Guns, Death and Chaos

The grapes are not yet ripe

And the people are already drunk on the wine. -Ancient Persian saying

A revolution was spinning out of control. With nonviolent protests and uncommon discipline, the people of Iran had ended the tyranny of the Shah. Their reward was not freedom but chaos, as the forces united around Ayatullah Ruhollah Khomeini last week showed the first dread signs of schism. Suddenly, guns were everywhere, in every hand, as self-styled "freedom fighters" liberated weapons from police stations and army barracks. In Tehran, Tabriz and other cities, sporadic fighting raised the death toll for the week to an estimated 1,500. A bewildering motley of forces was involved: troops loyal to the Shah, ethnic separatists, mojahedeen (literally crusaders) who backed the new government of Prime Minister Mehdi Bazargan, and, ominously, Marxist fedayeen (sacrificers) who felt that the revolution had not moved far enough to the left.

Out from the underground and initially bringing with them arms supplied by the Palestine Liberation Organization, the Marxists were primarily responsible for an ugly outburst of anti-Americanism, long latent in Iran but never before so viciously expressed. At midweek, leftist gunmen attacked the U.S. embassy in downtown Tehran (see following pages), taking 70 American prisoners, killing one Iranian employee and injuring two Marines. One of the prisoners was Ambassador William Sullivan. Forces loyal to Khomeini were able to lift the siege after two hours, but the Carter Administration (as well as the British and several other Western governments) concluded that the lives of foreigners in Iran could no longer be protected. On Friday, in the first stage of an exodus from anarchy, a Pan American 707 flew from Tehran's Mehrabad Airport to Frankfurt and New York with 151 people aboard. On Saturday, under tight security provided by the Khomeini regime, chartered Pan Am 747s began the full-scale evacuation of Americans to Frankfurt and Rome.

No one seriously expected that the coalition of disparate forces that backed Khomeini's revolution would hold solidly together for very long. But neither was it expected that the Marxists, well disciplined and well armed, would emerge so soon as a challenge to Iran's provisional government. It was plain from the beginning that the Marxists had aims that differed sharply from those of the fervent Shi'ite mullahs and their followers. But the speed and efficiency with which the Marxists moved last week raised serious questions about the ability of Khomeini and Bazargan to hold on to the reins of revolution. When armed units of the two forces clashed during the assault on the American embassy, the split seemed as loud and decisive as the crack of a Kalashnikov rifle.

The fissures appeared shortly after the collapse, on Sunday, Feb. 11, of the 45-day-old government of Shahpour Bakhtiar, who had been appointed Prime Minister by the Shah. Following a bloody weekend of fighting between units of the Imperial Guard and pro-Khomeini airmen and armed civilians at Doshan Tappeh airbase in eastern Tehran, the army supreme command abruptly announced that it would withdraw its troops and give "full support to the wishes of the people." The army had been Bakhtiar's last prop; he resigned, as did the members of parliament.

The army's surrender to the revolution signaled not truce but further bloodshed. On the next day, Khomeini forces attacked the Lavizan barracks in northeastern Tehran, home of the crack Javidan guards, killing the commander and many of his troops. Using acetylene torches, the attackers cut their way through electrically locked doors to free prisoners at Evin, a jail run by the hated SAVAK secret police. There the liberators found electric whips, torture beds and other interrogation devices that justified many of the atrocity charges long leveled at SAVAK. Also attacked was the Shah's principal residence in north Tehran, Niavaran Palace. Dispirited Imperial Guards on duty there capitulated without a fight.

In the confusion that followed, revolutionary forces entered police armories and military barracks and seized weapons. Soon thousands of civilians, including teen-agers and even children, were armed with machine guns, rifles and handguns. Dozens were killed as they fumbled with unfamiliar clips and bolts. Zealous militants set up classes in weaponry at Tehran University. Captured army trucks filled with newly armed youths went careening through the city. When a woman supervisor of a Tehran orphanage told her young charges to get rid of their guns before they got hurt, one boy snapped, "Why should we hand them over to the mullahs?"

Even the Koranic protection that has always shielded Muslim holy men from attack was shattered as discipline broke down. When a mullah and his armed companion attempted to disarm several youths near the Shahyad monument in Tehran, the mullah was shot to death. Some leftist guerrillas even attacked mosques, a sacrilegious act that would have been unthinkable a few days earlier.

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