Bold hospitality from Sadat; a controversial "message"from Carter
Once again Anwar Sadat had the eyes of the world on him. Two and a half years ago, the Egyptian President made history by courageously flying to Jerusalem, the capital of his Israeli enemy, in pursuit of peace. That galvanizing journey led to the treaty between Egypt and Israel, the one significant step yet taken toward a Middle East settlement. Last week Sadat made another bold gesture: he welcomed to Egypt the deposed Shah of Iran, the contemporary world's man without a country, and offered him elaborate medical care and unlimited refuge. A few days later, an international medical team removed the ailing Shah's spleen. By any measure, Sadat's gesture was a brave act of international hospitality.
The Carter Administration reacted with concern, not over what Sadat had done—the invitation he had given the Shah was of long standing—but over the Shah's decision to leave Panama at all. The U.S. fear: the Shah's move would further jeopardize the status of the 50 American hostages in the U.S. embassy in Iran. The entire five-month drive to free them, it was feared, might now be substantially set back. In addition, there was another worry: the political risk to Sadat. By standing up against the anti-Shah emotions prevailing in the Middle
East, he was isolating himself even further from his Arab neighbors, and at home risked provoking anti-Shah protests that could threaten his regime. What might happen to the Middle East equation without Sadat? The answer was a political nightmare. But as usual, Sadat was heeding his own inner motives, a daring player on a dangerous stage.
Almost as soon as the Shah disembarked in the shimmering heat of Cairo airport from a chartered DC-8 jetliner, mass demonstrations erupted in Iran against "this new American plot." Tens of thousands of demonstrators marched past the U.S. embassy in Tehran. The mood of the crowds alternated between fury and levity. A man wearing a plastic Jimmy Carter mask and leashed on a rope held by a jester made pathetic charges at the embassy door, sticking his tongue out. President Abolhassan Banisadr maintained an official calm. Foreign Minister Sadegh Ghotbzadeh, in an interview with TIME (see box), suggested that the hostage impasse might be resolved "much sooner" than expected.
Other outward signs were not so promising. The second round of elections for the new Iranian parliament was postponed to allow a special commission to investigate charges of fraud in the first round. This delay will put off, probably for at least two months, the convening of parliament, which has been given the task of settling the hostage problem by Iran's spiritual leader, the Ayatullah Ruhollah Khomeini. As political pressure mounted at home, Washington made plans to impose economic sanctions against Iran.