Yazdi worked as a research assistant of pathology and research instructor of pharmacology at
Baylor College of Medicine in
Houston until 1977. He also worked at
the Veterans Administration Hospital in
Houston. In 1978, he joined Ayatollah Khomeini in
Paris where the latter had been in exile and became one of his advisors. He translated the reports of Khomeini into English in a press conference on 3 February 1979 in Tehran. He was the deputy prime minister and
minister of foreign affairs in the
interim government of
Mehdi Bazargan, until 6 November 1979. Yazdi proposed to celebrate '
Quds Day' and his suggestion was endorsed by Khomeini in August 1979; In May 1980, he was appointed by Khomenei as head of the
Kayhan newspaper. The day after the victory of the revolution, on 2 February 1979, several foreign embassies in Tehran, including those of the
United States, the
United Kingdom, and
Yugoslavia were over-run by groups identifying themselves as leftist revolutionaries. The opinion of the
Revolutionary Council, of which Yazdi was a member, was that these attacks may be aimed at creating chaos and preventing the international recognition of the new regime. In the case of the US embassy, the attackers were successful in entering the embassy compound and taking personnel, including the US ambassador,
William Sullivan, captive. Yazdi, at the request of Ayatollah Khomeini and the Revolutionary Council, went to the embassies and resolved the crisis, resulting in the release of embassy personnel and the departure of the attackers. On 4 November 1979, the US embassy was
taken over for a second time, this time by a group calling itself "
Students Following the Line of the Imam (i.e. Ayatollah Khomeini)" and led by
Mohammad Mousavi Khoeiniha, who had closer ties to certain revolutionary leaders. As before, Yazdi was asked to go to the embassy and resolve the crisis. He asked and received permission of Khomeini to expel the occupiers, but shortly thereafter found out Khomeini had changed his mind and appeared on state television openly endorsed the takeover of the embassy. The entire cabinet of
the interim government, including Yazdi and Prime Minister
Mehdi Bazargan, resigned in protest the next day. They stated that they opposed the embassy takeover as "contrary to the national interest of Iran". The embassy takeover is considered to have been motivated in part by an internal struggle between various factions within the revolutionary leadership, with Yazdi and Bazargan on one side, and more radical clergy on the other. The embassy attackers, in subsequent statements indicated that one of their primary objectives in the takeover of the US embassy in November 1979 was to force the resignation of Yazdi, Bazargan, and the entire cabinet.
Mehdi Rahimi (right) in a press conference in February 1979. Rahimi was executed on 16 February. Among the areas of conflict between the two factions was the behavior of the Revolutionary Courts and the Revolutionary Committees. Yazdi and Bazargan supported a general amnesty for all members of the Shah's regime, provided that they cease to act against the revolution. He publicly opposed the secret trials and the
summary executions carried out by the Revolutionary Courts, led by
Ayatollah Sadegh Khalkhaali. Bazargan and other members of the interim government may have called for fair and open trials for those in charge of political posts under the Shah. The radical clerics, on the other hand, stated that the rapid trials and executions were essential to protect the revolution. "He was the voice of the Iranian revolution and that voice was talking about freedom, democracy and women's rights. This was something he truly believed in and he was proven to be wrong because that's not what the revolution turned out to be. It became a killing machine after the takeover. He protested vigorously against the judicial killings of people who had been close to Shah and that got him into trouble with people around Khomeini." After resignation from office, Yazdi and other members of the
Freedom Movement of Iran ran in elections for the first post-revolutionary
Islamic Consultative Assembly or parliament. Yazdi, Bazargan, and four other members of the Freedom Movement, namely Mostafa Chamran,
Ahmad Sadr,
Hashem Sabbaghian, and
Yadollah Sahabi, were elected. They served at the parliament from 1980 to 1984. After the
Iraqi invasion of Iran in September 1980, Yazdi fully supported the Iranian war effort against the invasion, but opposed the continuation of the war after the
Iranian victory in Khorramshahr in 1982. The war continued for an additional six years. During these six years, Yazdi and others in the Freedom Movement issued several open letters to Ayatollah Khomeini opposing the continuation of the war. These letters and other public statements resulted in the firebombing of Yazdi's residence in Tehran in 1985, and the arrest and imprisonment of several members of the Freedom Movement. In subsequent elections in Iran for president, parliament, and city councils, Yazdi and other members of the Freedom Movement filed for candidacy but were barred from running by the
Guardian Council, because of their opposition to policies and actions of the government. In December 1997, Yazdi was arrested on unknown charges and detained in Evin prison in Tehran. Even after his release, he was barred from leaving the country for many years, and summoned on a regular basis to answer questions before the revolutionary council, with his lawyer, Nobel Prize–winning Shirin Ebadi. As of 2008 Yazdi is still accused of "attempting to convert the rule of velaii (jurisprudence) into democratic rule." After the death of Bazargan in January 1995, Yazdi was elected as leader of Freedom Movement of Iran. Under pressure from the revolutionary court prosecutor, Yazdi offered his resignation as FMI Leader from on 20 March 2011 to the leadership council of the FMI. They have yet to accept his resignation and Yazdi continued to function as the leader of the Freedom Movement of Iran.
Electoral history ==Later years and death==