The Storm over the Shah

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 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 bushy-mustached 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 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."

At midweek, Carter decided to speak directly to the American people by holding his first news conference since the Tehran embassy was seized. Because the 30-min. 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.

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

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