Iran's 'left' President faces immediate crises

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Khomeini's 'Islamic Republic' has now secured its first-and probably lastelected president. But Abdhassan Beni-Sadr's substantial victory does not guarantee a new period of stability for Iran.

The political conflicts and accumulating tensions within Iran played a determining role throughout the election campaign, and have in no way been abolished by the result.

Perhaps the most striking feature of the election was the absence of any candidate from the Islamic Republican Party, which is the political wing of Khomeini's base.

The IRP had been forced to with draw its original candidate, Jalaleddin Farsi, supposedly because of his suddenly-discovered Afghan parentage.

This ludicrous pretext was put forward to conceal the massive crisis at present wracking the IRP.

Incriminating

The 'Islamic students' occupying the US embassy have passed on to Ali Tehrani (a mullah from Mashad): certain documents incriminating the principal leaders of the IRP.

The party's leader, Ayatollah Behechti, is now in disgrace, and no other candidate could be put forward to replace the thorough going reactionary Farsi In the end, Behechti, and the bulk of the Islamic clergy called for support to Hassan Habibi, member of the Revolutionary Council and close to Khomeini from his days in exile.

Revelations from the US embassy files had already forced Moghadam, leader of the Radical Party, to go underground, and drove former prime minister Bazargan to withdraw his candidacy.

When Admiral Madani (one of the favourite runners) issued a bold challenge that anyone holding information on him should release it or stand condemned as a traitor to the revolution and to Islam, he met an unexpected reply on the very next day.

Assisted The worthy Admiral-imprisoned under the Shah and more recently head of the navy and governor-general ot khuzistan, where he brutally suppressed the struggles of the Arabs for national rights-was shown to have assisted in the escape of at least one prominent supporter of the Shah!

But the most decisive move against any of the presidential candidates came from Khomeini himself.

In a statement carefully calculated to give the impression of a casual, throw-away remark, the Ayatollah announced that Khomeini bar Masoud Rajaui, leader of the Mujaheddin. Along with the Feddayin, the Mujaheddin represent the organised left-wing amongst the forcés which ousted the Shah and brought Khomeini to power.

More closely identified with the Islamic clergy than the Feddayin, they have followed more cautiously the same strategy of fighting for a socialist perspective within the existing structures of power, and have never supported the reactionary constitution of Khomeini's state.

Their organised and armed strength is a significant factor, and to date their caution has both spared them most of the attacks directed against the Feddayin, and left them in a position to bargain with Khomeini.

Agreement

The occupation of the US embassy was probably carried out by their forces, after tacit agreement had been wrung from Khomeini.

As a presidential candidate, Rajavi would certainly have attracted votes from the most militant anti-imperialists amongst the oppressed classes, and revealed the growth of support for socialism amongst Iranian workers and youth. It was precisely to avoid that dangerous exposure that Khomeini moved.

This blatantly bureaucratic manoeuvre provoked an immediate response in Kurdistan.

Sheik Husseini (leader of the Kurdish Sunni Moslems) and Ghassemlov (secretary-general of the Kurdish Democratic Party of Iran) had previously supported the Mujaheddin's candidate, and now promptly called for a boycott of the election in Kurdistan-a boycott that was extremely successful.

With all the : arrogance In the face of such solidarity, Khomeini must have wondered I what ground he could hope to gain from his 'concession' of the previous week to the Sunni sect.

The vast majority of Moslems across the globe are Sunnis, but in Iran they form a minority of less than 7% to the nationally dominant Shüte sect, and are mostly confined to the peoples of the oppressed nations within the borders of the Iranian state.

In giving the green light for Sunni Islam to be recognised as the official religion in areas where Sunnis are in a majority (while Shüte Islam remains the state religion), Khomeini was hoping to divert the struggle for national rights, in which religious contlict plays. a real but distinctly secondary part. • The concession has little chance of paying dividends but of Poses once again the weakness regime against opposition.

But the struggles of the national minorities form only one of the major problems with which Beni-Sadr will now have to grapple as an executive president with ill-defined powers.

His own record gives a fair guide as to how he will attempt to move, but little indication of his ability to succeed in his chosen direction.

Trusted aide

Like Habibi, Beni-Sadr was a trusted aide of Khomeini's in exile before the triumphant return to Tehran. He emerged into greater prominence after the final collapse of Bazargan's His recent slip from full grace with Khomeini came when he announced a readiness to discuss the occupation of the US embassy at the United Nations without first consulting Ayatollah.

Beni-Sadr was immediately sacked as Foreign Minister, but stayed on in his other crucial post as Finance Minister.

His politics are supposed to represent a blend of Marxism and Islam. In practice they are more understandable as a left, "socialist" variety of bourgeois nationalism, in which Islam forms an insignificant element.

It was Beni-Sadr who was largely responsible for the nationalisation of the banks and the insurance companies and he has declared his firm intention to establish a state monopoly of foreign trade.

in recent statements he has called for a diversification of the economy to reduce the massive dependence on oil revenues, and has placed particular emphasis on agricultural production.

Successive land-reforms under the Shah failed to bring about the essential leap in food production, while they inevitably caused massive social dislocation in the rural areas.

Peasants dispossessed of land, together with unemployed seasonally employed agricultural labourers drifted to the cities to swell the pool of unemployed workers.

As the mass movement against the Shah developed, this exodus from the country also grew and the (unemployed) population of the cities has increased significantly over the last two years.

Burden The inevitable result has been a fall in agricultural production and a hugely increased burden on the already inadequate social resources of the cities (housing, water, sanitation, health care, etc).

These festering conditions have already led to demonstrations by unemployed workers (mostly youth) demanding action from the government.

To preserve any stability, Beni-Sadr must deal with this potential source of mass oppos ition. At present his solution seems to be a call for a return to the land.

But Beni-Sadr's emphasis on agriculture is also dictated by another fear. His over-riding aim is to create an Iran politically and economically independent of both 'super-powers' (i.e. the imperialist US, and the bureaucratically degenerated workers' state of the Soviet Union.

Within this perspective, Iran's oil supplies may represent its source of economic strength internationally, but dependence on oil revenues also makes the Iranial economy highly vulnerable to external developments.

For that reason, Beni-Sadr sees it as essential to develop Iranian agriculture towards the stage where Iran is self-sufficient in food production. Admiral Madani The Islamic Republic's new president has no desire to be driven of necessity into closer economic cooperation with the USSR by an economic boycott imposed by the imperialist powers.

in his election campaign, Beni-Sadr made a point. of supplementing attacks on US imperialism with the charge that Soviet leaders were intent on provoking the opposition of the national minorities in order to reduce the Iranian state to rubble and so open the way for the Red Army to reach the Indian Ocean.

This clear signal did not pass unnoticed in Washington. The US imperialists have sought to exploit the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan to build a firm barrier between the Iranian leaders and the neighbouring The Carter adminstration has delayed the imposition of sanctions to await the outcome of the presidential elections and assess Beni-Sadr's intentions and authority.

Honeyed

In the meantime, honeyed phrases have dripped from their lips about 'a new and mutually beneficial relationship' between Iran and the US. Behind this sweetness lies the growing hope that Iran can be pulled back firmly into the imperialist orbit without the high-risk operation of direct military intervention.

For his part, Beni-Sads has always regarded the occupation of the US embassy as an unwelcome mess to be cleaned up as soon as possible.

But he is not master of his own destiny, let alone of the future of Iran.

His power is circumscribed by the same driving forces which wrecked Bazargan's impotent government and are now pressing Khomeini with impious haste towards his final blessed resting-place.