Word: bakhtiar
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Even more damaging to Bakhtiar's credibility was his open support of the military, which has tried to intimidate Khomeini's supporters by firing randomly at throngs of unarmed civilian demonstrators. On the "Bloody Sunday" of Jan. 28, the army fired directly into demonstrators gathered around 24 Esfand Square, near the university, and sniped at them from nearby rooftops for nearly four hours. By the end of the afternoon, there were 30 known dead and hundreds wounded; hospitals were jammed with the dying (see box). Bakhtiar defended the slaughter, which followed a similar assault two days earlier, as a retaliation...
...avoid more bloodshed, the Ayatullah may have to make some concessions. Says Massoud Behnoud, a Tehran lawyer: "If Khomeini reaches some kind of compromise with the Bakhtiar government, he can bring the country peaceably to a referendum on a new constitution. He doesn't even have to fear chaos too greatly. He already has 90% of the people with him. If he now begins to share his absolute power and allow other groups to speak out more, we will be on our way to liberty. Khomeini's real power will be that of the religious leader of Iran...
Khomeini's associates, including Karim Sanjabi, leader of the National Front, the main political opposition, believe that the Ayatullah might agree to use the present constitution as a device for the transition of power. "The army will go along with any government that is representative," says Sanjabi. "If Bakhtiar resigns, it is not difficult to find a solution based on a temporary government accepted by the people." At week's end, the Khomeini strategy seemed to be one of waiting for members of parliament and the regency council to resign. So far 72 out of 200 deputies in the legislature...
...compromise is reached, the U.S. will have played a minimal role in it. The reason: anything that carries Washington's approval is now anathema in Iran. Some Administration advisers admit that open endorsement of Bakhtiar was a serious mistake, and that U.S. policy toward Iran should have remained noncommittal once the Shah's ruling days were clearly over. Particularly unfortunate was a statement by President Carter in January rebuking Khomeini and urging him to support the Bakhtiar government. State Department experts at that time were pretty well convinced that the Prime Minister had only the remotest chances of surviving...
...streets with horns blaring. Every pharmacy in town was searched for cotton wool and bandages. People by the thousands answered the call for supplies and rushed to the hospital with clean sheets, blankets and blood. Requests for antiseptics seemed to reach Tehranis faster than one of Prime Minister Bakhtiar's broadcasts...