Page 14
Summer Session Kansan
Friday, May 12. 1961
Iran Modernizes and Expands But It Still Faces Problems
By Phil Newsom
UPI Foreign News Analyst
In ancient Tehran, shiny, new automobiles have taken the place of the donkey and the camel.
On the outskirts of the city, university buildings and showy villas rise from what was wasteland.
Since World War II, the United States has poured more than $800 million into Iran. Under the leadership of 41-year-old Shah Mohammed Riza Pehlevi, 60 per cent of the country's oil riches annually are ear-marked for a vast program of education and modernization designed to bring Iran across a gap of more than 1,000 years.
BUT LAST WEEK, Iran's second government in less than a year fell.
Iran, with an annual income of nearly $150 million from oil alone, was broke and in trouble.
And trouble in Iran means potential trouble for the West, for it is the keystone of CENTO, the central treaty organization, the successor to the Baghdad Pact.
Should CENTO fall, with it would go a vital link in the chain of pro-Western alliances which stretch across Europe and Asia from the Philippines to the British Isles. For the Soviet Union the way would be open to fulfill a dream going back
to the Czars, a clear path to the Persian Gulf through Iran and Iraq.
TROUBLE IS nothing new for the pro-Western Shah.
In his 20 years on the peacock throne of Persia he has been shot once, deposed once and seen his country occupied by foreign powers.
Unhappily, the Shah's own purity of purpose, his determination to reshape Iran into a modern land, have not always been matched by his associates.
Last fall the conservative government of Premier Manoucher Eghbal fell in the midst of riotous demonstrations.
Last week, the government of Premier Jafar Shariif-Imami fell after the shooting of four teachers during demonstrations for higher pay.
PREMIER ALI AMNI took over, under orders from the Shah to rewrite election laws to insure an honest ballot.
Iran's progress toward modern
times in the last dozen years is undenied. That the Shah has been the motivating force also is undenied.
The question is whether the progress has been fast enough and whether the Shah will be granted the time he needs.
In a land once 85 per cent illiterate, schools are being built and students, once numbering less than a half a million, now number nearly a million and a half.
BULLDOZERS CLEAR the way for giant dams and waterways to reclaim the desert. Iran is to have its own steel mill. Harbors will be deepened. In land reform, the Shah leads the way by giving away his own lands.
But opposed to him are the large land owners who stubbornly retain vast absentee holdings. In the urban centers unrest mounts over rising costs and slow progress.
And in the streets, students riot in the manner of Turkey and South Korea.
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