The Storm over the Shah

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He remains as Iran's Minister for Finance and Economics, but the new Foreign Minister and the new power in Khomeini's government is Sadegh Ghotbzadeh, who appears to be strongly anti-American. His hostility to the U.S. apparently dates from the 1960s, when he was expelled twice, or so he claims. (Though already in his 30s, he was a student at Georgetown University for five years.)

Ghotbzadeh's political views are basically socialist. On his office wall hangs a poster celebrating the Mujahedin-e Khalq, an Islamic leftist group that probably forms the backbone of the militants who seized the U.S. embassy. But he is also aligned with the conservative mullahs on the Revolutionary Council.

Some Western analysts have suspected him of Communist ties. But when the French weekly L'Express reported that he had "long served in Paris as liaison between the French Communist Party and the Iranian Communist Party," he replied that he had "always been against the Communist movement in Iran" and always refused to have "the least contact" with the party.

Though the new Foreign Minister's views may be somewhat murky, he is notable chiefly for his loyalty to Khomeini. After becoming Foreign Minister he promptly declared, "Our foreign policies are those defined by the Imam, and we will continue them carefully and firmly." And again: "I have known the Imam for 16 years. I think I know his thoughts and intend to carry them out."

As director of state television, a job he retains, Ghotbzadeh replaced most entertainment shows with long readings from the Koran, interspersed with films of street demonstrations in support of the Ayatullah. His maxim: "We have the ideology to distinguish right from wrong, and we should not hesitate to tell misguided people, here and abroad, what is wrong with them."

Still, no matter how intransigent Ghotbzadeh's rhetoric, his problem is the same one faced by Banisadr: the great gulf between Khomeini's determination to get the Shah and Jimmy Carter's refusal to hand him over. Moreover, Ghotbzadeh's task is complicated by the absence now of almost any moderating force in the country that could help build diplomatic bridges between Tehran and Washington. To stay out of trouble with the all-powerful Khomeini, most of the moderates are lying low. Asked three tunes at a news conference about the National Front, which for a time was Iran's leading moderate force, Ghotbzadeh asked with a sneer, "Does it exist?" He also warned that even if the Shah left the U.S., the hostages "definitely would not be released immediately." He refused to explain just what he meant by "immediately."

Khomeini seems convinced that prolonging the crisis works to his advantage. Said a Western diplomat in Tehran: "He literally believes that he is forcing the U.S. to its knees, and at the same time rallying Islamic countries for an unprecedented reawakening. To achieve these objectives, the Imam is willing to practice the most brazen form of brinkmanship."