Word: bazargan
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...Instead, as it has had to do in a number of other recent crises, the Administration decided on restraint. Initially, the White House asked Iranian Prime Minister Mehdi Bazargan to intervene. But last Tuesday, after months of trying to steer his country on a rational course, Bazargan resigned in frustration and anger, thus bringing down his government. Carter then designated former Attorney General Ramsey Clark and onetime State Department Iranian Expert William Miller as his personal envoys, both of whom knew Khomeini; the Ayatullah refused to see them. After that, the U.S. consented to try the good offices...
...Kurds feel betrayed by the revolution and the government of Prime Minister Mehdi Bazargan. They are especially enraged by the Pasdaran, who they say treat them "like a conquered province." Kurdish expectations are articulated in the platform of the Kurdish Democratic Party, which calls for locally elected city and provincial councils with responsibility for police courts and tax collecting...
Once again, Iran last week appeared to be drifting toward anarchy. The Cabinet of Premier Mehdi Bazargan was on the verge of collapse. Appalled by the overcrowded condition of prisons in Tehran, Attorney General Abolfazl Shahshahani instructed the police not to "arrest or pursue criminals" until further notice-thereby giving the capital's organized criminals free rein. As if to prove the government's impotence, a group of disaffected young Iranians, seeking to leave the country on expired passports, seized 150 hostages at gunpoint and closed down Tehran's international airport for more than 20 hours...
Iran is by now accustomed to fever charts of brinkmanship, and the crisis suddenly dissolved. After being guaranteed safe passage to Syria, the airport skyjackers released their hostages unharmed. Attorney General Shahshahani then rescinded his no-arrest order. And the Bazargan Cabinet, following a conference in Qum with the country's real government, the secret Islamic Revolutionary Council appointed by the Ayatullah Ruhollah Khomeini, carried on the affairs of state by announcing the nationalization of all major businesses and industries in Iran...
...Bazargan is unlikely to get any help from Washington. Relations with Tehran took another turn for the worse last week when the Iranian government announced it would not accept U.S. Ambassador-designate Walter L. Cutler. Iranian officials insisted that the decision to reject Cutler was an attempt by Foreign Minister Ibrahim Yazdi to moderate the virulent anti-American campaign sweeping the country. Yazdi reportedly felt that Cutler's appointment would exacerbate ill feelings between the two governments...