Word: bakhtiar
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Discontent with Mossadeq's regime was accumulating. The mullah Bebamani spouted influential warnings of a communist subversion and Teymur Bakhtiar, chief of the garrison in Kermanshah, indicated he was ready to move on Tehran in aid of the Shah. Ordinary people were also influenced against Mossadeq by the Tudeh (Communist) Party's desecration of Shah Riza's tomb on August...
...Khomeini prepared to meet Bakhtiar last week, Washington was laboring to find who was responsible for the American diplomatic debacle in Iran. The House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, in an eleven-page report, blamed just about everyone, from President Carter on down (not to mention previous Administrations) for a myopic policy that confined its view of a whole nation to the personage of one man, the Shah, and ignored the grievances that festered throughout the country. The House report stressed that "intelligence and policy failings were intertwined: intelligence collection and analysis were weak, and policymakers' confidence...
Just as Washington was unable to forecast accurately the events of Iran's recent past, it also appears powerless to influence the country's immediate future. The basic goal of what Administration officials concede is no more than a patchwork policy is to support Bakhtiar's efforts to restore order. The U.S. backing for the Prime Minister, these officials hasten to add, is based not on preference but simply on the fact that he is, for the moment, the legal head of government. Says a State Department specialist: "We are not trying to push Bakhtiar...
Washington's basic hope is that a more or less tranquil transition period might encourage all political elements to build a new national consensus that could eventually lead to a stable government. Bakhtiar's decision late last week to deal directly with Khomeini suggested that more death and bloodshed could possibly be averted and that Iran might conceivably begin to dream of peace and unity...
What surprises listeners most about the Shah is his belief that he can still go home again. The Ayatullah Khomeini, in his view, is a crazed man, a transitory figure. A successful military coup is unlikely, since junior officers and most of the army would not support it. The Bakhtiar government has no popular base and is bound to fail. The prognosis, then, is chaos; the only solution is the Shah. After all, the tide of history turned against him with unexpected swiftness; it could as swiftly turn in his favor. "I deserve another chance," he says...