Another Crisis for the Shah

A grim week of strikes, slowdowns and lingering discontent

Can the Shah survive? Will strikes and slowdowns lead from near anarchy to total chaos? Where is Iran going?

These were questions that plagued nervous Western diplomats as Iran--the oil-rich keystone to stability in volatile Central Asia--staggered through another week of turmoil and antigovernment demonstrations that have brought the economy to a virtual standstill. A walkout by 11,000 employees of Iran Air grounded all 162 daily flights of the country's flag airline; more serious was a strike by 37,000 workers at Iran's nationalized oil refineries, which initially reduced production from 6 million bbl. per day to about 1.5 million bbl. That strike not only cost the government about $60 million a day in oil revenues, but also suddenly raised the specter of petroleum shortages in Japan, Israel, Western Europe and, to a much lesser degree, in the U.S.; all these countries depend in part on Iranian crude.

At week's end some oil personnel were already back on the job. But the country's mood remained tense as troops with automatic weapons and tear-gas grenades fired on demonstrating students at Tehran University. The government said there were no deaths, but student groups claimed that 40 or more had been killed. Meanwhile, Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi was consulting with leaders of the opposition on how to maintain order without jeopardizing the liberalization policies that he initiated last summer.

The oilworkers' walkout climaxed two months of labor unrest that has spread to nearly every sector of the economy. Demands ranged from pay hikes to compensate for Iran's oil-fueled inflation (officially pegged at 50%) to political reforms, an end to martial law and the release of all remaining political prisoners. Stung by a strike that involved 1 million civil servants and government workers, authorities by and large have acted swiftly to satisfy many of the grievances. Government workers were granted wage increases ranging from 25% to more than 100% as well as such fringe benefits as subsidized housing. To help pay for the $1.5 billion settlement, Iran canceled orders for $7 billion worth of military hardware that had been placed with U.S. and European companies. Ironically, many of the workers who had won increases did not get their paychecks last week. Reason: employees in the Finance Ministry were still out on strike.

Many workers seized on the unrest to press for specific noneconomic reforms as well. Employees at major banks, which have been a frequent target of fire bombs and arson by antigovernment demonstrators, walked out, demanding that they be given protective security. The press, which was partly unshackled last month, successfully won an end to all censorship. Employees of the government-financed National Iranian Radio and Television network, who struck for the second time last week, demanded--and got--Premier Jaafar Sharif-Emami's assurance that there would be no more government interference. Workers at one Tehran daily even struck in opposition to what they called management's "self-censorship" of the news.

Still to be settled, however, were strikes by 400,000 schoolteachers and the Iran Air employees. The airline walkout stranded some 20,000 devout Muslims headed for Mecca on the annual hajj (pilgrimage). A plea by religious leaders failed to get the workers back on the job to enable the pilgrims "to perform their religious duties toward Allah." The Shah himself stepped in and ordered the Imperial Air Force to transport the pilgrims to Saudi Arabia. Parents were growing impatient with the school closings, even if their offspring were not. Many schoolchildren took to the streets to join demonstrators and carry placards. It was, allowed eight-year-old Ali Safavi, more fun than "attending boring classes."

Since he announced his liberalization measures, which are designed to culminate in free elections next June, the Shah and Premier Sharif-Emami have lifted restrictions on the formation of new political parties, curbed the activities of SAVAK, Iran's notorious secret police, and cracked down on widespread corruption among profiteering businessmen and former government officials. General Nematullah Nasiri, who was head of SAVAK for 13 years before he was fired last June, has now been brought back from his post as Ambassador to Pakistan reportedly to face charges of corruption and murder. The government will also press charges against Amir Abbas Hoveida, Premier from 1965 to 1977, who has been accused by the opposition of wasting uncounted millions in public funds.

On Oct. 25, eve of the Shah's 59th birthday, 1,126 political prisoners were released, bringing the total to more than 2,700 over the past two months. Many of the former inmates immediately went to newspapers with grim tales of the tortures to which they had been subjected. Last week, for the first time, Iranians read about the horrors that much of the rest of the world already knew: the "Apollo machine," a chair in which prisoners were tied while their feet were slashed and they were tortured with electric shock; the "helmet," a metal apparatus designed to make the victim's screams reverberate inside his head; and such practices as hanging women prisoners naked from the ceiling and burning them with cigarettes. So shocking were the disclosures that newly appointed Justice Minister Hussein Najafi immediately promised the release of Iran's remaining political prisoners, believed to number about 1,000. In addition, 34 top officials of SAVAK were dismissed.

Despite these concessions, there was some question whether Sharif-Emami's government could continue because it does not have the support or participation of opposition members. Last week the Shah reportedly consulted with Ali Amini, 71, an outspoken critic of his policies in the past who served as Premier during a similar period of unrest in 1961-62. Karim Sanjabi, leader of the opposition National Front, a loose alignment that includes a broad spectrum of political groups ranging from conservative to leftist, flew to Paris to talk with Ayatullah Khomeini, the dissident mullah who is spiritual leader of Iran's 34 million Shi'ite Muslims. Aides to the Shah confirmed that the monarch intends to confer with Sanjabi when he returns this week. There is speculation that he may be considering a government that would be headed by National Front members.

That might sit well with Iranian moderates, who are increasingly fearful that the disorders might get completely out of hand and spark a military takeover. Martial law is still very visible in the capital; 100,000 troops patrol the streets, and tanks and armored cars make Tehran's notorious traffic jams worse than ever. Despite almost daily demonstrations by protesters, the generals--at least until the weekend Shootout at Tehran University --had obeyed the Shah's command to avoid the sort of bloody showdown that followed the imposition of martial law in twelve cities on Sept. 8. One inhibiting factor may be the top echelon's doubt that rank-and-file troops would support their commanders if ordered to attack protesters with bullets and bayonets. Moreover, "shooting Iran into political silence," as one Tehran newspaper put it, would probably fail. Many Western experts believe that the Shah's only hope of calming the unrest is to step aside in favor of his son.

In Washington, the latest turmoil was viewed as, in the words of one Iranian specialist, "very dangerous." From Jimmy Carter on down, the Administration is staunchly committed to the Shah. "Our friendship and our alliance with Iran is one of the important bases on which our entire foreign policy depends," the President told Crown Prince Reza, a student at the U.S. Air Force Academy, when he visited the White House on his 18th birthday last week. "We're thankful for his move toward democracy," Carter added, referring to the Shah's political reforms. "We know it is opposed by some who don't like democratic principles, but his progressive-administration is very valuable, I think, to the entire Western world."

A major reason for backing the Shah is the absence of credible alternatives. "If you look at them," says one Administration analyst, "they're more frightening than the crisis itself. There is no opposition capable of taking over." In this expert's view, the best-known moderate critics of the Shah are old-line nationalists who would probably be unacceptable to left-wing groups. Beyond that, the opposition includes a motley collection of small groups, ranging from the extreme left to the extreme right, that have nothing in common except the desire to bring down the Shah.

One consolation to the West is that Moscow, if Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko is to be believed, prefers a stable Iran on its southern border. "You can't say that the Soviet hand isn't there," said a State Department aide about the latest unrest, "but we have no evidence. This isn't Afghanistan [where a military coup brought a pro-Moscow regime to power]. They don't want to contest us on this issue." The Russians, in fact, were suffering more immediately from the oilworkers' strike than the West was. While the Shah's allies worried about the potential future loss of oil exports, a vital pipeline that supplies 10 billion cubic meters per year of Iranian natural gas to military installations and industries in the southern part of the U.S.S.R. was abruptly closed down.

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