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16. CONFRONTING A REGIME CHANGE
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167 16 CONFRONTING A REGIME CHANGE While Jimmy Carter was at Camp David, events in Iran began to spin out of control. On September 8, 1978, Iranian troops fired on a crowd of demonstrators in Jaleh Square, killing between seven hundred and two thousand people.1 The next day, Tehran oil refinery workers issued a call to strike to express solidarity with those massacred on the previous day and protest against the shah’s imposing of martial law. The unrest spread like wildfire to Shiraz, Tabriz, Abdan, and Isfahan. In Teheran, the oil refinery workers demonstrated through October, a move that eventually resulted in an oil strike that reduced production from 5.8 to 1.9 million barrels a week. Another confrontation in early November led to groups of young men roaming around Tehran, tipping over automobiles, and setting fire to banks, movie theaters, and liquor stores. Iranian men climbed rooftops, shouting into the night air “Allah is great.” Security forces fired warning shots that scattered the mobs temporarily but were unable to disperse them.2 The Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, exiled in Paris since early October, remained the focal point of the opposition. In the last week of November he called upon his followers to take action during Muharram, the first month of the Islamic calendar and a time for Shiites to mourn the memory of the martyrdom of Husayn, the grandson of the Prophet Muhammad. “[This is] the month that blood will triumph over sword...the month the oppressors will be judged and the Satanic government abolished ....The Imam of the Muslims has taught us to overthrow tyrants. You should unite,arise and sacrifice your blood.”On December 1,the eve of the holiday,thousands of Iranians,encouraged no doubt by Khomeini’s words,took to the streets.The crowds on the street multiplied, and on December 10 approximately one million people gathered around the Shayad Monument, chanting“Death to the America cur.”3 The policies of Shah Mohamed Reza Pahlavi had created enemies for him on both the religious and the democratic secular fronts. The“White Revolution” of the 1960s, a program of land reform and social and economic modernization, alienated the traditional clergy.4 When he reduced the parliamentary process to a one-party system and unleashed the SAVAK, his secret police, on his opponents, the shah lost the support of secular democrats.5 By the spring of 1978, crackdowns on both groups created even more opposition. For the Shias there were demonstrations mourning the victims at forty-day intervals, as their religion prescribed. This led to a self-perpetuating cycle of unrest.6 As the disorder spread in the fall of 1978, the shah responded with a series of halfhearted measures. First, he promised some minor reforms, which his opponents saw as a sign of weakness.7 When these actions failed to have the desired result, he placed 168 CRISES AND CONFRONTATIONS his chief of staff, General Gholomreza Azhari, as head of a new military government. But Azhari was a mild man with no inclinations to engage in the kind of crackdown that might have cowed the opponents of the regime.8 When Azhari suffered a mild heart attack during the third week of December 1978,the shah’s days were numbered.9 Finally, on January 2, 1979, Shah Pahlavi told U.S. Ambassador William Sullivan that he had decided to appoint Shahpur Bakhtiar, a former leader of a reform group, the Democratic National Front, as prime minister. But the shah kept major powers for himself, undercutting the significance of the proposed reform. He even expressed his skepticism that Bakhtiar would be able to win the popular support of the Iranians.10 U.S. Responses U.S. fortunes had been deeply tied to Shah Mohamed Reza Pahlavi for over two decades . He owed his throne to the United States. In the summer of 1953, the power struggle between the shah and Premier Mohammed Mossadegh (who backed a program for nationalizing oil production) was resolved by the United States in a relatively bloodless coup. General Fazlollah Zahedi was proclaimed as prime minister, and the shah, who had fled the country, returned.11 At the time, Pahlavi was only thirty-three years old.He was handsome,fluent in English and French,an expert skier,and a skilled pilot. He had been educated in the best Swiss preparatory school, Le Institut le Rosey, and was dedicated to the Westernization of his country.12 The shah was also someone the...