McNair Paper Number 48 Chapter 3, January 1996
THE SHAH'S DEPARTURE
On November 6, 1978, the Shah placed Iran under military rule because of the growing discontent and violent nature of the leftist and Islamic opposition's antigovernment activities. Upon the declaration of military rule, opposition leaders urged their followers to avoid confrontations with troops.(Note 1) At that time, the Shah's hold on power was primarily attributed to the allegiance of the military and opposition fears of how he might use it.(Note 2)
During the preceding years, the Shah had alienated many Iranians through his unpopular social and economic reforms. These reforms had effectively created a gulf between the monarchy and the populace, which enabled a great number of disparate elements to unite under the rubric of antimonarchical sentiment.
During the rash of anti-Pahlavi demonstrations that occurred throughout fall 1978, the Shah demonstrated his indecisiveness as he used the military inconsistently against his own people, giving the United States intelligence community false signals regarding the threat to the monarchy
Circularity was the most common feature of the analysis; it started with the fact that the Shah had the security and military forces and went on to assume that he would use them as necessary. Because the Shah was not using force, the analysis continued, the opposition then was obviously no threat. This was a circle that could not be broken. The Shah's failure to act was taken as proof that the situation was normal. The unasked question was, what inhibitions on the Shah kept him from using force to stay in power?(Note 3)
This refusal to use the military to suppress the opposition was later assessed to be one of the Shah's critical mistakes, in
light of the fact that the military remained loyal to him until he departed. His reticence to use the military also enraged his hardline generals, who favored harsh measures to retain the monarch's power. It is quite possible that the Shah simply lacked the nerve to employ his military against the populace. (Note 4)
As tensions mounted in Iran between the Shah and the factions within society who opposed him, Khomeini (from Paris) called on the Shah's soldiers to desert their barracks, to stop helping the "traitor shah," and to "unite with the people" in order to undermine the monarch's power.(Note 5) In doing so, Khomeini correctly identified the army as the "key to the success of the revolution"(Note 6) and the element that would ensure the consolidation of power. Knowing that an all-out confrontation with the military would have been disastrous, he chose to utilize varying means (both "hard" and "soft") to bring the military into his camp with minimal bloodshed. He then "acted swiftly to neutralize the military"(Note 7) in order to incorporate it into the new power structure. Khomeini used this strategy because he was cognizant that, without the armed forces' assistance, the leftists and autonomy-seeking ethnic minorities could undermine the Islamic Revolution. Thus, he pursued a policy "to maintain the institutional integrity of the armed forces while purging them of monarchists. . . . Despite the purges, the structural cohesion of the armed forces remained intact."(Note 8) Khomeini needed an intact military that could be persuaded to follow him in order to hold the country together.
Because of constant appeals from anti-Shah factions to the armed forces to desert, the Information Ministry issued a series of desperate communiques in mid-December denying reports that the Iranian Army was on the verge of mutiny. These communiques refuted antigovernment claims concerning armed forces desertion. A typical one addressed at length the loyal and noble character of the Iranian soldier, calling him a "high-flying phoenix across whose path no desperate cunning and treachery by the servants of the foreigner could ever set a snare."(Note 9)
Responding in kind, the antigovernment forces waged their own propaganda campaign to foment dissent within the ranks of the Iranian Army. The opposition accused the Pahlavi regime of pitting the army against the people in order to bring about a schism to separate the junior members of the armed forces from their own families. The opposition appealed to the "patriotic soldiers and noncommissioned officers of our homeland" to leave the forces of "a despotic, bloodthirsty regime" and join them to place themselves "on the side of the nation."(Note 10) By doing so, the opposition hoped to create a split in the military between the senior officers who owed their positions to the Shah, and the junior officers and enlisted personnel who had not been able to enjoy the finer aspects of military life. Such a split would facilitate a purge of the monarchists and throw military organization and discipline into a state of disarray, further weakening the military.
In the face of continuing unrest, elements of the armed forces (mostly enlisted and junior officers), continued to rebel, in many cases refusing to fire on antigovernment demonstrators and also deserting. In some instances, the government kept the soldiers in their barracks rather than send them into the streets to combat the demonstrators.(Note 11) The fear that the soldiers would heed the calls of the demonstrators to hold their fire and desert was stronger than the need to quell the unrest.
As the levels of intensity against antigovernment demonstrations increased, refusal on the part of soldiers to fire upon their countrymen became a topic of antigovernment broadcasts. These broadcasts exacerbated uncertainty within the armed forces, who, because of the Shah's self-centered management policies, lacked clear leadership and decisiveness at the top. These broadcasts also emphasized the refusal of many soldiers to obey direct orders from their commanding officers, especially orders to fire upon unarmed demonstrators:
The religious leaders and national forces have called on the armymen to carry out their national and religious duty to Iran and the Iranian people by disobeying the orders of the black generals of the Shah's court and by joining the people. The soldiers, officers and armymen are the children of the Iranian nation and cannot remain indifferent to the bloody events in the realm and the call--the invitation--of the national and religious leaders. The day is not far away when the armymen, by fully joining the ranks of the people, will cast the heads of this bloodshedding regime and its criminal generals into the trash can of history.(Note 12)
This reticence to quell the disturbances can be partially explained by the fact that the military forces were trained in conventional warfare, not nonlethal riot-control techniques. For this reason, military responses to anti-Pahlavi demonstrations tended to be harsh and repressive, which evoked strong responses from the Iranian people and the world community.(Note 13) This also served to further confuse and alienate many of the younger soldiers, who were essentially being sent to perform a mission for which they had not been prepared. This in turn added to their apprehensiveness, which played into Khomeini's hands.
In the face of this potent psychological warfare, the blame for this predicament cannot be attributed to a lack of effort on the part of many senior military leaders. They repeatedly asked for riot-control equipment and training but their requests were denied time and again.(Note 14) In fact, the very orientation of the armed forces was not geared toward an internal threat, but rather toward an external one. The result of this policy was that "weapons and training for domestic disturbances were not emphasized."(Note 15) The outward orientation meant that the U.S.-trained military was "organized for the wrong war" in which its response to internal dissent was much less effective than it would have been in a foreign invasion scenario.(Note 16) Additionally, the internal strife tended to confuse the priorities of many soldiers by playing on their religious and nationalistic sensibilities, rendering them that much more ineffective.
The differences between regular officers and the conscripted soldiers were exacerbated as well during the period of unrest preceding the departure of the Shah. The fissures in the military were partially due to regular officers being part of an elite class that lived a separate existence from the men they commanded. They enjoyed access to free medical care, generous pay, and special commodities. On the other hand, the conscripts were paid very little and were drawn from the same elements of society as the demonstrators, with whom they were able to identify more easily. In many instances during the antigovernment demonstrations, the conscripts found themselves in a position where they had to choose between disobeying an order or suppressing (in some manner) a relative or friend.(Note 17)
As the demonstrations continued, the army came to be regarded as the force that prevented the country from sinking into utter chaos.(Note 18) As the crisis wore on, reports of soldiers defecting began to circulate. Additionally, soldiers began to shoot other soldiers to prevent them from firing on the antigovernment protestors, and army units began to disobey orders to quell the protests. This had the effect of undermining overall esprit de corps and military discipline, as well as making the soldiers more susceptible to incessant dissident propaganda broadcasts. From exile in Paris, Ayatollah Khomeini called for the soldiers to desert and join the opposition.(Note 19) Ayatollah Hussein Ali Montazeri, a Khomeini ally, stated that Khomeini's appeals to the army were having an impact:
There is a spirit of rebellion inside the army . . . and if an Islamic government is installed in Iran, these soldiers and young officers will obey and follow the leaders who follow Khomeini's instructions.(Note 20)
Amid speculation about the imminent departure of the Shah in early 1979, senior officers in the armed forces expressed their dismay at the possibility of a new civilian government and apprehension concerning their collective and individual fates. With the Shah gone, the military's status in the new regime would be significantly altered. Additionally, there were concerns about the collective fate of the military since it had borne the brunt of public anti-Pahlavi sentiment. In spite of these factors, the military as an institution had maintained internal discipline imposed from above principally because of a sense of loyalty to the Shah. With his departure, the military feared being dismembered at the hands of a new regime as well as at the hands of the people. In terms of weaponry, the military did not fear the populace. Their concern was that with the Shah removed from their future, discipline would erode; leaderless, they would be unable to withstand popular demands for justice because of the armed forces' role in suppressing anti-Pahlavi sentiment. The military, because of its compartmentalization, also feared corporate inertia, an institutionalized inability to act, and longstanding internal rivalries that would render them useless.(Note 21) In spite of these fears, the military took no steps to remedy these deficiencies, again because of an incapacity to coordinate and communicate amongst themselves.
On January 4, 1979, General Gholam Ali Oveissi, the Iranian Army commander and martial-law administrator of Tehran, resigned. The general cited health reasons as the cause of his resignation. He was disliked by the populace for his hardline views and he was vehemently opposed to any abdication of power by the Shah. In itself, the general's resignation is a negligible footnote, but in the context of political and societal turmoil, his resignation took on another significance in terms of lowering the morale of the soldiers he commanded.(Note 22) His resignation, in the opinion of Carter administration officials, reduced the possibilities of strong military opposition to a post-Pahlavi regime.(Note 23)
On January 6, Prime Minister Shahpur Bakhtiar named General Feridum Djam as War Minister. General Djam was a former Chief of Staff who had been dismissed in 1971 by the Shah for being "too good, too competent, too popular, too much his own man."(Note 24) Bakhtiar also named Lieutenant General Mehdi Rahemi Larijani as General Oveissi's successor to the post of military governor of Tehran. Larijani had been Oveissi's deputy and was considered more moderate than his former commander.(Note 25)
The situation became so serious in the eyes of the Carter administration that Air Force General Robert E. Huyser, Deputy Commander of the United States European Command, was dispatched to Tehran to urge the armed forces to unite behind the provisional government. General Huyser spoke with new Chief of Staff General Abbas Gharabaghi, who had been the Gendarmerie Commander and may have been brought in because of his outsider status and ethnic Azerbaijani heritage. General Huyser exhorted Gharabaghi to avoid precipitous military actions, especially a coup, which would lead to a curtailment of American military aid.(Note 26) Huyser also suggested to Gharabaghi that the Iranian military begin drawing up its own contingency plans for any future scenarios. He further recommended that Iranian military leaders begin to confer with one another to learn how to carry out intraservice communications, coordination, and planning. Gharabaghi's response was to request that the Americans accomplish these tasks for the Iranian military and to point out that he could not hold the military together if the Shah were to leave the country.(Note 27) Huyser's experience encapsulated the organizational problems as well as the command and control defects in the imperial military as structured by the Shah.
Although publicly General Huyser decried the possibility of a coup, it has been posited that Huyser was acting as the representative of the United States to formulate options that included plans to "encourage the Iranian military to support Bakhtiar's civilian government; plan for possible direct military action if required to bolster the civilian regime; support a military takeover by Iranian forces if public order collapsed." (Note 28) On January 10, former Imperial Guard Commander General Abdolah Badrai was named Commander of the Iranian Ground Forces, replacing General Oveissi. Whereas General Oveissi had been both the Military Governor of Tehran and the Commander of the Iranian Army, the positions were later separated to attempt to prevent the concentration of too much power in the hands of one individual.
In his position as Imperial Guard Commander, General Badrai had commanded the best trained, most elite soldiers in the Iranian military. General Badrai assumed command as Prime Minister Bakhtiar's power waned. By that time, Bakhtiar was viewed as impotent in the wake of a remark by a general who publicly stated that the army would refuse to follow Bakhtiar. Instead of a harsh reprimand, the Shah promoted the general who made the remark, further undermining Bakhtiar's already precarious position.(Note 29)
As the controversy over a possible military coup was debated, reports began to filter in from Kuwait that over 50 Iranian Army officers had deserted in recent weeks. The Iranian authorities had been reticent to take any steps against the deserters due to "fear of popular reaction and possible armed confrontation" among competing factions of the Iranian military.(Note 30) During this time, General Huyser was still conducting meetings with senior Iranian officials concerning the ramifications of a military coup. Huyser reported back to Secretary of Defense Harold Brown that working with the Iranian military was difficult because of the severe compartmentalization of the services and the unwillingness (or inability) of the senior leaders to plan for a given situation or take any initiative whatsoever. The Shah's prohibition on coordination among the services for fear of a coup had left the military arms of the state incapable of joint or of independent action.(Note 31) In this vein, Secretary of State Cyrus R. Vance issued the following statement:
Iran's armed forces remain essential to the security and independence of Iran, and as a necessary complement to a legitimate civilian government. We have urged that everything be done to ensure their integrity and their support by the people of Iran.(Note 32)
Bakhtiar was forced to appoint General Jaafar Shafaqat as new Minister of War, to replace General Djam. A younger man than many of his colleagues, General Shafaqat was regarded as a moderate who favored civilian rule, although he had little faith in a peaceful resolution to the mounting crisis.(Note 33) He replaced General Djam because the Shah would not allow General Djam to appoint the heads of the armed forces. Fearing a coup, the Shah also refused to allow the heads of the armed forces to report to General Djam. In light of these new developments, new speculation emerged concerning the possibilities of a military coup if the Shah did not give the military a freer hand in security affairs.(Note 34)
From Paris, Ayatollah Khomeini stated that the Shah would stage a military coup rather than abdicate his power. Again attempting to bring the military into his future regime, the exiled opposition leader issued a call to the army to prevent any such attempts:(Note 35)
There is a possibility that the treacherous Shah, now about to depart, will commit a further crime--a military coup d'etat; I have frequently warned that this is probable. It would be his last blow. The courageous people of Iran know that there are only a few slavish and bloodthirsty individuals in the army, who apparently occupy important positions and whose identities are known to me, and that the honorable elements in the army will never permit these slaves of the Shah to commit such a crime against their nation and religion. In accordance with my God-given and national duty, I alert the Iranian army to this danger and I demand that all commanders and officers resolutely prevent the enactment of any such conspiracy and not permit a few bloodthirsty individuals to plunge the noble people of Iran into a bloodbath. Iranian army, this is your God-given duty. If you obey these congenital traitors, you will be accountable to God, Exalted and Almighty, condemned by all humanitarians, and cursed by future generations. . . . The Iranian people must treat the honorable officers and commanders of the army with respect. They must recognize that a few treacherous members of the army cannot sully the army as a whole. The record and responsibility of a few bloodthirsty individuals is something separate from the army as a whole. The army belongs to the people, and the people belong to the army. The army will not suffer any harm as a result of the departure of the Shah.(Note 36)
The Shah attempted to ensure the loyalty of the military forces to Bakhtiar to prevent anarchy upon his departure but
There was, however, a flaw in his thinking: Iran's armed forces were basically the shah's creation and loyal to him, not to an abstract concept of "constitutional authority." Should the shah choose to remain in the country and fight for his survival, there was a good chance that the army, even though suffering from occasional desertions and the mullahs' antimonarchist brainwashing, would side with the ruler and defend him. But it was somewhat naive to expect that the army would defend an empty palace and meekly transfer its allegiance to a little known former opposition leader in the name of constitutional principle.(Note 37)
For this reason, the armed forces lost all vestiges of discipline when the Shah left on January 16, 1979.(Note 38) Before leaving Iran, the Shah refused to appoint a strong, independent thinking military leader such as General Djam to hold the armed forces together, fearing that such a situation would work against him if he returned to Iran. (This referral is indicative of how out of touch the Shah was with the reality of the situation.) He was, in fact, incapable of transferring power from himself to the government.(Note 39) Skocpol's theory notwithstanding, it "was only after the Shah's departure that the process of disintegration of the army under political pressure set in."(Note 40)
Upon the Shah's departure, anti-Pahlavi demonstrators sought to win the favor of soldiers patrolling the streets of Tehran. The demonstrators kissed the soldiers and gave them flowers, in an attempt to emphasize their solidarity with them. In a return gesture, many of the soldiers placed the flowers in the barrels of their machine guns.(Note 41)
Amid the uncertainty, rumors circulated as to whether the military would attempt a coup or at least a crackdown. Iranian papers were especially critical of the armed forces; they
criticized the military's role in keeping the Shah in power and killing hundreds of Iranians.(Note 42) Waiting to see how events were going to develop with the incoming regime, Iranian Armed Forces Chief of Staff General Gharabaghi issued a warning to any officers who might be contemplating a coup, stating they would be "crushed." The General emphasized the need to avoid conflict between the armed forces and the anti-Shah factions in Iran. Emphasizing the importance of national solidarity, he stated that if any conflict occurred between them, "neither the army nor the nation will survive."(Note 43) The general further stated that the Army would support "any legal government" but that the Army had been subject to "provocations" by demonstrators in various Iranian cities and issued a stern warning to anti-government forces not to "provoke" the army, whose duty was to maintain order.(Note 44) In a similar vein, Khomeini urged the nation to "preserve public order and win the support of the armed forces."(Note 45) The Paris diplomatic community was surprised by the Ayatollah's moderate tone and his desire to include the armed forces in any discussions of a post-Pahlavi Iran.(Note 46) What these diplomats ignored was the fact that Khomeini in fact desired to gain political control of the army to use it as a tool to assist in the transition from a monarchy to an Islamic republic.(Note 47)
Khomeini ally Ayatollah Shariatmadari, who had promoted Khomeini to the rank of ayatollah to prevent his execution in 1963, also issued an appeal for calm. He urged Iranians to "respect the Iranian Army and treat it with kindness and fraternity." He also took pains to distinguish the majority of the soldiers from "those who have opened fire on the people," who in turn "should be treated separately."(Note 48) By doing so, he hoped to maintain the military structure intact to later integrate it into the new regime.
In the oil producing city of Ahvaz, renegade soldiers opened fire on anti-Shah demonstrators, dashing any hopes of a completely peaceful transition to Bakhtiar's rule. Estimates of fatalities ranged from 10 to over 100. The violence began when a military officer told his subordinates that the Shah had left Iran and that they must obey Prime Minister Bakhtiar. Three officers and an undetermined number of soldiers then took to the streets rolling their tanks over cars and shooting at peaceful demonstrators. They were contained within a few hours, but not before giving rise to speculation concerning a possible coup.(Note 49)
In an attempt at damage control, the Governor General of Khuzestan, Lieutenant General Jafarian, decried the "opportunists who want to plunge our dear country into anarchy." He also criticized the renegade military members whom he described as "adventurists" who would be punished "in accordance with the law and regulations." He urged the army to obey Bakhtiar "so that a chasm--God forbid--may not be brought about between the army and the zealous, patriotic Iranian people."(Note 50)
In a another bid to defuse the tension and keep the armed forces out of controversy, General Gharabaghi stated there would be no army coup, because the army was "the guardian of the constitution and the government," whose duty was to maintain public order. He also claimed that all military perpetrators of insubordination would be "severely punished."(Note 51) The general then urged all soldiers to carry out their duties "with a firm resolve, with moral discipline and a spirit replete with patriotism and by overcoming emotionalism and refraining from any act that might be contrary to military commands and duties."(Note 52)
Despite being reigned in, the army became the focus of public attention and a great deal of speculation concerning the possibilities of a coup. As the army generals expressed their support for Bakhtiar, supporters of Khomeini skeptically voiced their doubts about the army's intentions, especially in light of the Ayatollah's imminent return from exile in Paris. They were concerned the military might seek to eliminate Khomeini and in so doing remove the chief opposition figure to the Shah. Ayatollah Mahmoud Taleghani, one of the most prominent opposition figures, warned that the people of Iran would wage a "holy war" against the army if it attempted a coup.(Note 53) He stated that if the army tried to take over Iran, "the people would deal with" the military and would be "victorious."(Note 54) These fears proved to be unfounded, since the Army as a unified entity was incapable of acting without the Shah.(Note 55)
The military's public image became more tenuous, however, when renegade soldiers opened fire on pro-Khomeini, antigovernment demonstrators in Tehran on January 26. Although Bakhtiar gave the orders to quell the unrest, which included over 100,000 demonstrators, the army, as the enforcement arm, took the brunt of public outcry against its actions, which resulted in at least 15 deaths and dozens wounded.(Note 56) This served to further degrade the army's already tarnished public image. Further violence occurred on January 29, when demonstrators protested the army's closing of all airports, which prevented the return of Khomeini. After being pelted with rocks, soldiers fired on crowds in Tehran, killing 35 and wounding an unknown number of civilians. Soldiers also fired on antigovernment demonstrators in Resht, a town on the Caspian sea, killing 5 and wounding 40.(Note 57) Upon announcing that Iran's airports would reopen to allow Khomeini's return, army officers conferred with the Ayatollah's aides. Among other topics discussed were security plans to safeguard Khomeini.(Note 58) A more telling sign of the military's political emasculation was the fact that revolutionaries, not the army, provided security for Khomeini when he returned to Iran.(Note 59)
After Khomeini's return to Iran, instead of criticizing the armed forces, he appealed to the Iranian military to become "free and independent" so that they could join with him as "brothers."(Note 60) He then decried the presence of American advisors in the armed forces as an impure element and entreated the army to follow the correct path:
I invite them for their own good and the nation's good to be with us. I hope they can be guided. The people are their brothers. We want what is good for them; we want them to be free and independent.(Note 61)
Faced with the reality of the new regime, the military stated that its loyalties were to the Iranian constitution, not the Shah. The Khomeini regime, in return, stated that their goal was a transfer of power within the framework of that same constitution.(Note 62) By cooperating with the incoming regime, General Gharabaghi hoped to preserve the unity and structure of the armed forces, thereby maintaining cohesion to prevent disintegration and internal friction within the military. Gharabaghi also omitted the pledge of loyalty to the Shah, which had been administered on the previous February 6 to cadets of the Tehran Military Academy upon their graduation.(Note 63)
The show of unity suffered a blow when a number of Iranian Air Force civilian technicians staging a pro-Khomeini demonstration at Farahabad Air Force base in Tehran were fired upon by soldiers. Conflicting reports of the February 10 confrontation put the death toll between 20 and 70.(Note 64) As a result of this, violence spread throughout Tehran among factions within the military and armed civilians, causing many more casualties. The Imperial Guard, equipped with helicopters and tanks, found itself arrayed against the technicians, who were augmented by an increasing force of military officers, air force cadets, and civilians. A poorly planned offensive against the technicians failed to dislodge them and further weakened the military.(Note 65) In retrospect, the Homafaran "were singly the most important unit in the armed forces won over by the revolutionaries and were decisive in precipitating the final split in the army that sealed its fate on February 9 to 11."(Note 66)
The Homafaran were a particularly dissatisfied element within the armed forces. Although they were civilians, they wore military uniforms and possessed a military rank between officers and NCO's.(Note 67) They were hired on a contractual basis to perform maintenance and technical functions within the military. Although they were well paid, they were accorded very little respect within the military and were also forced to stay in the military after their contracts had expired. This led to discontent, owing to the fact that they could have made much more money working in the private sector.(Note 68) They also felt ostracized from the officers and enlisted members because they were treated as outsiders; this frustration finally manifested itself in the Farahabad incident. In an effort to contain the violence, the army called its troops back into the barracks "to prevent further bloodshed and anarchy," as Prime Minister Bakhtiar resigned.(Note 69) Additionally, General Gharabaghi declared that the armed forces were "neutral" in the political conflict, in an attempt to keep them intact and prevent popular rage from being directed at them.(Note 70)
The Farahabad incident was the vital catalyst that allowed anti-Pahlavi factions to overcome the might of the armed forces. This was not so much because of any ability of the revolutionaries to resist the armed forces, but rather because of the synergistic effects of popular, broad-based opposition to the Shah; reluctance of the soldiers to repress their fellow countrymen and military personnel; institutional inertia; the Shah's excessively paranoid compartmentalization of his security forces in order to prevent their conspiring against him; and the military's inability to act independently in response to a crisis situation.
After the Farahabad incident, speculation concerning the defeat of the Imperial Guard at the hands of "a mob of poorly armed civilians" began to circulate. Questions as to how and why a force in excess of 400,000 that was well armed and well trained could be routed abounded in Tehran during the early phases of the Revolution.(Note 71) One Western military attaché offered an analysis that seemed to state the obvious:
As a fighting force the army has been humiliated. As a political influence, its weight is greatly reduced. It is a tragedy to see this happen to a force with such fine tradition, but I am not surprised. I think the Imperial Guard was wrongly trained and badly commanded. But in the end you cannot ask a modern army to fight its own people.(Note 72)
Further comments by other military personnel criticized the Shah for not training his military in riot-control procedures or to combat the psychological effects of repressing their own countrymen.(Note 73) A more accurate criticism would have targeted the monarch's distrust and compartmentalization of his military and the institutionalized inability to make independent decisions. When the Army's decision to withdraw its support and retreat into the barracks was made public, the citizens of Tehran celebrated in the streets. They hailed the soldiers as they withdrew from the Iranian radio and television complex and threw flowers to them.(Note 74) In his ever- constant wooing of the armed forces, Ayatollah Khomeini issued a statement praising the military's decision to withdraw from the fray and encouraged the populace to accord the military the proper courtesy and respect in keeping with their status as part of the revolution:
Now that victory is near and that the armed forces have retreated and announced their lack of intervention in political affairs and also announced their support of the nation, you should not burn their institutions. . . . Again I say to you that if the army stops and joins the people and the legal Islamic government, then we will recognize them as being of the people.(Note 75)
In a show of support for Khomeini and the Islamic Revolution, hundreds of Air Force warrant officer technicians and other personnel from Hatami Air Force Base in Esfahan marched in solidarity to proclaim their support for the Bazargan government.(Note 76)