One Day ...

"I can call a revolution just like that," evil old Mullah Ayatullah Kashani once said with a snap of his fingers. And many believed him, too, for Kashani is more than a prominent Moslem leader and the speaker of Iran's Majlis; he is also the boss of a gang of terrorists. It was Kashani's hireling who assassinated Premier Razmara in 1951; last summer Kashani allied his bully boys with the Communists to rout Premier Ahmed Qavam from office in three bloody days and reinstate Mossadegh. With each success, Kashani's ego swelled. He told a Westerner: "I hold the entire Middle East in my palm."

Another old man, Premier Mohammed Mossadegh, disagreed. Last week the two most powerful men in Iran, uneasy partners for so long, clashed openly in a battle for supremacy.

The fight began when the Premier asked the Majlis to extend for a year his expiring dictatorial powers, so that he could carry out promised domestic reforms and "solve the oil problem." Anti-Mossadegh Deputies, briefed to make an uproar, screamed "oppressive," "tyrannical," "terroristic." Kashani's bearded toughs pummeled Mossadegh supporters in the galleries.

At this, Mossadegh firmly set his jaw and announced that he considered the pending vote one of confidence: if defeated, he would quit. Kashani was just as stubborn: "So long as I am speaker, I cannot permit such a bill to be debated."

So began the test of strength. It proved surprisingly one-sided. Crowds streamed into Parliament Square bearing pictures of the Premier, and chanting: "Mossadegh or Death." In Teheran and 16 provincial cities, merchants who were supposed to be pro-Kashani shuttered their shops and announced that they would stay closed until Mossadegh won. In Abadan, all taxis and buses halted; citizens signed their names in blood to a 100-yard-long petition supporting Mossadegh.

Kashani conferred with his henchmen and awaited counterdemonstrations. None came. After 24 hours, Kashani knew he had lost. He dashed off a note of surrender to Radio Teheran: "I am prepared as ever to make any sacrifices to further the views of His Excellency." The next morning, as speaker, he withdrew his opposition to Mossadegh's bill, and sent word to the members: "I leave it to you." As the galleries howled approval, Mossadegh won the right to be dictator for another year, by a vote of 59 to 1. Kashani vowed that all was not over. "One day, when regrets are useless," he told Mossadegh, "you will be sorry."

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