Word: iranian
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...Stamford store was opened in 1980 by Balanian Hashemi, a wealthy Iranian businessman who had fled his country after the fall of the Shah. Although he had lost favor with the mullahs, Hashemi had no qualms about making money from their revolution. As thousands of Iranians gathered daily in the streets of Tehran to shout "Death to America!" and even after a gang of students took over the U.S. embassy, holding 52 Americans hostage for 444 days, Hashemi was selling U.S. arms to Iran. Ordered by the Iranian military to be more discreet, Hashemi closed the shop last year...
American military advisers, TIME has learned, traveled secretly to Iran in the summer of 1979. They test-fired two Hawk antiaircraft missiles for the Iranian air force and offered to repair Iran's Hawk defensive system. The Carter Administration also authorized some major U.S. arms manufacturers to continue sales of military equipment to Iran covertly. This, in turn, encouraged private arms dealers to continue supplying Iran. All official cooperation with Iran ended when the embassy in Tehran was seized. Carter impounded $300 million worth of spare parts that the Shah had paid for, and ordered a complete boycott...
...President's decision had little effect on the world's arms merchants. In the week after Carter announced the boycott, some 300 U.S. and Western European companies contacted Tehran with offers to sell munitions and other banned items. After the Iraqi invasion in September 1980, the Iranian air force set up an office in London's exclusive Kensington district to coordinate its purchases...
According to documents seen by TIME, Israel handled most of its sales through Faroukh Azzizi, an Iranian arms merchant who lives in Athens. The papers show that Azzizi purchased U.S.-made Tow missiles from Israel in November 1982. The shipment went to Amsterdam before reaching Tehran. Says a senior Western diplomat in Brussels: "Israeli and American claims that Israel made only a single, isolated sale are pretty disingenuous." The Israeli government firmly denies any wrong doing. Said Defense Ministry Spokesman Nachman Shai last week: "We have not violated any agreement between the U.S. and us that forbids selling American-made...
...fighting shifted to Iraqi territory last summer, the war has essentially remained in stalemate, characterized by fierce and bloody battles followed by long periods of inactivity. Now, however, there are reports in the Arab world that the Saddam Hussein government is hurting badly, not so much from the Iranian offensive as from the punishing cost...