Word: shahs
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...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...
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...
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...
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...
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...