The Leftists: A Waiting Game

Power struggle in a wayward revolution

It was another bad week for Iran's floundering President Abolhassan Banisadr. Not only did his candidates make a dismal showing in the second round of parliamentary elections; he also lost a battle in his power struggle with the clergy-dominated Islamic Republic Party. As the President and the mullahs jockeyed for control of Iran's wayward revolution, the faction-ridden and economically strapped regime of Ayatullah Ruhollah Khomeini slipped ever closer to chaos.

Led by Ayatullah Seyyed Mohammed Beheshti, the ranking member of the ruling Revolutionary Council, Banisadr's clerical rivals won at least 130 of 270 parliamentary seats in the May 9 voting, the results of which were announced only last week. Banisadr's supporters gained a mere 41 seats, while an assortment of independent mullahs, liberal democrats and nationalists won 71. Undecided are 28 seats, which mostly belong to two provinces--Kurdistan and Khuzistan--torn by civil war and political unrest.

Banisadr tried to shore up his own position by a constitutional maneuver aimed at outflanking the mullahs. He presented Khomeini with an emergency program to save the Islamic revolution from "conspiracies." Specifically, he requested authority to appoint a Prime Minister. Khomeini, who has become increasingly irritated at Banisadr's appeals for help, replied curtly, "Consent granted."

But Beheshti and his clerical comrades on the Revolutionary Council correctly read Khomeini's mood and blocked the President's attempts to appoint a Prime Minister. Declared Beheshti haughtily: "The difficulty is that once a Prime Minister is approved by the Imam, then the Majlis [National Assembly] won't be able to vote freely on his appointment." Adding to his humiliation, Banisadr last week lost a lesser battle against Ayatullah Sadegh Khalkhali, an Islamic judge who had sentenced more than 100 Kurdish rebels and officials of the Pahlavi regime to death. When Banisadr denied Khalkhali's right to exercise judicial functions as chief narcotics investigator, the cleric openly defied him, forcing the President to back down. Earlier, the headstrong judge had already defied presidential orders by leading a group of Islamic zealots on a rampage that demolished the Shah's father's marble mausoleum.

Banisadr's problems are compounded by economic woes. Unemployment is currently about 30%, and industrial production is only at 30% of capacity. Daily oil output has sunk to about 2 million bbl., far below the 6 million bbl. produced under the Shah. Production threatened to fall even lower when a major pipeline in Kermanshah province was blown up, presumably by antigovernment Iranian Arabs.

As Iran's political and economic situation continues to deteriorate, many Western observers fear that leftists may ultimately inherit the revolution and seize control of the government. That may happen, but for the time being, two major leftist groups act as a buffer between the clerical regime and Marxist radicals. The Tudeh (Communist) Party apes the current Moscow line, which proclaims unqualified support for the Ayatullah. The Islamic People's Mujahidin, which espouses broad anti-imperialist and socialist principles, also recognizes Khomeini.

Several other leftist groups are united in their staunch opposition to the government. They include the People's Fedayan, a Marxist guerrilla organization; Peykar, a Marxist offshoot of the Mujahidin; and the KUMOLEH, a largely peasant-supported party.

The militant leftists are all fighting in Kurdistan alongside the Kurdish Democratic Party (K.D.P.), which has been leading a determined rebellion against the Tehran government for more than a year. Bitter fighting last week left 1,500 Kurds, most of them civilians, and 500 government soldiers dead, prompting Khomeini to declare in an angry national radio broadcast that "Kurdistan must be combed and purged of all the antiregime elements."

The least radical of the rebellious leftist parties, the K.D.P. is led by Abdol Rahman Qassemlu, a Marxist economist with a reputation for fierce independence. Says a veteran Tudeh member: "Qassemlu prefers to be his own master--a fact that doesn't go down well with Moscow at all."

Despite its reservations about Qassemlu, the Kremlin is pressuring Tehran to compromise with the Kurdish rebels. At the same time, Moscow and its Tudeh surrogates are vocally supporting the Khomeini regime. The apparent Soviet-Tudeh strategy is to avoid a premature Communist revolution, and instead let the clerical regime crumble through its own incompetence and internal schisms. Moscow is therefore wary of the more impatient and militant leftist groups; should any of those maverick parties come to power, they would probably have to fear the Kremlin's wrath more than that of the defeated mullahs. In the words of a longtime Iranian Communist: "Moscow is willing to have any regime on its southern borders--Khomeini's, the Shah's, even Franco's." But "it will never tolerate an independent Marxist government."

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