376 • 19 THE REASSERTION OF ISLAMIC POWERalmost shut down Iran's oil industry. Foreign companies and customers,
remembering the Arab oil embargo of 1973, feared new shortages. Oil
prices shot up. As the gravity of the Iranian crisis became clear in Washing¬
ton, Carter's advisers debated whether to offer the shah more military sup¬
port or to ease him out, perhaps with a regency for his eighteen-year-old
son under a liberal coalition government. The shah declared martial law in
early November, named a general as his premier, and banned all demon¬
strations during the ten days usually devoted to mourning the martyrdom
of Husayn (the Prophet's grandson). The oil workers' strike spread to other
industries. Mobs sacked and burned Tehran shops, notably liquor stores,
cinemas, and other symbols of Western influence. Almost all members of
the royal family, most foreigners, and many rich and educated Iranians left
the country. Rallies and riots continued. Carter's special envoy urged the
shah to form a coalition cabinet that would include opponents of his
regime. On 6 January 1979 he asked the National Front's vice president,
Shapur Bakhtiar, to head a government; ten days later the shah left Iran
for good.
Joyful demonstrations followed his departure, but the crisis continued
as Khomeini, still in Paris, called on Iranians to overthrow Bakhtiar's gov¬
ernment. The ayatollah was gradually taking charge as he set up his Revo¬
lutionary Islamic Council and refused to compromise with Bakhtiar, who
gave in to popular pressure to let him return. Soon after Khomeini's ar¬
rival, the Iranian army stopped protecting the government; many soldiers
gave away their guns and joined the demonstrators. On 11 February 1979
the shah's imperial guard fell, and so did Bakhtiar's cabinet. At no time
could the US (or any other outside power) have intervened to save the
shah's regime.
The Establishment of the Republic
The first revolutionary cabinet, headed by Mehdi Bazargan, an engineer
who had managed Iran's nationalized oil industry under Mosaddiq, com¬
bined moderate reformers with Muslim hard-liners. It called on the strik¬
ers to go back to work (most did) and set up a national plebiscite on Iran's
future government. Held in March, the referendum showed near unani¬
mous support for an Islamic republic, as advocated by the ayatollah. An
assembly of lawyers and ulama drew up a new constitution. Revolutionary
committees effected drastic changes throughout the country. Royal sym¬
bols were destroyed in actions that ranged from blowing up monuments
to cutting the shah's picture out of the paper money. Poor people seized
and occupied the abandoned palaces. Streets were renamed, textbooks