A Game Without End

The elections have so far failed to give Banisadr a strong mandate

On the eve of Iran's traditional new year celebrations,* Ayatullah Ruhollah Khomeini made an uncharacteristically conciliatory gesture. The spiritual leader of Iran's revolution declared an amnesty for everyone accused of collaborating with the deposed Shah's regime except for "murderers, torturers and plunderers." That was good news to tens of thousands of technocrats, industrial managers, professional people and university professors who fled Iran after the overthrow of the Shah. Calling upon the exiles to return home, President Abolhassan Banisadr declared: "It is only here, and nowhere else, that you will find the opportunity to be perfect human beings " But the Ayatullah's ruling, welcome as it was to the exiles and to 70 political prisoners who were immediately released, had no effect on the status of the 50 Americans who have been held hostage for almost five months in the U.S. embassy compound in Tehran.

For them, and for the Carter Administration, the news from Iran is unchanged: discouraging. Banisadr wants a resolution of the hostage crisis to get on with solving his country's enormous economic problems, and Washington had hoped that his moderate supporters would win a majority in the new 270-member Majlis (National Assembly). But in the first round of elections, the biggest winner turned out to be the Islamic Republic Party, led by Ayatullah Mohammed Beheshti, who is Banisadr's main political opponent. Of the first 80 seats filled so far, the I.R.P. won 35, and Banisadr's supporters carried only 15. If that trend continues in runoff elections, to be held early next month, the I.R.P. is likely to emerge with the largest single bloc in the Assembly. But many of the non-I.R.P. members, who will probably form a majority, are locked in bitter rivalry with the clerical party and will side with Banisadr on the hostage issue.

The first round of voting ended in bitter wrangling. The I.R.P. was accused of cheating by practically all its principal opponents. Minister of State Dariush Forouhar, leader of the Iran Nation Party, resigned his Cabinet post to protest "widespread, shameless fraud." Said he: "I have fought for the principle of fair play all my life. I won't stomach this circus." Last week the ruling Revolutionary Council set up a seven-member commission to look into the allegations of fraud. If the charges prove to be true, said Banisadr, new elections will be held in some constituencies.

Khomeini asked defeated candidates to be good losers and to refrain from making wild accusations. Said he: "It is anti-Islamic to accuse a contender of dishonesty and treachery out of sheer spite." What Khomeini fears, confided a member of the clerical establishment, is that the Assembly will prove to be as destructively divided as the country has been for the past year. Says a Western diplomat: "The Assembly can be a real bedlam. A lot will depend on how Banisadr handles it." Banisadr's authority may actually increase under the new system because he will have a Cabinet of his own choosing, whereas the present, 13-member Revolutionary Council includes many of his most powerful opponents. Says a senior government official: "You cannot operate under the constant threat of being stabbed in the back Meanwhile, Banisadr is trying to get a firm grip on the institutions of power As the country's newly appointed commander in chief, he conferred with military leaders about potential threats to Iran. Later, repeating his assertions that the hostage crisis is distracting Iranian from more important matters, he declared: "We ar surrounded by hostile forces, and yet we wast our time playing games."

The end of the game is not in sight. Since Khomeini has declared that the Majlis should ultimately decide the hostages' fate, there is no chance for their release until well after the new Assembly is convened in late April or early May, and it may take a good deal longer than that. Last week, in asking the International Court of Justice in The Hague to order the hostages freed, State Department Legal Adviser Roberts B. Owen said there was no way of knowing whether the Americans would remain prisoners "for a month, a year or a decade." Owen also described the harsh treatment endured by some of the hostages during the early days of their captivity last fall. They were bound hand and foot and forced to sleep on cold concrete floors without blankets; women were tied to straight-back chairs for 16 hours a day. In one particularly outrageous example of intimidation, an Iranian captor played Russian roulette with a woman captive, but stopped before his pistol killed her. Most of these details, never before disclosed, came from the 13 hostages, blacks and women, who were freed in December.

Adding to the problems of the Carter Administration were signs last week that the patience of the American public was wearing thin. A New York Times-CBS News poll reported that the public disapproved of the President's handling of the Iran crisis by 49 to 43; only a month earlier the President had had an approval rating of 63 to 28. Senator Richard Lugar of Indiana, a conservative Republican with close ties to Minority Leader Howard Baker, called for strong action against Iran, including the internment of its diplomats, seizure of Iranian government assets, suspension of trade, and perhaps a naval blockade. Declared Lugar: "We must act on the basis of reality and not wishful thinking."

The Administration has been involved in a reappraisal of its Iran strategy, which at this point amounts to little but wait and hope. America's Western allies are not enthusiastic about an economic boycott, and trade between the U.S. and Iran is virtually nonexistent. A naval blockade of Iran could hurt Western Europe and Japan and cause a further rise in world oil prices. A military rescue mission appears to be a hopeless enterprise.

The probable outcome of the policy review is a reaffirmation of restraint, since the U.S. wants to avoid permanently alienating Banisadr and his allies. Part of the Administration's thinking is based on the firmly held tenet that it is vital to long-term U.S. interests that Iran not fall into the Soviet orbit. Many Iranian officials agree; Defense Minister Mustafa Ali Chamran said that in the event of a Soviet attack Iran would expect the U.S. to come to its aid. The leaders of the revolution in Tehran, moreover, now seem to be taking seriously the Soviet military presence on Iran's borders. Khomeini declared last week that the U.S.S.R. represents as great a threat to his country as the U.S. does; and Banisadr demanded that Moscow withdraw its troops from Afghanistan "as rapidly as possible."

*A rise of spring in the Zoroastrians tradition which predates the arrival of Islam in Persia by a thousand years.

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