Ali Hassan Ash-Shaer, Saudi Arabia's Information Minister, insisted that "not a single bullet was fired" by Saudi forces. On Saturday, Tehran awoke to a terse 7 a.m. newscast that reported that "scores of Iranian pilgrims have been shot dead by the Saudi police." By 8 a.m. a crowd of 600 had gathered outside the Saudi embassy. After briefly being restrained by armed police, the growing mob burst into the two-story villa, smashing windows and destroying embassy documents. Last week thousands of mourners walked through Tehran alongside coffins containing bodies brought back from Saudi Arabia. Chants of "Death to America!" and "Death to the fascist Saudi police!" filled the air. For the conservative Saudi rulers, the bloodshed at Mecca was appalling and terrifying. Iran's revolutionary zeal had penetrated the borders of one of the most cautious and security-conscious countries in the world. "We are determined to defend our land and our holy places by all means," declared King Fahd. Arab leaders from Bahrain to Morocco rallied behind Riyadh and condemned the rioters. Four days after the Mecca riots, Iran reported launching its "Martyrdom" maneuvers in the gulf. According to Tehran radio, frogmen, pilotless aircraft and explosive-laden vessels staged mock attacks. Iranian television showed "suicide" speedboats skimming the waters, apparently practicing for the day when they would be called upon to crash into enemy warships. The Iranians even claimed to have launched their first submarine. Iran's noisy saber rattling is only the latest lurch in its erratic foreign policy. Though Khomeini has often declared his hatred for the West, Iran's dealings with other countries are determined as much by its domestic politics as by ideology. After several years of insisting that Iran's only goal was to spread its brand

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of Islam across the globe, Khomeini began in late 1984 to soften his rhetoric in order to rebuild ties with other countries. The move reflected the fact that Iran desperately needed help: four years of war with Iraq had devastated the economy, and Khomeini's implacable hostility toward the outside world had turned his nation into an international pariah. In short order, Iran signed a trade pact with China, opened negotiations with France to resolve a $1 billion dispute, and entered fence-mending agreements with the Arab world that included a limit on the number of Iranian pilgrims who would make the yearly trek to Mecca. Beneath Iran's public diplomacy, however, its politics was seething, its national leadership split. On one side were the relative pragmatists like Rafsanjani, who favored accommodation abroad. On the other were the hard- liners such as the Ayatullah Hussein Ali Montazeri, Khomeini's designated successor, and Mehdi Hashemi, a key Montazeri aide, who shunned contact with the West. Rafsanjani acknowledged the split in a 1986 speech, in which he declared that "two relatively powerful factions in our country" disagreed on virtually every policy and "may in fact be regarded as two parties without names." Khomeini presided over this division like a fond father, encouraging first one side and then the other. The split became a chasm after Iran decided in late 1985 to buy arms from the U.S. The decision did not reflect a fundamental shift in policy; the arrangement only illustrated Tehran's fanatical desire to defeat Iraq, no matter who supplied the weapons. In addition, Washington's eagerness to swap TOW missiles for hostages was interpreted by many in Iran as proof that terrorism paid off. Nonetheless, the deal infuriated extreme hard-liners like Hashemi. There was little they could do about it since the Ayatullah had approved the negotiations. When former National Security Adviser Robert McFarlane undertook his now famous mission to Tehran in May 1986, supporters of Hashemi tried to have him kidnaped, but Rafsanjani's followers intervened. That trip might still remain secret today if Hashemi and dozens of his associates had not been arrested in Tehran last October on murder and other charges. Several days later friends of Hashemi leaked details of the McFarlane visit to the Lebanese weekly magazine Ash-Shiraa. The sensational account made worldwide headlines and sent the pragmatists scurrying for cover. Though Khomeini has forbidden public criticism of the arms deal, the explosive revelations have forced all factions in Tehran to talk and act tough. "To be perceived as nonrevolutionary in Iran is the kiss of death," says Iranian Expert Gary Sick. Almost overnight the softening face that Iran presented to the world reverted to a furious scowl. Khomeini reportedly was in his blackest mood in years as the annual Mecca pilgrimage neared. "Break the teeth of the Americans," he told the 150,000 Iranians who set out on the trip. The war with Iraq continues to dominate Iranian policy at home and abroad. Since Baghdad started the conflict by invading Iran in September 1980, some 300,000 Iranians and 200,000 Iraqis have lost their lives in the fighting. Tehran's hopes for victory soared in January, when its troops pushed within a few miles of Basra, Iraq's second largest city. In the past few months, however, Iran has made little headway in its drive to crush Iraqi President Saddam Hussein. Indeed, the Iraqis have succeeded in reclaiming much of their lost ground.

Even the number of Iranian war victims reflects the country's political divisions. Iranian troops are split among the regular military, the fanatical Revolutionary Guards and the often ragtag volunteer corps known as the basij. During Iran's moderate phase in the mid1980s, Tehran reduced the death toll by relying on trained professional soldiers for most of the fighting. Rafsanjani announced in 1985 that Iran intended "to achieve victory with as few casualties as possible." But last year champions of the zealous Guards gained a stronger voice in ruling circles. The Guards have scant concern for casualties and favor launching human waves against enemy positions. In a unanimous vote last month, the U.N. Security Council demanded that Iran and Iraq declare a cease-fire, and last week the U.S. pushed efforts for a resolution calling for an arms embargo on Iran. The relentless war with Iraq is only the most visible sign of Khomeini's determination to defeat heretics. No less important are Tehran's ties with the terrorist networks of Shi'ite radicals that stand ready to do the Ayatullah's bidding. Though tactics may shift, Khomeini's ultimate goal remains the same as when he came to power in Iran in 1979: to extend Shi'ite fundamentalism over all of Islam and recover the unity and power that the Muslim world has lost since the Middle Ages. "Khomeini is a one-track fanatic," contends a senior Israeli official. "But he is very cunning, very clever and knows what he wants to do." So far, though, Khomeini has failed to export his revolution much farther than Beirut. That is the stronghold of the Hizballah, or Party of God, terrorists who revere Khomeini. Acting under such names as the Islamic Jihad and the Revolutionary Justice Organization, the Hizballah is suspected of holding most of the 24 foreign hostages, including nine Americans and Anglican Envoy Terry Waite, who are missing in Lebanon. As the Iran-contra hearings showed, Reagan's arms sales to Iran were designed primarily to pry Americans from Hizballah's grasp. The deals apparently did secure the release of three Americans -though four more were subsequently kidnaped -- just as French contacts with Iran appeared to win freedom for five Frenchmen last year. Hizballah's exploits are not confined to kidnaping. With the probable aid of 2,000 Revolutionary Guards stationed in the Bekaa Valley and 400 in southern Lebanon, the Islamic Jihad has claimed responsibility for six suicide attacks between 1982 and 1984 that took more than 500 lives and helped drive American, French and Israeli troops out of Lebanon. The campaign included the 1983 truck bombing that killed 241 U.S. servicemen billeted in Beirut. Hizballah's ties to Tehran are abundantly clear. Leaders visit the Iranian capital regularly and reportedly get instructions from Iranian embassies in Damascus and Beirut. Khomeini is said to spend anywhere from $15 million to $50 million a year to finance Hizballah activities. Many Lebanese villages have so embraced Khomeini's way that their mosques and squares are adorned with pictures of the Ayatullah and even Iranian flags. Tehran reciprocates by putting pictures of Lebanese Shi'ite "martyrs" on Iranian postage stamps. Says Hussein Musawi, leader of the Hizballahallied Islamic Amal: "We do not believe in the presence of a state called Lebanon. We regard the entire Islamic world as our homeland." Other countries have reason to fear that Hizballah will carry out terrorist acts on behalf of Iran. Last month a suspected member of Hizballah commandeered an Air

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Afrique jet, singled out a French passenger and shot him dead. Though the hijacking was staged ostensibly to force West Germany to release two jailed Hizballah operatives, the killing of the Frenchman suggested another motive: to pressure Paris to end the continuing diplomatic standoff between France and Iran. Washington last week quietly warned government installations at home and abroad to be alert to the Iranian threat. In West Berlin, the Allied Command ordered a number of Iranian diplomats to leave the city "in the interests of public order and security." Tehran's ties with Hizballah have put it into conflict with its friends as well. Though Syria depends on Iran for much of its oil, relations between the two countries have deteriorated recently over events in Lebanon. Hizballah fought Syria's forces after Syrian President Hafez Assad sent troops into Beirut last February to restore law-and-order. Now Hizballah-set bombs explode almost nightly near Syrian military posts in the Lebanese capital. Hizballah's most serious provocation came in June, when the group kidnaped U.S. Journalist Charles Glass near a Syrian checkpoint that was supposedly guarding the area. Khomeini's relations with Saudi Arabia seem almost beyond repair. Ironically, the break follows a period in which Iran seemed to moderate its religious rivalry with the House of Saud. In a conciliatory move two years ago Khomeini replaced his religious representative in Mecca, a hard-line cleric whom the Saudis loathed. Before the start of this year's hajj, however, Khomeini's hatred had revived. Not only were the Saudis still bankrolling Iraq, they openly supported Kuwait's assistance to Baghdad. Many observers expect Iran to avenge the Mecca deaths by launching terrorist acts on Saudi Arabian soil or by fomenting trouble among the country's 350,000 or so Shi'ites, most of whom live in the oil-rich eastern provinces. Tehran and Paris have been at daggers' points since mid-July, when France tried to question Wahid Gordji, an Iranian embassy translator. French police suspect that Gordji, who took refuge in the embassy, is linked to a string of Paris bombings last fall. When French officers surrounded the Iranian embassy to prevent Gordji's escape, Iran sealed off the French embassy in Tehran. Speaking in a televised interview last week, French Premier Jacques Chirac declared that "we have no intention of giving in to blackmail." In an obvious reference to French warships headed for the gulf, Chirac vowed that "we will intervene" if Iran launched a military attack. Yet Chirac's room for maneuver is sharply limited. Any French military action could endanger the lives of the embassy captives in Tehran and the five French hostages held in Lebanon. Britain treaded more cautiously last week. London's relations with Tehran have been tense since May, when an Iranian diplomat was arrested for shoplifting. After Iranian Revolutionary Guards beat a British embassy official in response, the two countries began to expel one another's diplomats. Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher has not wanted to push the quarrel any further, though. Sounded out privately two weeks ago by Washington about sending minesweepers to the gulf, she politely said no. Thatcher reportedly was furious when U.S. Ambassador Charles Price formally repeated the same request, forcing her to reject the U.S. again, this time in public. Thatcher has added reason to look askance at the highly publicized American escort

operation: London has quietly escorted British tankers through gulf waters for the past six years. The Soviet Union, meanwhile, gladly seized the opportunity to play a larger role in the gulf. Indeed, it was a Soviet decision last spring to charter three oil tankers to Kuwait that drove the Reagan Administration to counter the move by reflagging Kuwaiti vessels. But in reporting last week's negotiations with Iran, the Soviet news agency TASS noted that both Moscow and Tehran expressed mutual concern over the "unprecedented buildup of the U.S. military presence in the region." Nonetheless, the potential partnership poses problems for both countries. The Soviet Union remains a major arms supplier to Iraq. And Moscow cannot ignore the potential appeal of Khomeini's fiery fundamentalism to Soviet Muslim communities in Central Asia. Yet Iran's economic woes seem to be nudging it toward the Kremlin. The turning point came last year with the arrival of the highest-ranking Soviet delegation to visit Tehran since the 1979 revolution. Then in December Tehran reported that the Soviets had agreed in principle to resume imports of Iranian natural gas and that the two countries were exploring the joint production of steel and petrochemicals. For all his bluster, Khomeini is adept at turning the fears and jealousies of rival nations to his own advantage. "Look at Iran's position today," says a senior Israeli. "No one can ignore it. And many will even admire it." Part of that success stems from Khomeini's shrewd cynicism and ability to size up opponents. Speaking of Washington two years ago, the Ayatullah dryly observed, "It is clear that if we take one step toward the U.S., they take 100 in return." Khomeini swiftly learned the value of dire pronouncements that are never actually carried out. The Ayatullah used the 1979-81 U.S. hostage crisis to inflame his own people and cement his revolution. But when Khomeini no longer needed the hostages, he let them go and agreed to drop demands for a U.S. apology and the return of assets of the former Shah. Since the hostage crisis, Khomeini has repeatedly found that a combination of bullying and pragmatic concessions has kept his enemies off-balance. Observes Richard Bulliet, a professor of Middle East history at Columbia University: "Khomeini is not the lunatic that many people in the West take him for." Now other nations must again find a way to deal with that figure. For all the problems that Reagan's Kuwaiti escort service has encountered, the President seems determined to continue with the operation indefinitely. Says a senior Administration official: "He's committed to demonstrating support to our friends in the region." Still, the White House began muting its military role in the gulf last week. Senior officials insisted that the reflagging was first and foremost a display of solidarity toward the moderate Arabs, not a show of muscle. Whatever Washington's intent, Iran can ill afford a direct clash with the U.S. Not only would Tehran have little chance of winning, but a fight would drain vital resources from the all important war against Iraq. Still, Western military analysts are worried about a possible suicide bomb attack from an explosives-packed plane or boat. The greatest threat to Khomeini's Iran may finally come not from the battlefield but from the country's almost

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suicidal tendency to cut itself off from the rest of the world. Each time Iran begins to make overtures to other nations, it seems instinctively to stop and pull back. Tehran's tenuous links with Washington, Paris and London have all been shattered in the past year. So too have been the painstaking efforts of some Iranian leaders to improve ties with Saudi Arabia. Whether Iran can leave such traits behind will ultimately rest with Khomeini's successors. All the indications are that the pragmatic Rafsanjani, 53, is locked in a fierce power struggle with the hard-liner Montazeri. Without a clear winner, the two men could wind up sharing authority in an arrangement that would make Montazeri the religious leader and Rafsanjani the political head of state. Most experts predict that a turbulent transition will follow Khomeini's death. One power broker may be Khomeini's son Ahmed, 43. While members of the Ayatullah's family have traditionally been left on the sidelines, Khomeini brought Ahmed into government affairs late last year to oversee Tehran's two major newspapers and supervise state TV and radio stations and the national IRNA news agency. Iranian experts now consider Ahmed a full-fledged member of Khomeini's inner circle, along with Rafsanjani and Montazeri. For all the speculation about Khomeini's successor, the Ayatullah remains very much the spiritual force behind the Iranian revolution. Reportedly afflicted with a weakening heart and prostate cancer, Khomeini nonetheless grants public audiences, meets weekly with the families of martyrs and even performs Islamic marriage ceremonies. On most days, though, he remains secluded in his house in north Tehran, emerging from time to time to issue the whispery proclamations that echo around the world. Intimates say the Ayatullah yearns to ensure that the revolution will survive long after he is gone. That may not be possible, given the nation's fractious politics and the fact that none of the potential successors possesses Khomeini's ability to mesmerize the country. But for now, the brooding leader remains a formidable force, an old man who can at will command the attention of both the superpowers and all of his Arab neighbors. As he first proved eight years ago and continues to prove, the Ayatullah Ruhollah Khomeini has transformed Iran into a state that the world must reckon with. With reporting by David S. Jackson/Abu Dhabi and Scott MacLeod/Cairo, with other bureaus Monday, Feb. 27, 1989 Hunted by An Angry Faith Salman Rushdie's novel cracks open a fault line between East and West By WILLIAM E. SMITH It was an absurdist nightmare, a story that all but defied the Western imagination. A middle-aged author, born in Bombay but for many years resident in London, writes a long, sardonic novel, by turns philosophical and comic and fantastic. In the book's opening scene, two middle-aged Indian actors fall 29,002 feet from a jetliner that has just been exploded by terrorists over the English Channel. They have an animated conversation as they hurtle toward earth; they land safely, but then their troubles begin anew. Along the way, the author writes about his schooling and young adulthood in Britain, about his love for Bombay and about the death of his father. He explores the roots ! of his Muslim faith and retells some legends of the Prophet Muhammad in a whimsical and sometimes outrageous way, though taking care to offer up these sequences as dreams, or

even dreams within dreams, by characters who may or may not be mad. The book is praised by critics and wins a literary prize, but Muslims find some of the passages offensive. Soon there are threats, protests, demonstrations, riots in scattered places -- India, South Africa, the Asian quarters of British cities. India bans the book to avoid sectarian violence, and is soon followed by Pakistan, South Africa, Saudi Arabia, Egypt. Then a mass protest is staged outside the American cultural center in Islamabad, the capital of Pakistan; six people are killed, a hundred injured. Another dies during protests in Indian-controlled Kashmir. Then, most astonishing of all, Ayatullah Ruhollah Khomeini, 88, spiritual ruler of fundamentalist, revolutionary Iran, announces that the author must be killed for the sin of insulting Islam, the Prophet and the holy Koran, and for good measure exonerates any Muslim who manages to perpetrate this deed and promises him the rewards of martyrdom. And not only the author, but anyone else involved in the publication of the book. A day later, another Iranian cleric announces that a bounty has been placed on the author's head: $2.6 million if the avenger is an Iranian, $1 million if he is not. The following day, thanks to the generosity of still another Iranian philanthropist, the reward is doubled. Governments are angered, publishers intimidated, airlines subjected to bomb threats. The author and his family scurry into hiding, protected by Scotland Yard. This was the extraordinary plight of Salman Rushdie, 41, whose fourth novel, The Satanic Verses, has precipitated what some Islamic experts regard as the most incendiary literary fight in the 14 centuries of Islamic history. Last week the controversy spread from the dusty streets of Pakistan to the offices of European publishers and to the shopping malls of America, where the nation's largest booksellers ordered all copies of The Satanic Verses removed from the shelves. Suddenly the name Salman Rushdie was on the lips of millions, many reviling him but others expressing sympathy and genuinely wondering how a novel could elicit such deadly passion. The dispute reminded Westerners once again of the zealous rage that Khomeini is capable of; it also raised questions about how free societies can best protect themselves and their citizens against so furious and mercurial a form of intimidation. The conflict cut to the heart of Muslim and JudeoChristian values, with centuries of cultural misunderstanding and mistrust finding a flash point in Rushdie's novel. After Khomeini's call to murder, many Muslim leaders worldwide disagreed with the ferocity of his action, but none had a friendly word for Rushdie, his literary intentions or his right to free speech. To be sure, few of his prosecutors had read the book, as the author pointed out repeatedly; most seemed to feel they had learned enough from printed excerpts or merely word of mouth to convict the author of blasphemy compounded by apostasy, the crime of renouncing one's religious faith. In the Muslim faith, the traditional punishment for an apostate is death. Asked if he took Khomeini's threat seriously, Rushdie, clearly shaken, replied, "I think I have to take it very seriously indeed." He canceled a planned book tour in the U.S., moved out of his four-story house in North London and, under protection of Scotland Yard's antiterrorist squad, quietly disappeared. Then, in a formal statement released on Saturday, he declared, "I

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profoundly regret the distress that publication has occasioned to sincere followers of Islam." The Iranian news agency initially observed that the "Muslim heretic" had not repented. Later it said the apology might be accepted, and still later it dismissed the previous comment as the personal opinion of one of its employees. At the same time, the news agency reported that a local newspaper had denounced the offer of money to anyone who would kill Rushdie, observing that "to pay one man to kill another man is murder at a premium and not a religiously inspired act." This remarkable display of vacillation, played out in the dispatches from Tehran, suggested that pragmatists in Iran had begun a campaign to control the damage caused by the Ayatullah's earlier pronouncement. In the West, political leaders and the general public alike reacted with anger and disbelief to the outrage of a foreign despot declaring a death sentence on another country's citizen whose only crime, at least in Western eyes, was to probe the meaning of his Islamic heritage. In Washington, the State Department said it was "appalled" by Khomeini's statement as well as by the reward for Rushdie's murder. The Dutch Foreign Minister canceled a trip to Tehran. The British government found itself at the center of the controversy -- because Rushdie is a British citizen and because its Tehran embassy, reopened less than three months ago after being closed for eight years, had been attacked by an angry mob earlier last week. The Foreign Office summoned Iran's lone diplomat in Britain and told him that Khomeini's threat was "totally unacceptable," demanded special protection for its embassy, and disclosed that London was "freezing" its plan to strengthen diplomatic ties with the Islamic state. British airlines received bomb threats, causing security delays at London's Heathrow Airport. Viking Penguin, Rushdie's publisher, was also the target of such threats at its London and New York City offices. Thanks to the Muslim broadside, sales of The Satanic Verses boomed -- more than 100,000 copies were in print around the world -- and a second U.S. printing was on the way, but distribution was a growing problem. Waldenbooks ordered copies of The Satanic Verses removed from its more than 1,300 stores after getting several threats. Next day B. Dalton and Barnes & Noble followed suit. "We have never before pulled a book off our shelves," said Leonard Riggio, B. Dalton's chief executive officer. "It is regrettable that a foreign government has been able to hold hostage our most sacred First Amendment principle. Nevertheless, the safety of our employees and patrons must take precedence." Though American writers' groups were at first slow to react to the controversy, the 2,200member PEN American Center later issued a statement in support of Rushdie. In addition to the problem of distributing the book in the U.S., Viking Penguin faced a threat by 44 Islamic countries to ban the sale of its other books within their borders. In a statement, the company insisted that it had not intended to offend anyone and did not plan to withdraw the book from circulation. Andrew Wylie, Rushdie's New York City-based agent, said the book was still scheduled to be translated into 20 languages, but publishers in France and West Germany were reconsidering plans to issue editions of their own. The Canadian government halted imports of the book while it decided whether, as alleged by Muslims, the novel violates the country's laws against hate literature.

The actual risk faced by Rushdie and his publishers if Khomeini sought to follow through on his threat was difficult to gauge. Of the roughly 25,000 Iranians in Britain, it is believed there may be as many as 1,000 radical extremists, including students on short-term visas. Tehran-backed groups have a history of violent mischief in London, mostly bombings aimed at Iranian dissidents. Says Ian Geldard, head of research at London's Institute for the Study of Terrorism: "In the Islamic world, a call from the Imam is a full command . . . The worst of it is that this threat could remain in effect for months." Or even years. In a BBC radio interview, an exiled Iranian film director, Reza Fazeli, who himself has been the target of a Khomeini death threat and whose son was killed in a 1986 terrorist attack in London, said Rushdie faced a "living hell." He continued, "I had to learn to look over my shoulder. If they kill you, it's over -- it's finished. But ((this way)) they are killing you a hundred times a day." What exactly did Rushdie do to merit such a threat? By Western standards, nothing -- at least nothing that could not be punished with a bad review. But among Muslims, and not just fundamentalists and extremists, there was an almost universal judgment that he had dishonored the faith (see box). Every Muslim critic seemed to have a favorite offending passage from his book. But, in sum, they felt he had insulted the faith, ridiculed the Prophet, trivialized the sacred -- and that the sin was compounded because it was committed by a born, though not a practicing, Muslim. In Britain, Rushdie had no shortage of defenders. A group of writers led by playwright Harold Pinter presented a petition in Rushdie's behalf at No. 10 Downing Street. Author Anthony Burgess, writing in the newspaper the Independent, stated the Western position precisely: "What a secular society thinks of the Prophet Muhammad is its own affair, and reason, apart from law, does not permit aggressive interference of the kind that has brought shame and death to Islamabad," where the rioting took several lives. "If Muslims want to attack the Christian or humanistic vision of Islam contained in our literature," Burgess observed, "they will find more vicious travesties than Mr. Rushdie's." Others, looking for parallels to the Rushdie case both inside and outside Islam, referred to Muslim resentment of the medieval Christian mystery plays, with their satanic portrayals of the Prophet as "Mahound," the name Rushdie gives his crypto-Prophet. In 1977 a fanatical band of Hanafi Muslims shot their way into three buildings in Washington, took more than 100 hostages and, among other things, tried to halt the showing of a $17 million movie epic called Muhammad, Messenger of God at theaters in New York City and Los Angeles. Though the tone of the movie was reverential, the producers had met endless difficulties in making it, including expulsion of the film crew from Morocco. In 1980 Saudi Arabia vehemently protested a BritishAmerican TV "drama documentary" called Death of a Princess, which told the story of the 1977 executions of a young married Saudi princess and her lover. Some Muslims have even objected to Children of Gebelawi, a 30-year-old allegorical novel based on the development of the world's great religions, by Egypt's 1988 Nobel laureate, Naguib Mahfouz. Last year's furor over the Martin Scorsese motion picture The Last Temptation of Christ demonstrated that Christians, particularly those who believe in the literal interpretation of Scripture, are similarly sensitive about fictional portrayal of the sacred,

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though their protest generally takes less violent forms. Even secular gods are sometimes held by their followers to be above scrutiny; in earlier times the Kremlin was notoriously thin-skinned about revelations concerning the private lives of Lenin and other members of the Communist pantheon. Practically nobody, however, has managed to touch the sensitive nerve of a vast section of mankind as effectively as Salman Rushdie. In Bombay seven prominent writers and intellectuals, all non-Muslims, declared in a joint statement, "The pain of scurrilous intrusion into the regions of the sacred is not felt by the so-called fundamentalists only, but is the common experience of the whole, besieged ((Muslim)) minority. While there can be rational opposition to their faith, there should be no outraging of it by obscenity and slander." Many Oriental scholars have raised questions about Islam or the actions of the Prophet, but they have generally been ignored, often because they were understood to have a political bias. Rushdie's actions seem somehow more galling to Muslims because, though essentially free of political motivation, he appears to be tampering -- and mischievously, at that -- with the faith. Karim al Rawi, a lecturer at Cairo's American University, maintained that on this occasion Rushdie's propensity for provocation just went too far. Said Al Rawi: "In his other novels," in which Rushdie wrote, often scathingly, of post-independence India and Pakistan, "the writer acted like a little kid poking at a sleeping lion. In The Satanic Verses, the beast has awakened, and this time did not feel like playing." Most Muslims were simply offended by the material. "He attacked the wives of the Prophet," declared Ahmed Baghat, a writer for Cairo's Al Ahram. "He brought disgrace upon them." Said another Egyptian author, Sheik Muhammad Al Ghazaly: "We do not view this as freedom of opinion, but freedom to be insolent." Having made their case against the book, Islamic authorities divided sharply over how the author should be punished. Georges Sabagh, director of UCLA's Near East Studies Center, took an unyielding line, saying Khomeini was "completely within his rights" in sentencing Rushdie to death. Added Sabagh, taking full advantage of the free speech available to him in California: "If the man is struck by a thunderbolt, all the better." But should Muslims feel they have a right to kill Rushdie? "Why not?" he replied. On the other hand, Sheik Muhammad Hossam el Din of Cairo's Al Azhar Mosque argued that to execute Rushdie, as ordered by Khomeini, would be "virtually impossible" under the tenets of Islam. His solution: ban and burn the book and give the author a chance to repent. Issuance of a death decree, he went on, "makes Islam seem brutal and bloodthirsty." Many Islamic clerics were offended by Khomeini's pronouncement, regarding it as vengeful and contrary to Islamic teachings of mercy. Like most of their countrymen, U.S. experts on Islam were astonished by the intensity of the anti-Rushdie campaign. One academic specialist marveled that he could not "recall anything quite as widespread as this," then quickly asked that his name not be used. "I can't afford a bodyguard," he said. Since Islamic fundamentalism has been on the rise for at least 15 years, how can one account for so explosive a reaction at this time, and against a book that could just as easily have been ignored? The answer is as much political as theological. Now that Iran has settled, if not exactly lost, its brutal and murderous war against Iraq, the Rushdie book has become a tool with which

Khomeini can once again mobilize his constituency, this time against a conveniently distant enemy whose offenses are vaguely related to the Ayatullah's "Great Satan," the U.S. Says Marvin Zonis, a political scientist at the University of Chicago: "It's a way to make domestic political capital out of a foreign adventure." & Such controversies reflect the confusion of a country torn between the more pragmatic forces seeking to moderate the ten-year-old Islamic revolution and open Iran to Western trade, and ideologues determined to retain control. For some months, moderate elements seemed to be in the ascendant. Only a few days preceding Khomeini's rampage against Rushdie, the Iranian leader's designated successor, Ayatullah Hussein Ali Montazeri, made an unusually conciliatory speech in the holy city of Qum. Montazeri lamented the fact that "people in the world have gained the idea that our business in Iran is just murdering people" and called on his country to "set aside past mistakes and harsh treatment," adding that "extremism is to our detriment." At about the same time, Parliamentary Speaker Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani told the Iranian news agency that Tehran erred in seeking a military victory over Iraq. "We took too big a bite," he said. This was extraordinarily revisionist talk, and it may have been too much for Khomeini to stomach. He struck back, reaffirming his leadership of the Iranian masses with the most convenient weapon at hand, The Satanic Verses. The return of Khomeini's fiery rhetoric may be an isolated rage or it could mean that the hard-liners are once again trying to assert their strength. Politics also played a role in the anti-Rushdie agitation in Pakistan. Last week's demonstration at the American cultural center in Islamabad was staged by political and religious groups that oppose the government of Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto and were formerly aligned with her predecessor and enemy, the late President Mohammed Zia ul-Haq. On her return from a trip to China, she seized on this theme in a speech, asking, "Was the agitation really directed against this book, which has not been read, sold or translated in Pakistan, or was it a protest by those who lost the election ((and wish)) to destabilize the process of democracy?" Toward the end of the week, more violent protests flared in Iran, India and Bangladesh. In Tehran, however, Iran's President Ali Khamenei remarked that the death threat against Rushdie might be withdrawn if he would apologize to Muslims and to Khomeini. A day later, when Rushdie did exactly that, Iran's government-run news agency began to issue its series of contradictory reports and commentaries -- a symbol of the confusion within the Tehran regime. But what to believe? Even as he was discussing the possible benefits of a Rushdie apology last week, Khamenei said of the author, "This wretched man has no choice but to die because he has confronted a billion Muslims and the Imam." Rushdie of course intended to do no such thing; rather, he used his considerable literary powers to address an audience of educated readers who understood very well that he was offering them a work of the imagination. The fate of both book and author poses a dilemma for Western societies that is not easily resolved. Granted there is a need in the West for greater sensitivity to Islamic concerns, so also is there a need to deny trespass to intruding zealots -- one is reminded of Khamenei's remark that "the Imam knows no frontiers" -- determined to inflict

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intellectual and sometimes physical terrorism on the rest of the world. For much of the past two months, Salman Rushdie has been defending himself and his book. "The thing that is most disturbing is that they are talking about a book that doesn't exist," he said. "The book that is worth killing people for and burning flags for is not the book I wrote." As Rushdie saw it, his book "isn't actually about Islam, but about migration, metamorphosis, divided selves, love, death, London and Bombay." The sad irony, he said, is "that after working for five years to give voice and fictional flesh to the immigrant culture of which I am myself a member, I should see my book burned, largely unread, by the people it's about -- people who might find some pleasure and much recognition in its pages." As the week ended, Rushdie was under police guard somewhere in England, doubtless reflecting on the magical if sinister power that his words had acquired and getting acquainted with yet another place of refuge. It was a situation that he must have understood very well. As he wrote in his first novel, Grimus, more than a decade ago, "It is the natural condition of the exile, putting down roots in memory." With reporting by Dean Fischer/Cairo, Frank Melville/London and Priscilla Painton/New York Monday, Oct. 6, 1980 War in the Persian Gulf By SPENCER DAVIDSON COVER STORIES Seeking power and revenge, Iraq attacks Iran along a crucial oil artery Suddenly the nightmare, the conflict that had only been discussed as a worst-case scenario, was at hand—war amid the oilfields and across the vital oil routes of the Persian Gulf. Day after day last week, Iraqi pilots flying Soviet-built MiGs headed eastward for bombing raids on military targets and oil facilities across the Iranian border, including the Tigris-Euphrates estuary known as Shatt al Arab. Caught by surprise at first, the Iranians responded with attacks of their own, sending American-made Phantom F-4 fighter-bombers against Iraqi cities and installations. A fearful battle was under way. Iraqi armor and infantry punched across 500 miles of desert front at many points, surrounding two key Iranian cities but running into stubborn resistance and counterattacks. In the Shatt and in the northern gulf, naval craft skirmished and bombarded shore installations. After months of border clashes, Iraq and Iran were at war, upsetting an already precarious balance in a volatile, politically unstable region that provides approximately 40% of the non-Communist world's oil and is a cockpit of superpower rivalry. "Whether it has been declared or not," said Iraqi Defense Minister Adnan Khairallah early on, "it is in fact war." The struggle escalated quickly and as it did, spread to key oil facilities on both sides—Basra, Kirkuk and Mosul in Iraq, Abadan and Kharg island in Iran. With thick black smoke pluming from bombed tank farms and refineries, petroleum-consuming nations around the globe anxiously calculated and then recalculated the implications. Said one U.S. official in tallying up the damage: "Once oil installations became fair game, the stakes became much higher for everyone." Given the limited military capabilities of the combatants, the war did not appear likely to be a

prolonged one, although Iran's Ayatullah Ruhollah Khomeini pledged to fight until "the government of heathens in Iraq topples." Mediation efforts by the U.N. were rebuffed, but the Conference of Islamic Nations dispatched a "goodwill mission" consisting of Pakistani President Zia ul-Haq and Tunisia's Habib Chatti, the organization's secretary-general, to the combatant capitals. No matter how long the struggle continued or how soon it ended, the shock waves had already reached out from the gulf. They included concerns about: Oil Supply. Within days of the outbreak of heavy fighting, oil shipments from Iraq and Iran were suspended, including crude deliveries through Iraq's pipelines to the Mediterranean. Between them, the two nations export just over 3 million bbl. per day, around 20% of gulf crude shipments, an amount that would not necessarily be critical at a time of a global oil glut. But there was the dire possibility that the Strait of Hormuz, 30 miles wide at its narrowest point, at the southern end of the gulf, might be closed because of the hostilities. Halting the flow of the supertankers that steam through the passage would have a devastating ripple effect (see following story) by preventing the shipment of oil from Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and the smaller gulf states. That kind of drop in world supplies would be intolerable. Superpower Relations. The gulf war pitted not just Iraq against Iran but, on the sidelines, the U.S. against the U.S.S.R. Both superpowers have strategic interests in the area; neither will easily stand by if the other should make political gains there. Under the Carter Doctrine, proclaimed by the President last January, the U.S. is committed to keeping the Strait of Hormuz open; it would prefer to do so by diplomatic means, but it has little leverage in Baghdad or in Tehran. Though neither Iraq nor Iran made any attempt last week to interfere with shipping through the strait, the Soviets talked about U.S. "preparations for armed interference in the Persian Gulf," obviously concerned that, in case of a blockade, the U.S. might resort to military action. In Washington, officials expressed fears that if the conflict dragged on, the Soviets, who are Iraq's main armorers and who share a 1,250-mile border with Iran, would have a built-in advantage in case of internal complications in either country. Regional Stability. The war brought cautious Arab support for Iraq, tempered by concern over possible retaliation by Iran. Yet despite their dislike for the Khomeini regime, the rulers of the conservative Arab gulf states were hardly happy with one more flash point in an area already troubled by the Arab-Israeli dispute in the west and the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in the east. An Iraqi victory would add a new name to the list of potential pan-Arab leaders, that of ambitious President Saddam Hussein, 43, who wants to make his country the dominant power in the gulf; defeat could bring him down. For Iran, the stakes were equally high. Khomeini was able to mobilize the nation at short notice. Repelling the Iraqis would probably strengthen his hold on the country for a while. Buckling under Iraqi pressure could invite fragmentation, perhaps even the dismemberment of Iran. The threat of war had hung in the air since spring, when border clashes began to intensify and spread along the 760-mile frontier between the two countries. Traditional enemies, divided by ethnic and ideological differences, Iraq and Iran had come to a temporary accommodation in 1975 when Saddam, then Vice President, and the late Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi announced a frontier agreement during an OPEC summit in Algiers.

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The centerpiece of the accord was a change in the status of the Shatt al Arab, long a source of friction between the two nations. Under the Algiers agreement, the border was moved from the Iranian side of the disputed waterway to the middle of the estuary; in return, the Shah agreed to stop his support for Kurdish rebels in northern Iraq who had been battling the Baghdad government with increasing success. According to the Iraqis, the Shah also promised to return a parcel of disputed territory around Musian. The agreement held as long as the Shah lived. Though Baghdad never forgot its Shatt al Arab concession, though it resented the Shah's self-appointed role as the policeman of the gulf and worried about Iran's steadily growing military strength, it reaped instant benefit from the accord. Without the Shah's support, the Kurdish rebellion fizzled, allowing Iraq to concentrate its oil resources on fast-paced economic development and to emerge as a military power. But the squabble was renewed with the Shah's demise, the Iranian revolution and the advent of the Khomeini era. Khomeini had spent 14 years in exile in Iraq during the Shah's reign, but never concealed his dislike for the Iraqi reqime. Now, stressing old cultural and religious divisions, Tehran accused the Iraqis of fomenting unrest among the predominantly Arab population of Iran's oil-rich Khuzistan province, and called on Iraq's Shi'ite Muslims, the majority in the country, to overthrow the Saddam government, which is dominated by Sunnis. Iraq in turn demanded amendment of the Algiers agreement. It also insisted on the return to "Arab" sovereignty of three small strategic islands—Abu Musa, Greater and Lesser Tunb—at the Strait of Hormuz that had been occupied by the Shah's forces in 1971. Iran did not respond. On Sept. 17, apparently convinced that Iran's revolutionary convulsions had left the country divided and its military forces weak, Saddam made his move. Before Iraq's National Assembly he declared the Algiers agreement "null and void." Five days later full-scale fighting broke out. For the Iranians and Iraqis living along the Iran-Iraq frontier, the war hardly came as a surprise. For months they had lived with increasingly sharp border battles, including artillery bombardments and occasional air raids as Iraq stepped up its drive to regain control of the Shatt and of the Musian region. The difference last week was the range and intensity of the fighting and the commitment of forces on both sides. The war, the first fought in modern times around the gulf, began in the air early Monday morning. From airfields deep in Iraq, Saddam sent his warplanes to strike Iranian military bases, including Mehrabad airport only four miles west of Tehran; Mehrabad serves as a military field as well as Iran's principal commercial airport. The Iraqi objective was straight from the military textbooks: to knock out the Iranian air force before it could ever get off the ground. The effort failed. Scarcely two hours after the attack, U.S.-made Iranian Phantoms were streaking toward two Iraqi bases in the Basra area. Then, beginning at dawn on Tuesday, the Iranian air force launched strikes against at least 16 different targets in Iraq. A principal one was Baghdad, the capital, as well as the military garrisons in the sprawling city of 2.8 million people along the banks of the Tigris River. Iranian planes also attacked the northern oil cities of Mosul, Kirkuk and Erbil. Iraqi gunners sent up barrages of antiaircraft fire and ground-to-air missiles that lit up the skies and brought down a reported 67 Iranian planes.

Baghdad residents took the attacks calmly. Shops remained open, schools continued to hold classes, and youths wearing blue overalls and armed with fire extinguishers took positions in hastily erected tents in the city's many traffic circles, ready to fight any blaze started by Iranian bombs. "We are ready for this war and have been for a long time," a high school student told TIME Cor respondent Adam Zagorin. "Like the Iranians we are Muslims, but Khomeini is a devil who has forced his people against us." Iraqi newspapers played up the propaganda aspects of civilian casualties caused by the bombings, showing pictures of mothers and children injured and in shock. Said the captions: "They fail to face an Iraqi soldier, but they turn to kill Iraqi children." On day two, the war took a more ominous turn: it singled out oil, the mainstay of both countries' economies. Iranian naval vessels shelled oil terminals at Fao island, and the Phantoms returned to bomb and rocket Basra's vast new petrochemical complex. Twentynine people were killed in that raid, some of them Britons, Americans and other foreign workers among a labor force of thousands. The foreigners and their families fled in cars and buses to the Kuwait border 15 miles away. "It all happened so fast," said Briton Roger Elliott. "I was just sitting there getting my truck started when I looked up and saw these jets screaming towards me. The bombs exploded 50 yards away and I could feel the skin on my face being peeled off by the concussion." At about the same time the Iraqis sent their bombers against Iranian oil facilities across the Shatt al Arab at Abadan and farther south against Kharg island, where 14 tankers at a time can load crude. At Abadan, one of the biggest refineries in the world (587,000 bbl.-perday capacity) and the principal source of fuel for Iran's domestic needs, flames and smoke shot skyward. "There are going to be a lot of cold Iranians this winter as a result," said a U.S. diplomat monitoring the fighting. In Tehran, the government decreed that no gasoline would be sold to private motorists for at least a week. Meantime, Iraqi troops and armor crossed the frontier in force. The invaders mounted a multipronged drive aimed at Abadan, the nearby port of Khorramshahr, Ahwaz and Dezful, a vital pumping station on the AbadanTehran pipeline, and to the north around Kermanshah. The heaviest fighting, reported TIME Correspondent William Drozdiak, was around Khorramshahr, which was being pounded from three sides by Iraqi tank and artillery fire. Making his way through dust clouds raised by the armor, Drozdiak bumped into an Iraqi general, who gave him an impromptu briefing: "There is terrible fighting around Khorramshahr. Unfortunately we are not yet in control of the city." Iran admitted the loss of five border posts in the early fighting. But as the week went on, the Iranian defenses hardened and the Iraqis found themselves pressed to maintain their salients. Indeed, the Iranians, in the view of military analysts, were doing surprisingly well against one of the Arab world's strongest military forces (250,000). Since 1973, using oil revenues that now amount to $30 billion annually, the Iraqis had spent $8 billion to $9 billion on military hardware, most of it purchased from the Soviet Union. The shopping list included more than 330 MiG, Sukhoi and Tupolev fighters and bombers, along with tanks ranging from the standard T-62 model to the T-12, which is considered one of the world's best. Iraq also is reported to have 1,000 huge tank transporters,

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acquired as a result of bitter experience. Rushing to support Syria and Egypt in the 1973 war against Israel, Baghdad dispatched its tank force on the long trek through Jordan and Syria to the Golan Heights, only to discover that most of the tanks had shattered treads and burned-out engines by the time they arrived. This time the tanks were ready to ride to battle on transporters. To face this panoply of forces, Iran threw in units and equipment diminished by revolutionary confusion and the decimation of the military's top echelons, but still formidable in regional terms. Its air force included 445 combat planes, among them not only 188 Phantom F-4s and 166 F-5s but also 77 advanced F-14 interceptors. The principal problems with the planes as well as with the Iranian navy and ground forces: lack of maintenance and spare parts. According to Western analysts, only eight of the F-14s were airworthy and one-third of the army's 875 British-built Chieftain tanks were no longer serviceable. Army manpower was down from about 240,000 under the Shah to an estimated 180,000 as a result of desertions and purges; 250 generals had been replaced by inexperienced officers or by military-minded mullahs. Said a Pentagon expert: "In order to move full steam into a war like the one where they now find themselves, the Iranians should have been spit polishing, shining and checking that machinery day by day. Apparently a lot of it has just been sitting there since the revolution." Still the Iranians held. Regular forces were bolstered by a hasty call-up of reserves. The current Iranian year by the solar calendar is 1359, and Iran called up the class of 1356, meaning men who had completed reserve training in 1978. In addition, each of the hundreds of mosques in Tehran was required to deliver 22 militiamen to fight Yazid, a term used for the murderers of Hussein, grandson of the Prophet Muhammad, who is venerated by Shi'ites as a saint and martyr. Whenever air raid sirens wailed, thousands of Teh-ranis rushed to their rooftops shouting "God is great." Enthusiastic civilians almost shot down an Iranian F-4 trying to land at Mehrabad: they thought it was an Iraqi plane. Opposition parties like the left-wing Socialist People's Mujahidin and the Marxist People's Fedayan were captured by the patriotic fever and backed the war effort of President Abolhassan Banisadr's government. Even Reza Pahlavi, 19, the Shah's oldest son, who is studying at the American University in Cairo, volunteered his services from abroad as a fighter pilot. The Iranians were inspired by Khomeini, who railed against Iraq's "godless" rulers, dismissing them as pawns of "the great Satan." Saddam was an "infidel guilty of blasphemy." What particularly galled the Iranians was that in the wake of the revolution, Iraq had given sanctuary to a force of some 3,000 Iranian soldiers now known as the Iran Liberation Army and gathered by General Ghoylam Ali Ovisi, 59, the former military commander of Tehran. The I.L.A. was not involved in last week's fighting but was reportedly ready to move into Iran behind the Iraqis. As the war revved up, Tehran declared an embargo on Iraqi harbors and oil facilities like Basra and proclaimed Iranian territorial waters a "war zone." Ships passing through Hormuz were advised by Iranian navy craft to avoid Iraqi ports. While for the most part the traffic—and the oil—kept flowing, some supertanker captains hove to. Off Kuwait, a fleet of the giant ships dropped anchor, waiting for the war to end.

Particularly at the outset, the war was largely shut off from the outside world, which could only guess at the ferocity of battle by communiques issued by both sides. By the fifth day, for instance, the Iraqis claimed to have shot down no fewer than 158 Iranian planes, about as many, experts figured, as the Iranians would have been able to get into the air. Propaganda was rife on either side. Iraqi television carried bulletins on the fighting, with commentaries on what "our heroic forces" had done to "the racist Persian enemy." The Iranian media talked of Saddam Hussein's "collusion with Israel." Apparently counting on a quick and glorious kill, Saddam's government initially treated the war as a kind of media event, issuing visas for 300 foreign newsmen and busing many of them to Baghdad from Jordan, across 500 miles of desert. By week's end Baghdad was claiming the recapture of the land the Iraqis consider theirs. The rail line from Iran's southwest oil towns to Tehran was said to have been cut by Iraqi forces, and the border towns of Khorramshahr and Abadan, where the refinery was still burning days after the first bombardment, remained besieged. Western observers assumed that the Iraqi objectives were limited and doubted that they would try to advance much farther. The Iraqi army does not have the logistics to support a campaign deep in enemy territory. And if it tried to push toward Tehran, it would encounter the forbidding 12,000-ft. Zagros Mountains. Moreover, the Iranians were fighting so grittily that even skeptics in Tehran were impressed. Said a retired senior officer: "The soldiers were humiliated by the revolution and then by the revolutionaries. What the hell are they righting so ferociously for?" Initial attempts to end the war failed. U.N. SecretaryGeneral Kurt Waldheim convened the Security Council in an informal session on Tuesday, but all its members could agree on was to express "deep concern" and appeal to the combatants "to desist from all armed activity." Said a U.S. official: "The Security Council is the logical place to sort this out, but neither regime has a history of paying much attention to the U.N." Palestine Liberation Organization Chairman Yasser Arafat, on good terms with both Saddam and Khomeini, offered his services to help end the war and visited both Baghdad and Tehran, but with no known results. Because most Arab nations supported Iraq, mediation from that quarter was all but ruled out. Said a U.S. analyst: "As this goes on, it will polarize the region. The Arab states will fall behind Iraq out of Arab solidarity while the fighting continues. In the long run, we have to be concerned about the crisis on nations already beset with insecurity." The U.S., which has no diplomatic relations with either country, knew from the start that its hands were tied. Said American University President Joseph Sisco, former Under Secretary of State for Middle East Affairs: "This is the first time in recent years that the U.S. has not been able to play even a diplomatic role in a significant Mideast conflict." As the battle continued along the Shatt al Arab and other segments of the Iraq-Iran border, Iraq came up with its own demands, which if met, it said, would end the hostilities. Having initiated the war, Baghdad laid down four conditions that might stop it. Iran would have to agree to respect Iraqi sovereignty over its own land and waters, would have to maintain good relations with its Arab neighbors along the gulf, would have to promise not to meddle in Iraq's internal affairs, and as a kind of catchall, would have to refrain from "aggressive" activities.

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The Iraqi plan did not get anywhere in Tehran. Recognizing Iraqi control over land and waters meant giving up the Shatt al Arab. Not meddling in Iraq's internal affairs implied cutting links with the Shi'ites of Iraq, who represent half the country's population and have long had close ties to the Shi'ites of Iran, particularly since their most holy shrines are in Iraq at An Najaf and Karbala. Iran, on hearing the terms, turned them down out of hand. To help explain its case abroad, the Baghdad government already had sent Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz to Moscow and Paris. He assured the Soviets, who apparently were as much surprised by the outbreak of war as the Americans, that Baghdad's goals were limited, but he also pressed unsuccessfully for fast military resupply. Like Washington, Moscow was quick to proclaim its neutrality—understandable since it could not afford to offend either party. For the Soviets to openly back the Iranian regime would be to go against their ties and friendship treaty with Iraq. To back Iraq could mean the loss of a carefully nurtured Iranian connection. Thus Moscow contented itself with asking both countries to stop the fighting quickly. If they did not, the Soviets warned, the U.S. would take advantage. "While calling by word of mouth for neutrality in the Iranian-Iraqi conflict," the Soviet news agency TASS said after the New York meeting between Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko and U.S. Secretary of State Edmund Muskie, "Washington is in fact building up tensions and making a choice between direct interference in the Iranian-Iraqi conflict and the possibility of launching international intervention in case the war between Iran and Iraq jeopardizes oil exports from the Persian Gulf area." In Paris, French President Valery Giscard d'Estaing told Tariq Aziz that the crisis was a "bilateral affair," best solved by the region's Islamic states. An Elysée spokesman later said that no spare parts for French weapons in the Iraqi arsenal would be forthcoming while the fighting continued. But he said that France would honor a $1.6 billion arms agreement with Iraq involving the sale of 60 Mirage F-l jet fighters, as well as tanks, antitank weapons, radar, guided missiles and patrol boats—all part of an Iraqi attempt to diversify its weapons inventory away from total dependence on the Soviet Union. Part of the Iraqi-French deal covers the sale of a nuclear reactor—a development that has caused great anxiety in Israel, which fears that Iraq, one of the Jewish state's archenemies, could develop a nuclear weapons potential. Indeed the Iran-Iraq conflict, the first recent major crisis in the region in which Israel is not involved, was being closely watched in Jerusalem. "That fight," said an Israeli official acidly, "is proof that there is an inherent instability in the Middle East of which we are not a part." Always concerned about the spillover effect of events in the Arab world, Israeli analysts wondered how the battle would affect Israel's eastern front, where Iraqi units fought alongside the Syrians during the 1973 war; the assumption was that Iraq's commitment against Iran, another of Israel's sworn enemies, would give the country some breathing room. Said one Israeli Arabist: "The best thing that could happen, from our point of view, is that both Iraq and Iran exhaust each other and kill one another off, and that they cannot rebuild their war machines for another 20 years." Most Western observers assume that the gulf war, Saddam's vehicle to assume the mantle once worn by the Shah, cannot go on for too long. Unless resupplied by

the Soviets, the Iraqis do not have the capability to wage a protracted battle, especially if they try to push deeper inland than the farthest penetration—45 miles—they claimed by week's end. Iran, which bought virtually all of its military equipment from the U.S., lacks spare parts for its arms, thanks to the U.S. embargo. Considering the shortages believed to exist, the Iranian performance and relatively quick reaction to the Iraqi thrusts were unexpected, and Iran may well be girding for sustained combat. But so long as it holds the U.S. hostages, the Washington tap is not likely to open. If Iraq chooses to prolong the conflict, it will almost certainly be to inflict such punishment on the Iranian economy and military machine that they will not be a major factor in the gulf for some time to come. Iraqi Defense Minister Khairallah reiterated last week that his country coveted "not one inch of Iranian territory" beyond that "usurped" by Iran. As it is, says one senior British official, "the Iraqis do not have the capa bility to mount an expeditionary force into central Iran." Nor, in the British assessment, is Baghdad eager to occupy all of oil-rich Khuzistan. Such a venture would alienate neighboring Kuwait and the other conservative gulf states that Saddam has been courting. Seldom has a war over such relatively simple issues for those waging it had so many dangerous, unpredictable and complex ramifications. A large match was lit last week in a very flammable part of the globe. The uncontrolled fires that now darken the skies over the refineries of Basra and Abadan are apt symbols for the gulf war. —By Spencer Davidson. Reported by William Drozdiak/Basra and WilliamStewart/Beirut. Monday, Nov. 17, 1986 The U.S. and Iran The story behind Reagan's dealings with the mullahs By GEORGE J. CHURCH. The tale sounded really too bizarre to be believed. The U.S. conniving at arms shipments to Iran? Sending a secret mission to palaver with the mullahs? Trying to keep the whole thing from Congress and most of the U.S. Government? And all over Iran, of all places! The country that held Americans hostage for 444 days beginning in 1979, the land whose fanatical leader, Ayatullah Ruhollah Khomeini, has never ceased to denounce America as the "Great Satan," the state widely suspected to this very day of fomenting terrorist attacks against Americans. Yet there is no question that it happened. Initially in the perhaps illusory hope of gaining influence with a post-Khomeini government in Iran, but eventually also as an inducement for Iranian help in winning freedom for U.S. hostages held by Muslim zealots in Lebanon, the Reagan Administration approved clandestine shipments of military equipment -- ammunition, spare parts for tanks and jet fighters -- to Iran through Israel. As long as the deep secret was kept -- even from most of the U.S. intelligence community -- the maneuver in one sense worked. Iran apparently leaned on Lebanese terrorists to set free three American hostages, the latest of whom, David Jacobsen, flew home to the U.S.

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last week for a Rose Garden meeting with Ronald Reagan. But once the broad outlines of the incredible story became known, the consequences were dire. The Administration appeared to have violated at least the spirit, and possibly the letter, of a long succession of U.S. laws that are intended to stop any arms transfers, direct ( or indirect, to Iran. Washington looked to be sabotaging its own efforts to organize a worldwide embargo against arms sales to Iran, and hypocritically flouting its incessant admonitions to friends and allies not to negotiate with terrorists for the release of their captives. America's European allies, the recipients of much of that nagging, were outraged. Moreover, the U.S. was likely to forfeit the trust of moderate Arab nations that live in terror of Iranian-fomented Islamic fundamentalist revolutions and fear anything that might build up Tehran's military machine. Finally, the Administration seemed to have lost at least temporarily any chance of gaining the release of the missing six U.S. hostages in Lebanon, or of cultivating the Iranian politicians who might sooner or later take over from Khomeini. The 86-year-old Ayatullah is reported to be bedridden following a recent heart attack, but for at least as long as he lives, Iranian officials, including those who have been in quiet contact with the White House, cannot afford to be caught dealing any further with the Great Satan. The story of how this came about leaked out in bits and pieces all last week from bewilderingly varied sources: an account published by a pro-Syrian weekly magazine in Beirut, a public speech by the speaker of the Iranian parliament, guarded private comments by government officials in Washington and Jerusalem, even a Danish sailor's revelations about a voyage through the Persian Gulf. Some of the more mind-boggling versions of the tale had touches of melodrama that might have come from the most lurid spy fiction: a presidential envoy slipping into Tehran bearing (so the Iranians claimed) presents of pistols, a Bible and a key-shaped cake; an American cargo plane disappearing from radar screens over Turkey; a Danish ship changing the name painted on its hull prior to reaching an Israeli port. The Administration's distress at being caught out in such an improbable and embarrassing situation was evident in the scramble of the White House to put a lid on the rapidly expanding story. Whereas only a few weeks ago the Administration had rallied its forces to defend the President's actions at the Iceland summit, virtually blitzing the media with press conferences, interviews and briefings, now there was a chorus of no comments, off-the- record observations, obfuscations and pointed suggestions of self- restraint, even repression of the emerging facts. President Reagan declared that the | disclosures "are making it more difficult for us" to win the release of the Americans still held captive in Lebanon. The just-released Jacobsen, in a moving appeal at his welcoming ceremony at the White House, warned reporters that "unreasonable speculation on your part can endanger their lives." Cried Jacobsen: "In the name of God, would you please just be responsible and back off!" The pleas raised once more the perennial question of the responsibility of the press, as well as the undisputed need of the Government to carry on sensitive negotiations in secret. In this instance, the story of the clandestine negotiations with Iran was broken not by the American press but by a Lebanese magazine and the speaker of the Iranian parliament. Together they provided the major outlines of the secret dealings. Even as President Reagan pleaded for a halt to

speculation, sources within his own Government confirmed much of the speculation and added important details. While some congressional leaders questioned the wisdom of making such a deal in the first place, other critics blamed the disclosure on the Administration's failure to take into account the danger of leakage and on its tendency toward improvisation and swashbuckling. Moreover, none of the information that emerged last week included potentially dangerous details about the whereabouts of the hostages, their movements or their captors. Many of the details are still either murky or disputed, and some may never be known. But this much seems clear: sometime around August 1985, the White House got word that at least one of the many quarreling factions in the Iranian government was interested in reestablishing contact with the U.S. The first message apparently came to American officials in Beirut. In addition, Iranians who meet regularly with U.S. representatives at the Hague, where Iran is pursuing a case against the U.S. before the International Court of Justice, indicated that some Tehran leaders wanted to talk. With President Reagan's approval, a few top American officials began a series of hush-hush meetings with Iranians that as of last week had gone on for 14 months. The American representatives apparently were guided, if not led, by Robert McFarlane, then National Security Adviser. Just which officials participated on the Iranian side is not known, but they are believed to be allies of Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, the speaker of the Iranian parliament, who is less bitterly antiAmerican than many of his colleagues. The sessions were initially conducted in European cities, but they eventually included three secret American missions to Tehran. One in August that included McFarlane, who left the Administration last December and is now on the staff of Georgetown University's Center for Strategic and International Studies, and Oliver North, a Marine colonel on the staff of the National Security Council, was reported around the world last week. There was an earlier meeting of U.S. and Iranian officials in Geneva in October 1985. That mission was headed by John Poindexter, then McFarlane's deputy and now his successor as National Security Adviser. The Administration claims that its primary motives were to open some kind of back channel into the fierce factional struggles now raging in Tehran and to gain the attention of some of the politicians jockeying for position in the post-Khomeini era. In itself that motive was shrewd, even laudable. The U.S. has little hope of moderating Iran's behavior while Khomeini rules. The aged Ayatullah may be too weak to provide much direct leadership anymore, but no one dares do anything of which he disapproves. Yet not all the men around him are as dedicated as he is to pursuing the seven-year-old war with Iraq until that country is crushed, or to exporting anti-Western revolution throughout the Muslim world. If politicians in contact with the U.S. were to gain major influence in a successor regime, Washington might be in a position to urge them to wind down the war with Iraq, call off troublemaking in neighboring states and ease support of terrorism. The U.S. cannot afford to ignore Iran, because the country is a glittering geopolitical prize. One of the world's biggest oil producers, it is strategically situated on the Persian Gulf, through which most Middle East oil flows into world markets. The U.S. dares not take a chance that Iran might fall into the Soviet orbit. Moscow has been maneuvering for influence in a

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post-Khomeini Iran; it resumed buying Iranian oil and gas. If Soviet blandishments do not work, bullying might. Over the past year and a half, the U.S.S.R. has nearly doubled, to more than 50 divisions, the military forces stationed near its border with Iran. The U.S.-Iranian talks proceeded on two tracks, one concerning general political questions, the other the hostages in Lebanon. The Americans did their best to keep the two tracks separate, but inevitably they tended to merge, if only because the same people, notably North, were involved in both sets of talks. American officials insist that their prime purpose in agreeing to arms transfers was to cultivate influence with potential future leaders of Iran. Apparently, the Administration thought these men might feel gratitude to the U.S. for supplying arms that Iran critically needs to fight its war with Iraq. But a senior Administration official concedes that the subjects of arms and the release of hostages became "linked." In some minds the linkage began very early. In July 1985, Israeli businessmen who had been in contact with Iranian officials told Shimon Peres, then Israel's Prime Minister, that they thought a swap of arms for U.S. hostages could be arranged. Peres presumably communicated that information promptly to Ronald Reagan. The story in Jerusalem is that the White House designated Poindexter to look into the idea, and he named North as liaison with Israel. In any case, the Israeli businessmen were authorized by Peres to resume contacts and strike a deal with the Iranians. The executives turned to Adnan Khashoggi, a famed Saudi Arabian wheeler-dealer and an extremely wealthy businessman. He got a long shopping list from Tehran that included Hawk antiaircraft missiles and radarguidance equipment for them, antitank missiles, and spare parts for jet fighters. Lebanese terrorists influenced by Iran released one of their American captives, the Rev. Benjamin Weir, on Sept. 14, 1985. According to Israeli reports, President Reagan telephoned Peres to thank him for Israel's help in securing Weir's freedom. Five days later Iran got some of the Hawk missiles and guidance equipment that had been on the shopping list relayed through Businessman Khashoggi. They are said to have been delivered by a DC-8 cargo plane that was once owned by a Miami-based air-transport company. The aircraft took off from Tabriz, Iran, disappeared from radar screens over Turkey, made what was supposed to be a "forced landing" in Israel and later returned to Iran by a circuitous route. More arms transfers followed. Israel so far this year has shipped roughly $40 million worth of military equipment to Iran, largely artillery and tank ammunition, and spare parts for fighter planes. In itself, this is unremarkable. Israel has been selling arms to Iran on and off since the Khomeini government took power in 1979, originally in a successful effort to win permission for Iranian Jews to emigrate to Israel. The Ayatullah is a sworn enemy of the Jewish state, but Israel too hopes to gain influence with ( Khomeini's potential successors. In addition, Israel believes that its self- interest lies in helping Iran at least to stalemate Iraq in the gulf war. The U.S. has sometimes protested the Israeli sales, sometimes grudgingly winked at them. In the latest round, it did much more than wink: some of the arms and parts were bought by private Israeli businessmen and then forwarded to Iran, which wound up paying the bill. The delivery of such items had been blocked by the Carter Administration, however, after the Khomeini-led

revolution toppled the Shah and acquiesced in the seizure of the U.S. embassy by Iranian militants in 1979. The Reagan Administration, in line with its outspoken neutrality in the gulf war, has a longstanding and strongly advocated policy against arms sales to Iran. Some details about how the transfers were arranged came last week from a seemingly unlikely source: the Union of Seamen in Denmark. It said that Danish ships, which have acquired a reputation for being able to deliver quietly any questionable cargo anywhere, had carried at least five loads of arms and ammunition from Israel to Iran. Said Union Deputy Chairman Henrik Berlau: "It appears that the shipments this year have been carried out on the orders of the U.S. to win the release of hostages in Lebanon." The union related the story of an October voyage as told by a sailor who asked not to be identified. He said that around Oct. 17 the coaster Morso picked up 26 containers full of ammunition in the Israeli port of Eilat and delivered them to the Iranian port of Bandar Abbas. "We all knew there was ammunition on board," said the sailor, but Israeli authorities in Eilat took care to let no one else know. "The Israeli harbor authorities," the sailor added, "told us to take off all markings that could show we had been in Israel, including the markings on the food we had taken aboard and on the weapons containers. We even had to remove the JAFFA markings on the oranges." Further, said the seaman, uniformed Israelis had already demanded that the name Morso be removed from the ship before its arrival in Eilat and replaced temporarily by Solar; the name was changed back to Morso as the vessel approached the Persian Gulf, reaching Iran around Oct. 21. In the U.S., the arms-shipping operations and some of the negotiations with Iran about hostages were arranged by a tiny group of NSC staffers led by Oliver North and known as the "cowboys." Says a Government source who was ) clued in on their operations very late: "This thing was run out of the West Wing (of the White House). It was a vest-pocket, high-risk business." Whether the motive for the arms-shipments policy was to gain U.S. influence in Iran's power struggles or to win freedom for hostages in Lebanon, officials could hope for success. Last month Mehdi Hashemi, a hard-line Iranian official, was arrested in Tehran and charged by the Iranian government with treason, allegedly because he had masterminded the kidnaping of a Syrian diplomat, who was then promptly set free. Khomeini personally approved an investigation into Hashemi's activities. Hashemi's pending downfall is good news for the U.S. because he is among the most extreme of Khomeini's followers in urging Islamic revolution outside Iran. He is thought to have suggested to Lebanese extremists that they kidnap and hold American hostages. Meanwhile, the Lebanese groups holding the hostages released a second clergyman, Father Lawrence Jenco, in July and David Jacobsen last week. Their freedom was obtained without any yielding on the captors' principal demand: release of 17 terrorists being held in Kuwait on charges of dynamiting the U.S. and French embassies. In a statement announcing that they were letting Jacobsen go, his captors, Islamic Jihad, mysteriously urged the U.S. to "proceed with current approaches that could lead, if continued, to a solution of the hostages issue." Washington at the time vehemently denied that it had made any "approaches," to Iran or anyone else. Jacobsen's release was credited by some observers in the Middle East to Syria, which occupies the portion of Lebanon where Islamic Jihad and its companion group,

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Hizballah (the Party of God), operate. It is now clear that Syria played next to no role. In fact, it appears to have lost nearly all sway with the extremists, who are now heavily influenced by Iran. The patient and untiring negotiating efforts of Terry Waite, the personal envoy of the Archbishop of Canterbury, also appear in a different light. Waite's activities were important, but not wholly in the way they appeared at the time. Since neither the U.S. nor Iran could let it be known that they were in contact, let alone that the U.S. was supplying Iran with arms, some cover for Jacobsen's release had to be found. Waite and his mission provided the necessary public appearance, and it is doubtful that anyone else could have done so, since Waite, as a nonpolitical man of religion, has the trust of all parties involved, including the kidnapers. One Israeli official refers to Waite as the "cellophane wrapping" around hostage releases. Says he: "You cannot deliver a gift package unwrapped. That is why there will be no more hostage releases until he returns to the region." It should have been obvious, though, that the U.S. dealings with Iran would continue to bear fruit only so long as they were kept secret -- and that no maneuvers so momentous could be held under cover very long. In retrospect it is astonishing that so few people knew anything for a period as long as 14 months. But an essential part of the planning of intelligence operations is, or should be, what will be done and said when their covers are blown. And nobody in either Washington or Tehran seems to have given that much thought. The cover began coming off first in Iran, when supporters of Khomeini's chosen successor, Ayatullah Hussein Ali Montazeri, started clandestinely distributing pamphlets accusing the regime of surreptitious contacts with the U.S. Specifically, they claimed that Rafsanjani had met with nameless American emissaries in Iran. Last week several members of the group were reportedly arrested in Iran, charged with distributing leaflets that were "in line with the vicious attempts of the counterrevolutionaries." The first the world learned of the unraveling scheme was just before Jacobsen's release, when Al Shiraa (The Sailboat Mast), a weekly magazine published in Muslim West Beirut, ran a sensational article reporting that the U.S. had been sending spare parts and ammunition for jet fighters to Iran. The magazine further said that McFarlane and four companions had visited Tehran in early September, stayed at the Independence (formerly Hilton) Hotel and met with a variety of officials from the Iranian Foreign Ministry, parliament and army, who supposedly asked for more military equipment. Shortly after the visit, said Al Shiraa, the U.S. airlifted the arms to Iran in four C-130 cargo planes flying out of a base in the Philippines. No independent evidence of any such flight has come to light, but the rest of the story contains elements of truth. Where did the magazine get its information? The publication is known to have close ties to Syria. That country and Iran are formally allies, but their relationship has come under increasing strain. One reason is their rivalry for influence over Islamic Jihad and Hizballah, which Iran is clearly winning. The assumption in the Middle East as well as in the U.S. is that the Syrians somehow got wind of both the U.S.arranged arms shipments to Iran and McFarlane's mission. They may have leaked the story in order to torpedo the potential relationship between the U.S. and

moderate elements in the Iranian government, with a view to enhancing Syria's influence in the power struggle in Tehran. Syria may have also been piqued over losing a role in hostage bargaining, which gave it a useful gambit in countering adverse publicity about Syrian links to terrorism. In any case, the secret was out. Rafsanjani was evidently alarmed enough to take strong action to counter Al Shiraa's story and perhaps to cover up his own dealings with the Great Satan. In a speech to the Iranian parliament last Tuesday, Rafsanjani confirmed McFarlane's visit but added some wildly improbable embellishments. According to Rafsanjani, McFarlane and four unnamed American companions arrived in Tehran with Irish passports and posing as the flight crew of a plane carrying military equipment that Iran had purchased from international arms dealers. They brought with them, said Rafsanjani, gifts of a Bible autographed by President Reagan, a cake shaped like a key intended to symbolize an opening to better relations between the U.S. and Iran, and an unspecified number of Colt pistols to be distributed to Iranian officials. Rafsanjani insisted that he ordered the Americans kept under virtual house arrest in their hotel rooms, refused to let them see anyone and expelled them from Iran after five days. They were furious, Rafsanjani reported. He quoted McFarlane as saying, "You are nuts. We have come to solve your problems, but this is how you treat us. If I went to Russia to buy furs, Gorbachev would come to see me three times a day." American officials in the know insist that much of this story is sheer invention intended to make the U.S. look ludicrous. What really happened, they say, was this: McFarlane, North and two bodyguards did visit Tehran, but their passports were neither U.S. nor Irish. Also, they carried no Bible, cake or guns. They stayed in Tehran four or five days and managed to meet a number of Iranian officials, possibly including Rafsanjani, although accounts differ on that subject. Stories vary too on what, if anything, the mission accomplished. Some say that McFarlane's contacts with the Iranians were amicable, others that they were rudely aborted. Fanciful though it was, Rafsanjani's tale ended any U.S. hope of preserving secrecy. Together, he and Al Shiraa had introduced all the main elements of the story: the secret meetings between U.S. and Iranian officials, the arms transfers and the negotiations about the hostages in Lebanon. Al Shiraa did not mention the hostages, but Rafsanjani did. He said that if the U.S. and France met certain conditions, among them the return of frozen Iranian assets and freedom for so-called political prisoners held "in Israel and other parts of the world," then "as a humanitarian gesture we will let our friends in Lebanon know our views" about the release of American and French hostages. But freedom for Journalist Terry Anderson and Thomas Sutherland, the acting dean of agriculture at Beirut's American University, now looks far away. The White House had once hoped that both would be released, along with Jacobsen, on the eve of last week's congressional elections, giving the Republicans a big plus. As it turned out, Jacobsen was let go a day early and Anderson and Sutherland not at all. Says a senior Administration official: "This ended the possibility, at least for now, of two more releases. That possibility has dried up." Terry Waite voices more or less the same view. The Anglican envoy returned to Britain last week grumbling

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angrily that international power games were complicating his efforts to win freedom for Anderson and Sutherland. Waite said he intends to disappear into the English countryside for a while and wait for some indication that a return to Beirut would be productive. He may have to wait quite a while. And it does not seem likely that the U.S. can soon resume contacts with Iranian officials of any rank concerning geopolitical questions. Iranian Prime Minister Mir Hussein Mousavi sneered last week that renewed contacts between the U.S. and Iran would be like "relations between the wolf and the lamb." Later Rafsanjani said the U.S. was "using every channel to beg Iran to accept establishing a dialogue with it." The revelations of the secret talks with Iran put Secretary of State George Shultz in a particularly uncomfortable spot. What he knew about them is uncertain. He was surely aware of the meetings between National Security Council officials and Iranian representatives. As a member of the NSC, he was privy to a presidential memorandum in February summarizing the meetings to that date and directing that they continue. According to some reports, he heard about the arms shipments and protested vainly against them to the President. Some of Shultz's subordinates, however, think the Secretary did not learn about the arms transactions until the rest of the world did. On one point everyone who knows Shultz is in agreement: whatever and whenever he discovered about the arms transfers, the information dismayed him -- for good reason. Shultz has been the most vehement promoter of the Administration's official no-deals-with-terrorists policy. He has been in charge of Operation Staunch, an Administration effort to persuade both friends and adversaries not to sell arms to Iran. He has pushed that effort with deep personal conviction, going so far as to urge Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnadze during their frequent meetings to try to reduce arms sales to Iran by countries allied to Moscow. He had little effect, however. North Korea, a Soviet ally, has been among Iran's biggest sources of weapons. In addition, whether Shultz tried and failed to stop the U.S.-sanctioned shipment of arms to Iran or was kept in the dark about it, his stature as the chief architect of American foreign policy under President Reagan has been undermined. Ever the loyal Administration soldier, Shultz last week permitted himself no public criticism of the dealings with Iran, but made little attempt to defend them either. He said that in his view the "policy of not negotiating for hostages is the right policy," carefully expressing no opinion on whether it is any longer the policy actually in effect. Like everyone else in his department, the Secretary referred all questions about Iran to the White House, but unlike others, he openly expressed dissatisfaction with the White House order that he do so. Said Shultz bluntly: "I don't particularly enjoy it. I like to say what I think about something." Whatever he thinks, it will be largely up to Shultz to explain and defend the dealings with Iran to American allies. He had to start last week in, oddly enough, Paris, where he had gone after a meeting with Shevardnadze in Vienna. Shultz was in France to discuss arms-control problems and other policy matters with French leaders, including Premier Jacques Chirac. The U.S. has been critical of France for not joining a British attempt to boycott Syria diplomatically as a terrorist nation and for its haste in negotiating a deal to return to Tehran Iranian funds that had been frozen in France. The night before their Friday

meeting, Chirac, who was visiting Spain, made clear French resentment of what it regards as hypocritical American nagging. Said Chirac, with heavy sarcasm: "France has not negotiated and will not negotiate with terrorist groups and takers of hostages. I don't know what others do, including those who want to teach lessons to everybody else." His comments were a touch disingenuous, since France has in fact been negotiating with Syria about French hostages held in Lebanon, but it was a sample of what the Administration can expect to hear in growing volume from its allies. British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher frostily instructed her subordinates to refrain from inquiring about what the U.S. was up to in its dealings with Iran. She does not want to know. As if that did not indicate enough displeasure, a top British official called foreign reporters to a briefing at which he repeated that British policy is not to negotiate with terrorists. Arab nations fearful of Iran mostly maintained a puzzled silence last week while scrambling behind the scenes to find out just what the U.S. was doing. But while Shultz was traveling last week, Iraqi Ambassador Nizar Hamdoon dropped in at the Washington office of Assistant Secretary of State Richard Murphy to pose outraged questions about the arms sales. Murphy, who is the prime manager of U.S. Middle East policy but who seems to have known nothing about the dealings with Iran, was apparently stumped for any answers. The Administration, however, had better come up with some answers quickly. It can expect anguished inquiries from Arab nations friendlier -- and less self- interested -than Iraq as to whether the U.S. is now tilting to the Iranian side in the gulf war. Officially, Washington's policy is to proclaim strict neutrality in the bloody conflict and urge both sides to negotiate a settlement that would in effect be a stalemate. That would leave borders about where they are now. U.S. officials claim that one of their goals in setting up the secret meetings with Iran was to gain some influence that might enable the U.S. to persuade a post- Khomeini government to settle for something short of the Ayatullah's often proclaimed aims: total defeat of Iraq and the toppling of its President, Saddam Hussein. During the meetings U.S. officials urged Iranians not to launch Tehran's long-touted "final offensive" to crush Iraq. Whether for that reason or because Iran lacks sufficient military strength, the all-out Iranian offensive is rapidly on its way to becoming a non-event. But how can conniving at arms transfers that would presumably strengthen Iran in its war against Iraq promote the stalemate that the Administration desires? It would seem more likely to do the exact opposite: help Iran to win. In fact, the Administration claims that Iraq has such an overwhelming firepower superiority that the new weapons will not alter the strategic balance. The White House also maintains that the arms shipments could influence political infighting that may go on inside Iran. The Secretary of Defense, Caspar Weinberger, voiced no opinion about U.S. dealings with Iran; like everybody else, he referred all questions to the White House, and it is uncertain how much he knew about the maneuverings. But Weinberger last week made a point of observing that an Iranian victory in the gulf war would be against U.S. interests. If anything, he was understating the case: an Iranian triumph would be a disaster for the U.S. It would drastically upset the Middle Eastern balance of power and give a victorious

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Iran new opportunities to threaten or subvert moderate Arab nations that are friendly to the U.S., such as Kuwait and above all Saudi Arabia. Domestically, the Administration is already hearing some scorching criticism. Former Secretary of Defense James Schlesinger charged that the Administration appeared to have paid "ransom" for release of the U.S. hostages. He added bitterly that the Carter Administration, which he served as Secretary of Energy, "did its groveling in public. This Administration prefers to do its groveling in private." Vermont Democrat Patrick Leahy, the vice chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, was only slightly less caustic. Said he: "I can see why the Administration won't tell Congress about it. If they had, they would certainly have heard from both Republicans and Democrats, 'Don't do anything so stupid.' " Eventually, the Administration will have to tell Congress a good deal about the Iranian operation. It made a start last week by holding a briefing for selected Senators on the intelligence committee and convinced at least some that it had not been engaged in a crude arms-for-hostages swap. Already, though, House members are clamoring for information too. Democrats Dante Fascell of Florida, chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee, and Lee Hamilton of Indiana, chairman of the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, on Wednesday addressed a letter to Reagan asking "your immediate cooperation in fully briefing the Congress." Briefings aside, there is talk on Capitol Hill of holding full-scale hearings on Iranian policy when the newly elected 100th Congress convenes in January. One question sure to come up at any hearings or briefings is whether the Administration violated a number of laws that restrict transfers of U.S. arms abroad. The Arms Export Control Act of 1976 requires the Administration to notify Congress -- which of course it did not do in the case of Iran -- of any exports of "substantive items" of military equipment. Substantive items were given the catchall definition of those "that might enhance the military potential of the receiving country." The Export Administration Act of 1979 flatly prohibited export of military equipment to any country deemed to be fomenting terrorism, and the Reagan Administration formally added Iran to the list of terrorist countries in 1984. It also agreed to the Omnibus Diplomatic Security and Anti-Terrorism Act passed this year, which added still more restrictions on arms transfers to terrorist countries. Possibly the Administration can come up with some explanation of why its dealings with Iran technically did not violate these and other laws. But the intent of all these laws clearly is to ban any shipments of U.S. arms to Iran directly or indirectly. Moreover, the Administration's own Justice Department has been interpreting the laws that way and zealously prosecuting private citizens suspected of arms dealings with Iran. For example, in April the department secured indictments against 17 people, including a retired Israeli general, on charges of arranging the sale of U.S. military equipment to Iran -- precisely when the White House itself was at least winking at arms sales. Certainly for an Administration to violate even the spirit of U.S. laws, including laws that it rigorously enforces on others, is a serious matter. But it is far from the only bad consequence of the misadventure in

Iran. U.S. officials were obviously justified in meeting secretly with Iranians willing to re-establish contact. Given Iran's geopolitical importance, it would have been irresponsible of the Americans not to do so. In diplomacy, especially in the Middle East, a country sometimes has to talk one way and act another. But to connive at arms sales to Iran, for whatever reason, seems clearly to have been a blunder that undermined U.S. credibility. It is hard to understand how the U.S. could have gained anything by strengthening Iran militarily. To permit arms sales that even appeared to be a payoff for the release of hostages was even worse, since seeming to reward terrorists is dangerous indeed. And by failing to foresee that its maneuvers could not be kept secret, and then being so plainly stuck for any effective way to explain those maneuvers publicly, the Administration has called into question its competence as well as its credibility. With reporting by Ron Ben-Yishai/Jerusalem, Raji Samghabadi/New York and Barrett Seaman/ Washington Monday, Jun 12, 2000 Iran's New Revolutionary In a land known for violent politics, one man is tackling the zealots. Even in the face of blood, he remains patient. An exclusive, inside look at By SCOTT MACLEOD AND AZADEH MOAVENI/TEHRAN President Mohammed Khatami strides across the Mehrabad Airport tarmac to the salute of soldiers in ceremonial sashes. Mullahs in dark robes, bearded aides in suits with tieless shirts and militiamen carrying Kalashnikovs trail him up to Iran's equivalent of Air Force One--an old American-made Boeing 707 from before the Islamic Revolution. In minutes he is roaring off to a speech--it is an anniversary in the Iran-Iraq war-near the Iraqi border. There is no mistaking Khatami when he slips back from the front of the plane, wandering down through a cabin decorated in late-1970s style. In contrast to his entourage's rough-edged, revolutionary look, his clerical attire is soft and cheerful: a pear-colored robe, a chocolate tunic, sporty tan calf loafers. He flashes the smile that has given hope to Iranians depressed by two decades of official somberness. As he makes his way, greeting officials, bodyguards and Iranian journalists, he spots the two Americans on board. "Where are you from?" he asks, opening his arms. Could the President answer some questions? He laughs. "Inshallah [God willing]." The phrase could be construed as an Islamic brush-off: right now, at least, the President is talking to almost no one in the press. These days the President of Iran is moving very carefully. It's a good day for Khatami. When he lands in Khorramshahr and heads to a local mosque to speak, the crowds are spread in front of him like a giant Persian carpet: turbans, signs, balloons. He speaks to thousands, delivering the scrupulously worded message of moderate change that has made him a hero to many-and a terrifying figure to the hard-liners who have dominated Iran's politics since the death of Ayatullah Ruhollah Khomeini in 1989. Khatami's struggle to reform Iran is proving a dangerous task. One of the President's closest friends is recovering from a gunshot wound to the head, nearly assassinated by hardliners. Dozens of other supporters are in jail or heading there. Iran's hard-liners have sent a chilling message that they won't go without a fight.Through all this, Khatami has been conspicuously quiet, hoping his absence of comment would be seen as thundering determination. His supporters approvingly call it "Khatami's silence."

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Yet the silence risks spreading disillusionment. Khatami's impatient, enraptured young supporters greet him with chants of "Kha-ta-mi! Kha-ta-mi! Doostet darim [We love you]!" This is a nation desperate for change, starving for leadership. And Khatami's difficult task is to rework Iran's system from within. It's an excruciatingly difficult way to be a reformer, fighting battles by not fighting battles. The pressures are exacting a toll. Chest pains sent him to the hospital recently. He winds down each night by scratching out a few pages of his memoir--in ink--at home. Khatami is a former Culture Minister and a onetime head of the national library. He is not a born politician. His colleagues speak of his "delicate sensibilities." They fear he might resign or refuse to run for a second four-year term next year. For now, he fights on--carefully. He was, for instance, willing to give TIME access to his office and his schedule--something that would have been unheard of a year ago in Iran. But he would not offer an interview-something that remains too politically sensitive. Two weeks ago, the most freely elected parliament in Iranian history took up its duties in a marble-sided edifice in downtown Tehran. In the biggest boost for reform since Khatami's victory in 1997, Iranians in February ousted conservatives and handed Khatami control of the 290-seat Majlis-e Shura. The mullah count in this new, moderate parliament is down from 53 to 33. And among the deputies taking their seats were an actor-politician in Western blue jeans and women M.P.s, daringly dressed in head scarves rather than chadors. Few personify the possibilities--and dangers--of this new Iranian revolution better than Khatami, 57. The 5ft. 10-in. President grew up in a tolerant home in Yazd province, which prides itself on its diversity. He trained as a cleric in Qum, one of the holiest of Iranian cities, but also studied Western philosophy. He played no big role in Khomeini's revolution, yet nonetheless rose to become a leading religious intellectual, prized for both his candor and his mind. But he was never a man who lusted for power. Friends recall his fury when a group of liberal clerics suggested he run for President. But when moderates convinced him that his credibility with hard-liners meant he was the only man who could change Iran, he plunged into the 1997 campaign. As a mullah, Khatami hardly rejects the notion of an Islamic republic. His most cherished aim is to serve the Islamic government by giving people the right to choose it--a concept that is dangerously revolutionary to hard-liners who believe in imposing it by diktat. Outside Iran, especially in Washington, diplomats speculate that Khatami may be unable to convince the hard-liners that reform is really necessary, and American officials grimly point to Khatami's meetings with supporters of terrorism as a sign that he may not be as moderate as some hope. Khatami has plenty of enemies--but also a vibrant, courageous collection of allies. Mohsen Mirdamadi, 44, an M.P. who arrived at the new parliament dressed nattily in a tweed jacket and horn-rimmed glasses, is typical of the breed of intellectuals who share Khatami's vision. In 1979 Mirdamadi was among a handful of students who organized the seizure of the U.S. embassy. But his politics moderated after he spent several years learning the ropes of Western democracy while earning a doctorate at Cambridge University. He is now a top strategist for the Participation Front, the moderate party led by, among others, the

President's brother Reza. The name of the party is deliberate: what Iran's new revolutionaries want to bring to their country is legitimate--and open-democracy. "The people have very high expectations," says Mirdamadi. "They expect serious changes." Over tea at the horseshoe-shaped table in the party's conference room, Mirdamadi sketches out the reform dream for Iran. One of the first goals, he explains, will be to loosen press restrictions, thus enabling the reform newspapers and magazines that were first muzzled in April to begin publishing again. This is more than just a battle for civil rights: reopening the dissident press will help keep the reform movement--and its leaders--alive. The Participation Front is also hoping to open Iran's opaque judicial system with a bill that will give conservative judges less leeway to lock up reformers on grounds that their democratic ideas contravene Islamic teachings. The problem is that these days, at least, the conservatives still have their fingers glued firmly to the levers of power in Iran, including the 125,000strong Revolutionary Guards. One Iranian political scientist has engaged in the morbid task of trying to calculate the odds that Khatami will remain in office. His verdict: a 70% chance that radicals will try to overthrow Khatami. He's giving 5-1 odds against the possibility that Khatami will still be around in a year's time. Some in Iran argue that conservatives have already staged a "silent" coup, by intimidating the media and attacking Khatami's key aides. The arm of the hard-liners has stopped short only of Khatami himself. Last year they put presidential confidant Abdollah Nouri on trial for publishing anti-Islamic articles. Though the transcript of his pro-democracy court testimony became a best-selling book, Nouri got a fiveyear jail sentence. He was lucky. Earlier this spring, as conservatives jockeyed to have their electoral showing nullified, extremists tried to assassinate Saeed Hajjarian, the strategist who helped push Khatami's supporters to victory. Khatami got news of the shooting as he was speaking in southern Iran. He dropped his prepared text, angrily denounced political violence and went to the bedside of the critically wounded Hajjarian. Later, aides recalled, the President could barely speak as he choked back his tears. It is a Sunday morning in Tehran. On the streets, traffic buzzes by. In a modern apartment fitted with medical equipment, Hajjarian lies on a cot wearing only green pajama bottoms as a physical therapist works the flabby muscles of his left arm. Hajjarian's left side remains paralyzed from the March shooting, but his mind is sharp, focused on Iran's turbulent transition. Slurring his speech as he summons his energy, he explains that his rendezvous with a would-be assassin was a reminder of the danger from conservatives. "They were convinced that I was against the system," he says of the five men convicted of shooting him. Iranians, he says, must understand that reform means working for the nation, not against the conservatives. "Young supporters of reform want greater speed," he explains, counseling patience. "The important thing is not the speed but the direction." Yet there is a whole generation of clerics, businesspeople and politicians who are eager to enact reform--now. "Khatami," says Ghaffar Azizi, a city councilman from Kurdistan, "is making democracy a habit for Iranians." Hasan Yusefi-Eshkevari, for instance, is a mullah who has fallen for that habit. He is a radical of sorts, calling for an end to authoritarian ways and arguing

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that democracy and Islam are not incompatible. During a recent discussion at his Tehran home, he proudly showed off his daughter's piano, a symbolic rejection of clerical injunctions against entertainment. He's paid the price for his music: reprisals began when militants tried to assault him at a speech. Then a judge summoned him for arrest after his appearance at a conference in Berlin--prompting a temporary European exile. The nerve Eshkevari touches is velayat-e faqih, Khomeini's concept that gives the Muslim clergy, in particular its most revered scholar, absolute, Godgiven authority to govern Iran. Considering that legacy, political reformers avoid challenging it directly. But dissident clerics began questioning the dogma after Khomeini's death, an action that put some 500 mullahs in prison or under house arrest, including the most senior critic, Ayatullah Hossein Ali Montazari, once Khomeini's designated successor. Conservatives are worried that democracy will disembowel velayat-e faqih--and the clerical establishment along with it. "If this debate is not resolved," warns Eshkevari, "the Islamic Republic will run into a dead end."

without igniting fear. If left to his own devices, Reza speculates, his brother would return to the books of the national library and quiet afternoons of philosophical discussion. Mrs. Khatami, Reza adds, "on the whole is not very pleased" with her husband's new career. But what seems to drive the President--to keep him in office even as friends suffer for his reforms--is an idealistic sense of duty to the nation and a deep belief that the Iranian people must be given the power to choose. "Khatami never expected and does not expect now to be able to carry out all of his plans," Reza explains. "But he believed that he could take one step forward." Reza pauses in reflection. "In my opinion," he adds, "he has had one goal. And that was to keep hope alive in people's hearts." It remains to be seen if Khatami will be the Mikhail Gorbachev of Iran. But he has already begun to lead the nation down a path that seems inevitable. His occasional silence in the face of monstrous challenges isn't the quiet of a man who has no passion or no ideas. Instead, it's the quiet determination of a man who will not give up. --With reporting by Massimo Calabresi/Washington

Iran's conservatives are starting to recognize that they need new answers to these old questions. Even oldline radicals like Mohammed Mousavi Khoeiniha, the man who green-lighted the student takeover of the U.S. embassy 21 years ago, are pushing for a new vision of Iranian democracy. During a rare interview over tea and caramels, the cleric explains that "the country must be based on a democratic foundation accepted by the people." To make that happen, Iran's conservatives are loosening up--a bit. Islamic courts are allowing limited coverage of proceedings--most notably in the trial of 13 Jewish Iranians accused of spying for Israel. Despite sanctioning the press crackdown, spiritual leader Ayatullah Ali Khamenei--successor to Khomeini--has warned religious militants against thuggery and publicly praises Khatami--as if cautioning security forces against a coup. But Khamenei rejects any vision of freedom that threatens Islam's position in power. "As long as I live," he warned in a recent Friday sermon, "I will not allow anybody to lead the country toward secularism." But who, then, will lead the country toward the economic and social reform it so badly needs? Crushed by inflation and 16% unemployment, Iranians are losing patience. At Tehran University two weeks ago, thousands held a pro-democracy demonstration, chanting angry slogans against hard-line mullahs while holding pictures of jailed Iranian journalists. If anything, the convening of a reform parliament puts more pressure on Khatami to satisfy the yearning for change. "We understand he is trying to fill a huge pool with an eyedropper," says Tehran secretary Rezvan Nayeri, 34. "But there is no more room for excuses." Some students are frustrated too that the reform movement remains an insider's game, still intolerant of secularists, socialists or anyone ambivalent about the Islamic Revolution. Says Ibrahim Yazdi, head of the Iran Freedom Movement: "If we can create a democracy that is Iranianized and Islamicized, then this historical experiment can be a model for other countries." If you had tried to guess which one of the Khatami brothers would have grown up to be President, you most likely would have chosen the President's younger brother Reza. With his film-star looks, he seems the picture of a politico (though his British education as a nephrologist is perhaps an unlikely pedigree). But Reza sees something in his brother that other Iranians seem to spot as well--an ability to telegraph hope

Monday, Jun 2, 1997 IRAN'S BIG SHIFT A STUNNING PROTEST VOTE GIVES THE PRESIDENCY TO A MODERATE CLERIC WHO PROMISES MORE FREEDOM By SCOTT MACLEOD/TEHRAN Many believed the election results were preordained, if not precooked. For months it had been a foregone conclusion that the next President of Iran would be Ali Akbar Nateq-Noori, the Speaker of the Iranian parliament, a staunch conservative backed by the country's most powerful political machine. He even had the implicit support of Iran's Supreme Leader, the Ayatullah Ali Khamenei, successor of the Ayatullah Khomeini. But something was happening that Iran had never seen before. It was exemplified last week in Fadiyian Islam, one of south Tehran's poorest neighborhoods and a former bedrock of support for Khomeini. Thousands of ecstatic Iranians overflowed into the dusty streets shouting, "Khatami! Khatami! You're the hope!" as they rushed toward a 54-year-old black-turbaned cleric, nearly crushing him as he mounted a podium inside a mosque. In the election campaign that began four weeks ago, Mohammed Khatami was a sensation. Surveys showed his support climbing from 13.9% to 20.2% to 52% on election eve. On Saturday, the reluctant candidate, who was once hounded out of the Iranian Cabinet by fellow clerics, handed the conservative theocracy a stunning upset. The moderate won 69.7% of the 29.7 million votes cast. Who voted for Khatami? Iranians fed up with political and social restrictions, women chafing at dress codes, twentysomethings denied satellite dishes and dispirited citizens who never saw a reason to vote--until Khatami came along. Few misunderstood the protest message of his triumph. Says Hassan, 18, a member of the generation born after Khomeini's 1979 revolution: "We want to have more freedom here in this country." Says Abdelkarim Soroush, perhaps the regime's most prominent internal critic: "The election was a referendum on liberty, justice, everything." One supporter simply gushed, "Khatami is Ayatullah Gorbachev." A moderate? A moderate President, no less? In Iran? Western officials, trying to cope with Iran's

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sponsorship of terrorism, opposition to the Middle East peace process and development of nuclear weapons, are understandably wary of the thought. Yet, for once, Iranians had been offered a real choice, not a stagemanaged election rigged for a handpicked President. No politician symbolized the hold of the incumbent clerics more than Nateq-Noori. His supporters provoked widespread anger by physically breaking up a Khatami speech, getting police to cancel a major rally and using a technicality to close down Khatami's election headquarters in the last week of campaigning. NateqNoori was the candidate of a militant Islamic front combining the conservative mullahs of the holy city of Qum and the middle-class traders of the Tehran bazaar. A former Khomeini bodyguard, he had become a top police official, then head of the conservative-controlled National Assembly. His campaign slogan was an oath of absolute loyalty to the mullahs' supreme rule. Khatami, on the other hand, is a liberal theologian, a politician who speaks of freedom, a family man with an avuncular grin and a scholar who has worked in the West and is said to be at home in English, German and Arabic. That's quite a contrast to the severe and sober ayatullahs who have governed since the 1979 Islamic revolution. Five years ago, they drove Khatami from his Cabinet post as Minister of Culture, accusing him of allowing an "invasion" of decadent ideas from the U.S. and Europe. When the elections came due, the ruling mullahs thought so little of Khatami's popular appeal that they allowed him and two others to run as officially sanctioned candidates against Nateq-Noori. Like his opponent, Khatami attended the seminary in Qum. Yet he also studied Western philosophy. He wrote some speeches for Khomeini but is otherwise the first President who lacks revolutionary credentials. His own campaign speeches promised more freedom and tolerance. "Our country has a long way to go," he said in his last speech. "The government doesn't give people the opportunity to grow." If his victory turned on a single issue, it was the principled stand Khatami took in his confrontation with the hard-liners five years ago. As Culture Minister, he was widely appreciated for permitting relatively free circulation of books and films. But he was undone by his support for director Mohsen Makhmalbaf, whose films Nights of Zayandehrood and Time of Love dealt with taboo subjects like adultery and suicide--and hinted that tyranny did not end with the Shah's departure. Outraged conservative mullahs forced Khatami out and imposed a cultural crackdown that still continues. Even his closest advisers acknowledge that Khatami has a tough job ahead in running a country of 70 million people. Iran's problems are immense, despite oil exports of $19 billion last year. Unemployment stands at perhaps 20%. Riots have flared as authorities have tried to cope with a huge foreign debt and high inflation, now 25%. One of the world's highest birthrates means two-thirds of Iranians are under 25. Since the revolution, per capita annual income has fallen from $1,200 to $800. Khatami's biggest challenge, however, will be managing the regime. The President's powers are subject to limits. Reflecting the political chaos of revolutionary days, Iran's system is a jumble of conflicting and confusing centers of power. This looseness is what enables Iranians to have semifree elections, but it also gives cover to the regime's extremist elements. Many Iranians fear that the system may ultimately paralyze Khatami. He calls himself an independent, although he is a member of a clerical group aligned

with leftists, including those who held American diplomats hostage for 444 days in 1979-81. Khatami's advisers say he hopes to benefit from a partnership with outgoing President Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, who will remain a major influence as head of the Expediency Council, which advises the Supreme Leader. Khatami, his aides say, is determined to rein in the regime's extremist factions, centered in the Revolutionary Guards and intelligence services. The pragmatic Rafsanjani was hesitant about facing down the radicals, but aides say Khatami may be bolder, given his overwhelming popular victory. He will have the backing at least of Rafsanjani's daughter Faezeh Hashemi, one of Iran's most popular politicians, who is under attack from radicals. "Khatami believes in freedom," she told TIME last week. Washington and other Western capitals will be watching Khatami closely. Some warn against making too much of his moderation. "Let's face it. It wasn't a paradise during his tenure as Culture Minister," says a Western diplomat in Tehran. But Khatami knows he will be in deep trouble if he fails to deliver, since hopes are so high. Says Tehran psychologist Shahriar Rouhani: "Young people in Iran are ready to burst. The President must lead them in a new direction." No leader since Khomeini has won such a mandate. "I love him with all my heart," says Hussein Hashemi, 22, a computer technician who voted in the north Tehran neighborhood where Khomeini lived and preached. "In the beginning, we needed militants. Now we need people who can build the country. We need a man like Khatami." Monday, Nov. 15, 1999 Radicals Reborn Iran's student heroes have had a rough and surprising passage By SCOTT MACLEOD/TEHRAN It was, Ibrahim Asgharzadeh now insists, all his idea. On Nov. 4, 1979, Asgharzadeh, then a radical 24-yearold engineering student, led a furious mob down Taleghani Street in Tehran, crashed through the U.S. embassy's gates and began a 444-day siege that not only humiliated America but also cemented a new Iranian political order. But these days, Asgharzadeh is a changed man. At 44, he is a yuppie-ish politician with a seat on Tehran's municipal council, and he is frequently denounced by hard-liners. He has shaved his beard and clearly prefers cracking jokes to raising a clenched fist. Puffing as he escorts an American visitor up a few flights at city hall, down the street from the desolate embassy compound, he says, laughing, "I guess I'm better at climbing over walls than walking up staircases." Asgharzadeh, who read out the first incendiary communique on the siege that sickened the world, has come a long way in 20 years, and he is not the only one. Many of his fellow militants have also mellowed and are slipping out of the shadows of revolutionary Iran to acknowledge their roles, admit to a few regrets and argue that their cause is finally maturing. All three of the original planners of the siege, it turns out, are now key figures in moderate President Mohammed Khatami's government. Asgharzadeh smiles at the thought of a hostage taker becoming a democrat, but he insists that is exactly what he is. "There is no need to change the world anymore." In separate interviews, conducted in Tehran over cups of tea, plates of sugary cookies and in one case a late-night pizza to go, Asgharzadeh and top planners

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Mohsen Mirdammadi, today a political-science professor, and Abbas Abdi, an outspoken newspaper editor, revealed fresh insights into their moment of history. They denied, to start with, that Ayatullah Ruhollah Khomeini had put them up to it. "The idea came to me while I was studying," Asgharzadeh recalled, joking. "I didn't mind getting away from the books." For several days before the takeover, Asgharzadeh dispatched confederates to rooftops overlooking the embassy to monitor the security procedures of the U.S. Marine guards. Around 6:30 a.m. on the cataclysmic day, the ringleaders gathered 300 selected students, thereafter known as Student Followers of the Imam's Line, and briefed them on the battle plan. To break the chains locking the embassy's gates, a female student was given a pair of metal cutters that she could hide beneath her chador. Asgharzadeh said the plan was to hold the embassy for three days. "I didn't think that it would lead to the deep-rooted conflict with America that still exists," he says. But the students were carried away by public opinion when thousands thronged to what was denounced as the "Nest of Spies." "Things got complicated," he says. "We couldn't make decisions on our own anymore." One problem, he says, was keeping discipline in the ranks. The planners insist that the students were under orders not to harm the hostages, and were dressed down when they did. Asgharzadeh says the planners were angry when a student staged a shocking media parade of blindfolded hostages. As Asgharzadeh made clear at the time in his frequent harangues to Western reporters, the students were outraged by the entry of the deposed Shah of Iran into the U.S. for cancer treatment. Mindful of the CIAengineered coup that restored the Shah to his throne in 1953, the students saw conspiracies everywhere, hence their painstaking effort to reconstruct embassy documents retrieved from the shredder. The students had another aim: they hoped anti-Americanism would end the factional feuds undermining the revolution. The student militants did well by their exploits, later winning election or appointments to high posts. But their luck ran out after Khomeini died in 1989. In 1991, Asgharzadeh found himself not only removed from his seat in Parliament but also heading for prison for criticizing the despotic tendencies of the ruling clergy. The student militants were again excluded from politics. "The embassy takeover was in defense of Iran's independence," explains Mirdammadi, 44. "But after Iman Khomeini died, the danger was to democracy. Iran moved away from the freedom of choice and expression that had been promised to the people." Abdi, 43, has had the most difficult time. In 1993, he spent eight months in solitary confinement for criticizing the clerics' failure to abide by democratic practices set down by the nation's 1979 constitution. Yet he has remained a leading strategist in Khatami's new Participation Party and is one of the architects of Iranian detente with the West. In 1998, ignoring the howls of the hard-liners, Abdi traveled to Paris and met with former hostage Barry Rosen, achieving a reconciliation of sorts. A sign of Abdi's influence: last summer's student riots began with a protest against the closing of his newspaper, Salam, by conservative-controlled courts. Abdi and the others can still scarcely help themselves when it comes to blaming America for Iran's ills. Asgharzadeh says he is willing to say he's sorry if the

repentance is mutual, but Mirdammadi disagrees: "I am sure that we will never apologize to America." Abdi is not looking for a lovefest but wants mutual respect and diplomatic relations for the sake of Iran's national interest. As he puts it, "The Americans were a nuisance to us, and we were a nuisance to them. Perhaps now we can talk to each other on an equal footing and establish a healthy relationship." Americans may not follow the logic. Yet Abdi's words are more encouraging than the all-too-familiar ones scrawled across the wall of the former U.S. embassy. The pine-shaded, 27-acre compound has been occupied since the early '80s by Revolutionary Guards, who use part of it as a high school. Next to a mural of the Statue of Liberty, styled as a ghoulish skeleton, is the freshly painted warning: WE WILL MAKE AMERICA FACE A SEVERE DEFEAT! Monday, Aug. 21, 2006 Solving the Riddles of Iran Calling President Ahmadinejad a messianic madman and other pitfalls keep us from understanding Iran's true tensions By AZADEH MOAVENI If you think Iran is a difficult country to understand, you're absolutely right. It is a place, after all, that has inspired books entitled "Who Runs Iran?", where Western diplomats hold cocktail parties to discuss how baffled they are, where no one conducts opinion polls (the last person who tried went to prison for producing unwelcome results). Such a climate is unhelpful to those seeking to get behind the contradictory and opaque face that Iran displays to the world. The country presents no shortage of paradoxes. In the past eight years, Iranians have elected both a Kant-quoting liberalizer, and a conservative firebrand Holocaustdenier. Both figures came to power through arguably free elections, in itself a strange practice for a repressive Islamic theocracy. Then consider Iranians themselves. The majority are weary of political Islam, dislike the current regime, favor improved ties with the West, and lack the antiAmerican rage so prevalent in the Arab world. At the same time, they're seduced by the nationalist appeal of a nuclear program, and support hardline President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who promises Iranian strength through atomic technology. Later this month, Iran will respond to the West's incentives package to negotiate over its nuclear program. In all likelihood, it will either say no or hedge, and the stage will be set for a drawn-out confrontation whose outcome will be determining to the Middle East. Eager to forecast what will happen, and to clarify what kind of threat Iran proposes, observers are grasping for clues everywhere, from Iran's ancient history to its religious practices. Many of these arguments lead away, not toward, the very real tensions dividing the country. Here are two analytical pitfalls to avoid, and two keys to getting Iran right. PITFALLS 1) President Ahmadinejad is a messianic madman

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Iran's president is fond of folksy mysticism, but that doesn't drive his policies. Since his election last year, many have argued that Ahmadinejad's religious beliefs are apocalyptic, and that he seeks to hasten the end of time by acquiring and using nuclear weapons. The paranoia is so real that when he said Iran would respond to the West's nuclear offer on August 22, one established expert suggested Ahmadinejad might deliver Armageddon instead. This speculation grew from an anniversary date on the Islamic calendar deemed as auspicious, should one happen to be an apocalyptic leader who happened to be looking for a good date to end the world sometime mid-summer. Iranians do not use the Islamic calendar, and August 22 happens to be the last day of the Persian month. Of course, that might be the na�ve explanation. Some have also suggested that the principle of deterrence known as MAD (mutual assured destruction) would not ward off confrontation between a nucleararmed Iran and its foes. This misunderstands both the role of Shi'ite mysticism in Iranian culture, and Ahmadinejad's real political motivations. Like the majority of Shi'ite Muslims around the world, Ahmadinejad believes that Shi'ism's Twelfth Imam will emerge near the end of time to do apocalyptic battle against the forces of evil. This is pedestrian Shi'ite piety, not a cause for international alarm. The majority of Shi'ites believe this, and such views are not unique to Islam; other prophetic religions have their own messiahs, and beliefs about the end of time. It is true that Ahmadinejad is more preoccupied with Tweltfh Imam than most Iranian officials. That's because he is younger, and belongs to a generation for whom such devotional piety is commonplace. Such mysticism was forged in the trenches of the Iran-Iraq War, a war that was fought on the Iranian side by poor young men indoctrinated to believe they were fighting for Islam; legends developed at the front of the Twelfth Imam riding past on horseback, and when the fighting stopped, such myths found their way into popular culture. Ahmadinejad fought in this war, and absorbed its sensibilities. What matters is that this mysticism is much like saint worship; it does not insist the apocalypse is now, or imminent. No sane, educated person in Iran believes that Ahmadinejad wants a nuclear program to hasten the apocalypse, because they know his real motivation: nationalism. 2) Iranians/Shi'ite Muslims are culturally prone to dishonesty Iranian diplomats can be faulted for many things: they play checkers instead of chess, obsessed with winning the next move instead of the game. Iranian politics too can be criticized for factional infighting, and a chronic inability to forge consensus. Some observers say these weaknesses stem from Iranians' habitual dishonesty, indeed a whole culture of communication that prizes insincerity, and makes it impossible to know what an Iranian actually means. This line of analysis leads us straight into the woods, mainly because it involves a faulty understanding of how language shapes Iranian social relations. There is a concept in Iran known as taarof, a set of social manners that can be defined to make Iranians sound exquisitely polite or deceitful, depending on the point you're trying to make. At heart, it is a form of etiquette intended to harmonize social encounters, and involves displays of flattery and deference. Taarof does not seek to mask the truth, it simply rests on the belief that life is more pleasant when you do not

needlessly inform every jerk you meet that he is indeed a jerk. What does this mean in practice? Say you go to meet the deputy foreign minister. You may not be certain if he likes you, for either way taarof will demand that he greet you warmly, pour you tea, and suggest you meet again. It would not, however, compel him to obfuscate matters of political substance. In the years I have spent listening to Iranian politicians fight viciously amongst themselves, I can report that a lack of candor is not a problem here. It is a mistake to elevate such social manners as taarof to an essential characteristic of political behavior. If an Iranian politician hedges a question, replies ambiguously, or reverses an earlier position, there are usually concrete reasons involved, and it would be more instructive to focus on those than a slippery Persian tendency toward dissembling. A more popular reference to Iranians' loose relationship with the truth is the Islamic and especially Shi'ite principle of taqiyya, the practice of hiding one's religious faith under life threatening circumstances. Taqiyya evolved during the early centuries of Islam, when Shi'ite Muslims faced persecution for their minority status at the hands of majority Sunnis. The concept is not, as sometimes described, carte blanche for telling lies or promoting one's interests, but rather a moral pass to tell one very specific lie (I am not a Shi'ite') expressly to avoid being killed. From this ancient practice that is today irrelevant (in Iran at least, where no one is persecuted for their sect), modern Iran observers sometimes draw the conclusion that Iranians have inherited a disposition for lying. As with invoking taarof to explain Iranian behavior, this line of thinking focuses on the process of communications instead of their content. Besides, does anyone truly believe Sunni politicians are less adept at dishonesty? KEYS 1) Nationalism, everyone's on board The broad spectrum of Iran's political factions, including reformists, backs a nuclear program as a way of ensuring the country's regional status. Former President Mohammad Khatami might have made the point more softly, but consensus existed long before the arrival of firebrand Ahmadinejad, who makes the case in louder, more menacing tones. There's certainly disagreement over how much Iran should risk in running this course, and what incentives it should settle for in suspending it altogether. But there is a core belief here that without a nuclear program, Iran will be blocked from consolidating its growing influence in the region. Before the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, Iranian leaders felt their role in the region was incommensurate with its geostrategic location, educated population, oil resources, and proud national history. The fall of the Taliban and Saddam Hussein created new spheres of Iranian influence, in fact a whole new regional dynamic that has neatly granted Iran a shortcut to great power status it could not have dreamed of otherwise. The system establishment views its nuclear program as a way to entrench those ambitions, and ensure its own survival. If Iran's main ambition is a nationalistic drive for regional prominence, it is natural to ask why it cannot pursue this goal by aligning its interests with the West, and normalizing relations with the United States.

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After all, the strategy Iran pursues today — backing Islamic militant groups, keeping Iraq in a state of controlled chaos, and playing to the Arab/Sunni street with anti-U.S., anti-Israel rhetoric — is both risky and near-sighted. It is a strategy that rests on regional instability (on Hizballah never being disarmed, on Syria and the Palestinians never reaching accord with Israel, on Iraq remaining chaotic), and on discrediting and bogging down the U.S. in Iraq, to keep its sights off Iran. Tehran's real, long-term interests would be better served by a stable Middle East, especially a stable Iraq, but abandoning these needling policies would mean trusting that the United States is not a threat. 2) Normalization anxieties The Iranian establishment is convinced that the United States cannot simply not stomach an Islamic regime in Tehran, and will seek to dislodge it with time, no matter what it may say to the contrary. You can call this paranoia if you like, but it is a fixed perspective held at the highest levels of government; Iran's ayatollahs deeply fear they are a personal target of Washington. Most view normalization and offers of Western incentives as poisoned carrots designed to open up the Islamic Republic at the seams. These fears existed under the Clinton administration as well, for the very concept of normalization makes the clerics uneasy, but the open hostility of the Bush Administration's stance on Iran has made them paralyzing. Normalized relations mean increased contact with the outside world, and the emergence of professional groups with the expertise needed to manage such contact. This alarms the clerical regime, for Iran's political history is dominated by the competition of professional and clerics for power. The Islamic revolution and its constitution vested clerics with control of everything, and this state of affairs is most secure when the country remains closed, with professionals kept at bay. If Iran is opened to the West, if Western-educated lawyers, businesspeople, and engineers expand their influence, in 10 years who will want a cleric as speaker of parliament or interior minister? These historical tensions are at the heart of Iran's problems of governance, and they are exacerbated today by the Bush Administration's objective of regime change. The perception that the U.S. is a threat to Iran removes any basis for agreement from the outset, for cooperation ceases to hold any benefit. What incentives do the clerics have to open the doors, when they know they will be the first ones to go?

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