Countries of the World/COUNTRYS.BIN/dp/0178/01782.txt

Text File | 1991-06-25 | 42KB | 650 lines

$Unique_ID{COW01782}
$Pretitle{268}
$Title{Iran
Chapter 1F.   The Bani Sadr Presidency}
$Subtitle{}
$Author{Shaul Bakhash}
$Affiliation{HQ, Department of the Army}
$Subject{bani
government
iran
sadr
khomeini
revolutionary
majlis
president
islamic
minister}
$Date{1987}
$Log{}
Country:     Iran
Book:        Iran, A Country Study
Author:      Shaul Bakhash
Affiliation: HQ, Department of the Army
Date:        1987

Chapter 1F.   The Bani Sadr Presidency

     Bani Sadr's program as president was to reestablish central authority,
gradually to phase out the Pasdaran and the revolutionary courts and
committees and to absorb them into other government organizations, to reduce
the influence of the clerical hierarchy, and to launch a program for economic
reform and development. Against the wishes of the IRP, Khomeini allowed Bani
Sadr to be sworn in as president in January 1980, before the convening of the
Majlis. Khomeini further bolstered Bani Sadr's position by appointing him
chairman of the Revolutionary Council and delegating to the president his own
powers as commander in chief of the armed forces. On the eve of the Iranian
New Year, on March 20, Khomeini issued a message to the nation designating the
coming year as "the year of order and security" and outlining a program
reflecting Bani Sadr's own priorities.

     Nevertheless, the problem of multiple centers of power and of
revolutionary organizations not subject to central control persisted to plague
Bani Sadr. Like Bazargan, Bani Sadr found he was competing for primacy with
the clerics and activists of the IRP. The struggle between the president and
the IRP dominated the political life of the country during Bani Sadr's
presidency. Bani Sadr failed to secure the dissolution of the Pasdaran and the
revolutionary courts and committees. He also failed to establish control over
the judiciary or the radio and television networks. Khomeini himself appointed
IRP members Ayatollah Mohammad Beheshti as chief justice and member Ayatollah
Abdol-Karim Musavi-Ardabili as prosecutor general (also seen as attorney
general). Bani Sadr's appointees to head the state broadcasting services and
the Pasdaran were forced to resign within weeks of their appointments.

     Parliamentary elections were held in two stages in March and May 1980,
amid charges of fraud. The official results gave the IRP and its supporters
130 of 241 seats decided (elections were not completed in all 270
constituencies). Candidates associated with Bani Sadr and with Bazargan's IFM
each won a handful of seats; other left-of-center secular parties fared no
better. Candidates of the radical left-wing parties, including the Mojahedin,
the Fadayan, and the Tudeh, won no seats at all. IRP dominance of the Majlis
was reinforced when the credentials of a number of deputies representing the
National Front and the Kurdish-speaking areas, or standing as independents,
were rejected.  The consequences of this distribution of voting power soon
became evident. The Majlis began its deliberations in June 1980. Hojjatoleslam
Ali Akbar Hashemi-Rafsanjani, a cleric and founding member of the IRP, was
elected Majlis speaker. After a two-month deadlock between the president and
the Majlis over the selection of the prime minister, Bani Sadr was forced to
accept the IRP candidate, Mohammad Ali Rajai. Rajai, a former street peddler
and schoolteacher, was a Beheshti protege. The designation of cabinet
ministers was delayed because Bani Sadr refused to confirm cabinet lists
submitted by Rajai. In September 1980, Bani Sadr finally confirmed fourteen of
a list of twenty-one ministers proposed by the prime minister. Some key
cabinet posts, including the ministries of foreign affairs, labor, commerce,
and finance, were filled only gradually over the next six months. The
differences between president and prime minister over cabinet appointments
remained unresolved until May 1981, when the Majlis passed a law allowing the
prime minister to appoint caretakers to ministries still lacking a minister.

     The president's inability to control the revolutionary courts and the
persistence of revolutionary temper were demonstrated in May 1980, when
executions, which had become rare in the previous few months, began again on a
large scale. Some 900 executions were carried out, most of them between May
and September 1980, before Bani Sadr left office in June 1981. In September
the chief justice finally restricted the authority of the courts to impose
death sentences. Meanwhile a remark by Khomeini in June 1980 that "royalists"
were still to be found in government offices led to a resumption of widespread
purges. Within days of Khomeini's remarks some 130 unofficial purge committees
were operating in government offices. Before the wave of purges could be
stopped, some 4,000 civil servants and between 2,000 and 4,000 military
officers lost their jobs. Around 8,000 military officers had been dismissed or
retired in previous purges.

     The Kurdish problem also proved intractable. The rebellion continued, and
the Kurdish leadership refused to compromise on its demands for local
autonomy. Fighting broke out again in April 1980, followed by another
cease-fire on April 29. Kurdish leaders and the government negotiated both in
Mahabad and in Tehran, but, although Bani Sadr announced he was prepared to
accept the Kurdish demands with "modifications," the discussions broke down
and fighting resumed.

     The United States hostage crisis was another problem that weighed heavily
on Bani Sadr. The "students of the Imam's line" and their IRP supporters
holding the hostages were using the hostage issue and documents found in the
embassy to radicalize the public temper, to challenge the authority of the
president, and to undermine the reputations of moderate politicians and public
figures. The crisis was exacerbating relations with the United States and West
European countries. President Carter had ordered several billion dollars of
Iranian assets held by American banks in the United States and abroad to be
frozen. Bani Sadr's various attempts to resolve the crisis proved abortive. He
arranged for the UN secretary general to appoint a commission to investigate
Iranian grievances against the United States, with the understanding that the
hostages would be turned over to the Revolutionary Council as a preliminary
step to their final release. The plan broke down when, on February 23, 1980,
the eve of the commission's arrival in Tehran, Khomeini declared that only the
Majlis, whose election was still several months away, could decide the fate of
the hostages.

     The shah had meantime made his home in Panama. Bani Sadr and Foreign
Minister Qotbzadeh attempted to arrange for the shah to be arrested by the
Panamanian authorities and extradited to Iran. But the shah abruptly left
Panama for Egypt on March 23, 1980, before any summons could be served.

     In April the United States attempted to rescue the hostages by secretly
landing aircraft and troops near Tabas, along the Dasht-e Kavir desert in
eastern Iran. Two helicopters on the mission failed, however, and when the
mission commander decided to abort the mission, a helicopter and a C-130
transport aircraft collided, killing eight United States servicemen.

     The failed rescue attempt had negative consequences for the Iranian
military. Radical factions in the IRP and left-wing groups charged that
Iranian officers opposed to the Revolution had secretly assisted the United
States aircraft to escape radar detection. They renewed their demand for a
purge of the military command. Bani Sadr was able to prevent such a purge, but
he was forced to reshuffle the top military command. In June 1980, the chief
judge of the Army Military Revolutionary Tribunal announced the discovery of
an antigovernment plot centered on the military base in Piranshahr in
Kordestan. Twenty-seven junior and warrant officers were arrested. In July the
authorities announced they had uncovered a plot centered on the Shahrokhi Air