Word: shahs
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Iran is well rid of the Shah and his imperial trappings, but can it afford Khomeini [Feb. 12] with his illusions of an Islamic republic? Current relief and revelry over the dethroning of an imperial despot could easily turn into despair, frustration and bloodshed under a politically naive religious zealot...
...Shah wanted to bring Iran into the 20th century, to grant equal rights to women. Khomeini and his political leaders will take the country back 100 years, which for Iran is virtually a return to the 13th century...
...struggled to consolidate their tenuous control over their chaotic land. In many ways, the immediate challenge facing the regime headed by Prime Minister Mehdi Bazargan was reflected at a rally staged at the Tehran University soccer stadium by disgruntled leftist groups that want a bigger voice in the post-Shah government than they have so far been allowed. Under the banner of the Marxist fedayeen, an overflow crowd of 60,000 shouted "Down with U.S. imperialism!" and other slogans. In a feeble attempt at rhetorical counterattack, a few hundred supporters of Bazargan and Ayatullah Khomeini charged in chanting "Islam...
...Iran's border with Iraq, Khomeini loyalists battled with members of Iran's Kurdish minority, who hoped that the upheaval might help them realize their longtime dream of breaking away from Tehran's control. Other revolutionary groups disarmed the few military units still loyal to the Shah. In Tehran, shopkeepers happily set out red and pink carnations to celebrate the reopening of the city's long shuttered bazaar district, and children marched off to classes in newly reopened schools...
...similar than the conditions in those two very different countries. For example, both countries figure in our grand anti-Soviet strategy, just as both figure in the expansion of American business and technological activity abroad. We may assume that socialist China is less corrupt than Iran was under the Shah. But contracts for billion-dollar installations in foreign lands easily lend themselves to some degree of corruption or private self-seeking. The American tourist trade, available especially to our more affluent fellow citizens, is also unlikely to strengthen socialism except perhaps by the power of negative example. How can China...