Word: shahs
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THERE HAS BEEN good news in Iran this past week. The Iranian people have taken to the streets in one of the largest mass uprisings against the police state of Shah Reza Pahlevi since his regime regained power. There has also been bad news--martial law has been declared, and the Shah's police have struck back with a quick lash of repression. But such a response is only to be expected from a regime whose legitimacy rests largely on state terror. No one can doubt that it will take a great deal of bloodshed and violence before the Shah...
...same time, it is not yet clear what the longterm political implications of these latest protests will be. The challenge does not appear to be explicitly political. Rather, it originates from the Iranian community of fundamentalist Moslem clergy--socially more conservative than the Shah--who oppose several of his recent moves toward Westernization. For the time being, one can only note the irony that the first dent in the armor or this fundamentally despotic government may come in response to its attempts at liberalization. It remains to be seen, however, whether there will be room at a later stage...
There is one thing that does remain clear: the Shah must go. For 25 years now, since he deposed the nationalist leader Mohammed Mossadegh with the help of the CIA in 1953, the Shah's grip has been one of social inequity and political terror. His regime has been one of the most systematic violators of human rights in the history of post-war dictatorships. This reign of terror has been materially underwritten by a supply of U.S. arms and military training--both because of America's economic interest in Iranian oil, and because Iran has been perceived...
...companies and the U.S. government has been what Henry A. Kissenger '50 used to like to call "political stability." The price paid by the bulk of Iranian people has been continued mass poverty in the face of petro-dollar plenty and perpetual intimidation by the SAVAK, the Shah's secret police. For Pahlevi's most out-spoken critics it has often meant imprisonment and grotesque torture that has been only too vividly documented by some of those who escaped...
...Shah's new program seemed to satisfy some religious leaders. "We have no intention of implementing the traditional Islamic criminal codes such as cutting off thieves' hands or stoning adulterers to death," said one moderate leader, Ayatullah Sharietmadari. "We don't want to turn Iran into another Saudi Arabia or another Libya. But we shall demand strict adherence to the Islamic precepts of our country's constitution." Many members of the Western-educated elite were predictably appalled at the latest turn of events. "The Shah's concessions will only make the opposition demand more," complained...