##Qavam, Ahmad

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Qavam’s final position of prominence was as Foreign Minister in Zahedi’s Coalition Government, starting in 1947. He was originally chosen to for his perceived ability to resolve the Azerbaijan Crisis because of his close relations with both the Soviets and Azerbaijan province. In this role, he was satisfactory, if unexceptional. The Soviet withdraw was eventually secured in 1949 after a long series of negotiations, without any major Iranian concessions. His maneuver in deferring a decision on the 1921 Russo-Persian Treaty until after the departure of the Soviets and the crushing of the rebels and then engineering a rejection of the treaty earned him the nickname of “Old Fox.” And old he was - by 1952 he was 70 years old and sickly.

His other accomplishments were few; the unquestionable crowning achievement of the Zahedi ministry, the oil nationalization, was largely negotiated by Zahedi, Hazhir, and the Shah himself, as Qavam was judged to be simultaneously too pro-Soviet and too pro-British. He also played little role in the economic agreements with Afghanistan and Pakistan, which were largely managed by Deputy Finance Minister Amini. His only other personal project, the renewal of the Saadabad Pact, was largely a formality and subsequent dialogues with Turkey were personally directly by Zahedi.

After the final resolution of the Azerbaijan Crisis, Qavam found himself without a support base. His Democrat Party had been largely formed as an personal anti-communist project and a vehicle for personal power, roles which were rapidly becoming obsolete. As a relic of the old school, he would have been better suited as a court minister, living out his last days as an adviser, not as a mass politician. The landscape around Iran has also changed; the United States was clearly in the vogue, while the government seemed to want little to do with the Soviets after the Turkish Crisis. His last hope was to become a rallying point for the rural gentry being displaced by the Shah’s industrial subsidies and land reforms, but Qavam himself had little appetite for this.

On November 12th, 1951, Qavam was dismissed by Prime Minister Zahedi with the tacit approval of the Shah. His allies in the Majis attempted to trigger a no-confidence vote, but with defections from the Democrats and key votes from independents and Mossadegh’s Iran parties, the military rule-by-consensus persevered in a much weakened position. Ultimately, Qavam’s conservative position was untenable without the Shah. The Pahlavis were ultimately military men and drew their power from the officers clique, despite their formal trappings, and the gentry could only hang on for dear life. The remaining Democrats hung on as a reduced but far more ideologically coherent group, standing firmly against rural reform, but without a real power base to resist. Reza Shah had succeeded in tying all power in the country to the military’s monopoly of force, and the landlords now had no way to resist.

Qavam himself went out with a whimper. The Shah installed him as a court adviser in honor of his long service, but he was out of politics in all but name.

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• Entry from Encyclopedia Iranica, 2nd Edition, 1989

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Second Zahedi Ministry