Word: bazargan
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...this would be the next chapter in Iran's political saga grew ever more possible last week as the country's new leaders struggled to consolidate their tenuous control over their chaotic land. In many ways, the immediate challenge facing the regime headed by Prime Minister Mehdi Bazargan was reflected at a rally staged at the Tehran University soccer stadium by disgruntled leftist groups that want a bigger voice in the post-Shah government than they have so far been allowed. Under the banner of the Marxist fedayeen, an overflow crowd of 60,000 shouted "Down with...
Though verbally outgunned at the stadium, the Bazargan regime counted the rally as a victory in its struggle to bring order to Iran. Upset by the fact that no outspoken leftists have been appointed to Bazargan's 17-member Cabinet, fedayeen leaders called a midweek protest march by "all those who are concerned that the blood of martyrs has been spilled for nothing." Khomeini, determined to curb freelance violence of the type that resulted in the assault on the U.S. embassy two weeks ago, denounced the leftists as "non-Muslims" who "are at war with the philosophical beliefs...
Meanwhile, the Bazargan regime moved quickly to try to assert its authority. In the northwest, near Iran's border with Iraq, Khomeini loyalists battled with members of Iran's Kurdish minority, who hoped that the upheaval might help them realize their longtime dream of breaking away from Tehran's control. Other revolutionary groups disarmed the few military units still loyal to the Shah. In Tehran, shopkeepers happily set out red and pink carnations to celebrate the reopening of the city's long shuttered bazaar district, and children marched off to classes in newly reopened schools...
...Iran's oil exports, which have been shut off for two months. Although this has posed problems for the industrial countries that consume Iranian oil, for Iran itself the shutdown has been an economic disaster. Conceding that the state of his country's finances made him "shudder," Bazargan warned last week that "if our oil is not exported, we will have no money, and the revolution will be wiped out on the spot...
...Since Bazargan has yet to name his Finance Minister, no one has any clues as to the economic policies of the new Islamic republic. Last week the government expropriated all properties and interests of the Shah's family in Iran, which were estimated to be worth billions before the crisis. Whether or not that marks the first step toward socialism, as it may, Bazargan desperately needs to get his country's paralyzed economy moving again...