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Occupation Complex. History has left some psychological scars on the Shah's 20 million subjects. After centuries of conquest, Iran has a kind of occupation complex, vividly exemplified by a tenet of its Shi'ite sect of Islam, which holds that a man may legitimately disavow his religion in time of danger. ''Deep in the Iranian mind," says one Middle East expert, "lies the conviction that nothing ever happens in Iran except by the desire of a foreign power." Many of the middle-class Teheran intellectuals and business men who most heatedly denounced the recent election rigging had not even bothered to vote. Scoffed one educated Teherani: "That's for coolies." They also knew it was only a contest between two men outdoing each other in pledged subservience to the Shah. And what hangs most ominously over all Iranian life, too often at court as well as in business life, is the ingrained Iranian tradition of corruption and favoritism, casually explained away by the Persian saying: "Let no man of rank be a tree without fruit.''
Despite the Shah's best intentions, a shocking percentage of Iran's economic-development money turns into "fruit'' distributed at every level of officialdom. One foreign entrepreneur, after striking a bargain for some surplus airplane parts originally given to the Iranian Air Force by the U.S., resignedly paid off the colonels concerned only to have his loaded trucks held up at the gate by a young captain of the guard who inquired with pointed effect, "Don't you think captains are as good as colonels?" "They aren't even subtle about it," says one prosperous contractor. "We all regard it as merely part of the deal. Frequently, we negotiate to come to terms. But dealing with royalty, for example, remains pretty much of a command performance." Most notable of Iran's royal tycoons: the Shah's twin sister, Princess Ashraf, who has already made two husbands wealthy.
Sporadically fired with determination to stamp out dishonesty in government, the Shah has fired 4,000 bureaucrats for corruption within a year, not long ago arrested 150 army officers on the same charge and put several colonels in jail. Corruption is in the air; but it also exists because the hard-working Shah tries to run the government all by himself. His few trusted aides are mostly officers of Iran's 200,000-man army, which he relies on to keep him in power and hence pampers. As a result, generals abound, and every other automobile in Teheran seems to bear the yellow and white plates that denote an army car. Among civilian officials. the Shah depends on retainers like Eghbal. who once told the Majlis: "I am not interested in your criticism and your complaints. You may say whatever you like — I do not care. I do not depend on your votes. The Shahanshah ordered me to serve, and I am his servant."