After the Abadan Fire

Commemorating the death of Caliph Ali (A.D. 600-661), who is revered by Iran's 34 million Shi'ite Muslims as the only true successor to Muhammad, is always a solemn occasion. But last week's observances were especially subdued. Tehran was tense and quiet. The Club Discotheque, normally a place of frenzied activity for Iran's newly rich upper middle class, was shuttered. Hotels and restaurants decreed a four-day prohibition of alcoholic beverages. Television stations broadcast readings from the Koran and Islamic sermons in place of Cannon and Police Story.

It seemed that Iran's uncertain advance into the 20th century had stumbled again, and that the nation had been thrust back into the dark Islamic puritanism of the 18th century. Since the holy month of Ramadan began Aug. 5, the conflict between Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi and an unlikely coalition of left-wing extremists and conservative Muslims who oppose his modest modernization campaign had reached new zeniths of terror. Before arsonists set fire to the Rex cinema in Abadan, killing 377, Iran had been rocked by sectarian violence that resulted in at least 16 other deaths. Outraged by Western-style diversions that they consider affronts to Islamic tradition, fanatic Shi'ites had set fire to 29 movie houses and scores of restaurants and nightclubs. In Babol on the Caspian Sea, a mob tried to prevent the opening of a touring Italian circus, retreating only after its owner threatened to let loose his lions on the crowd.

Abadan, meanwhile, was anything but subdued. The Rex tragedy unleashed a flood of bitterness, aimed equally at the arsonists who ignited the theater and the incompetent local authorities whose bungling had surely contributed to the death toll. Witnesses reported that nearly half an hour elapsed before the first fire fighters arrived at the burning theater. Once they got there, they discovered that none of the hydrants were working. The mobile water tanks they brought to the scene ran dry before the fire could be brought under control. The screams of the dying carried into the streets as would-be rescuers stood by helplessly. One witness charged later that the police--whose station is located only a block from the Rex--made no attempt to free those trapped in the inferno.

The anger erupted into a new round of rioting after more than 10,000 weeping, screaming citizens gathered to lament the dead. Mourners became ravagers who roamed the streets shouting anti-Shah slogans, smashing windows and starting fires. Government forces sent warning shots into the air in an attempt to restore order. The U.S. embassy warned American citizens to "maintain the lowest profile possible" while the unrest continued.

Police detained six suspects. Among them: the owner of the Rex, who was charged with negligence for having ordered his employees to lock the exits to prevent terrorists from entering the theater. But opposition groups outside Iran accused SAVAK, the Shah's secret police, of setting the blaze in order to provoke a backlash against dissident groups. Many Iranians, however, blamed Ayatullah Khomeini, a Shi'ite mullah (religious leader) who has lived in exile in Iraq since 1963. Khomeini swore unrelenting enmity to the Shah after hundreds of his followers were killed while protesting the monarch's land-reform program. Alone among Shi'ite leaders, Khomeini failed to condemn the Abadan atrocity.

Khomeini's ominous silence was further evidence of a developing split between the exile and more moderate Shi'ites within Iran. Khomeini is not only supported by radical Iraq and Libya but also is suspected by Western intelligence sources of receiving encouragement from the Soviet Union as well. Muslim leaders object not only to Khomeini's flirtation with the left but to the fact that his adherents in Iran use gangland tactics to frighten moderates.

The division among the Shi'ites could provide the Shah with a chance to isolate the extremists. That would allow him to pursue his plan to hold free parliamentary elections next year. So far, however, the otherwise efficient Iranian regime has not been able to take advantage of its opportunities. The Shah's forward-looking Premier, Jamshid Amouzegar, had better luck coping with the problems of industrialization than negotiating with Shi'ite mullahs. Unable to bridge the gap between mullahs and modernists, the otherwise able Amouzegar resigned early this week, and the Shah quickly replaced him with Jaafar Sharif-Emami, chairman of the Iranian Senate.

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