Political Games and a Presidency

Isolation for the hostages, attention for the candidates

The winter's first heavy snow fell on Tehran last week, blocking the streets and prompting one frustrated U.S. newsman to remark: "The angry gods are speaking." Officials in Tehran and Washington were undeniably angry, whatever the disposition of the gods. On charges that their reporting has been "unfair to Iran and its revolution," the 86 remaining American media representatives in the country were expelled; British and Western European correspondents were put on notice that they might be next (see PRESS). The Carter Administration, faced with mounting domestic pressure over the hostages, continued its efforts to organize an international economic boycott of Iran, despite the Soviet veto of a United Nations Security Council resolution calling for sanctions.

Most of America's allies had doubts that the proposed embargo would end the eleven-week-old hostage crisis. They also wondered if the U.S. was wise to go ahead with it in the face of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. Iranian Foreign Minister Sadegh Ghotbzadeh boasted that "these kinds of pressures don't deter us at all," and sternly advised other nations to stay out of Washington's "political games." Oil Minister Ali Akbar Moinfar announced that Iran would immediately cut off oil shipments "to any country that joins the U.S. economic boycott against Iran." That threat was particularly alarming to Japan, which is almost entirely dependent on foreign oil, 11% of which comes from Iran.

As the government of Ayatullah Ruhollah Khomeini moved to challenge its foreign critics, it also cracked down on its internal dissidents. Following a week-long series of antigovernment riots by Azerbaijani militants, Revolutionary Guards in Tabriz raided and ransacked the headquarters of the Muslim People's Republic Party, which professes loyalty to Ayatullah Seyed Kazem Sharietmadari. Four people were killed in the predawn assault; eleven dissidents were captured and executed by a firing squad after a summary trial. According to reports from Kuwait, several Iranian army officers were secretly executed for plotting a military coup against Khomeini's theocratic regime.

The 50 hostages held by militants at the U.S. embassy in Tehran sank into increasing isolation following the departure of the American newsmen. John Thomas, a publicity-hungry American Indian militant from South Dakota, claimed to have met with one of the hostages during his visit to Tehran, but gave few helpful details of the encounter. No other outsider has seen them since a group of U.S. clergymen visited the embassy at Christmas.

Last week, however, letters from at least five of the hostages arrived in the U.S. The oldest of the captives, retired Foreign Service Officer Robert C. Ode, 64, had written several of them. In a message addressed to the President, Ode begged Carter to "free us from this terrible situation." An almost identical letter to the Washington Post painted a moving portrait of the hostages' mental and physical suffering. Wrote Ode: "We are being kept in semidarkened rooms; our hands are tied day and night; bright lights are kept burning all night and because of the constant noise it is almost impossible to sleep."

There were signs that the militants at the embassy and the Tehran mobs were also tiring of the drama. The first anniversary of the Shah's departure passed with little fanfare on Wednesday. Despite the government's call for widespread demonstrations, only a few scattered groups gathered to burn effigies of the deposed monarch. The following day, however, half a million Iranians jammed the streets of Tehran to commemorate the death of the Prophet Muhammad. Marching past the U.S. embassy, they paused to chant the familiar anti-American litanies. But the hysterical ardor of the past was visibly lacking.

Public attention, meanwhile, has turned increasingly to the Iranian presidential election, scheduled for Jan. 25. Whatever the outcome, Khomeini will remain the ultimate authority under the Islamic constitution approved overwhelmingly in last month's referendum. The campaign started out with 106 candidates seeking the presidency. Among them were several colorful eccentrics that Khomeini described as "brainless or perverts." Ashgar Khoeiny, who is organizing the election on behalf of the Ayatullah, charged that the packed field was "another CIA intrigue meant to confuse public opinion." He thereupon pared the list down to ten acceptable candidates.

The leading candidates are longtime Khomeini supporters: Foreign Minister Ghotbzadeh, Health Minister Kazem Sani, Admiral Ahmad Madani and Economics Minister Abolhassan Banisadr. The lone voice of dissent among the finalists is Radical Leader Massoud Rajavi, whose anticlerical platform is strongly supported by the autonomist Kurds and some leftists. The official candidate of the Islamic Republican Party, the country's largest political organization, was Jalaleddin Farsi, 47. Last week he had to withdraw when it was discovered that he was not a pure Iranian (his father was Afghan), as the new constitution requires.

With Farsi out of the race, Banisadr was the apparent front runner. A relative moderate, Banisadr was ousted from the Foreign Ministry for appearing too "soft" on the hostage issue, but retains a seat on the 15-member Revolutionary Council. Though he is no friend of the U.S.'s, he has repeatedly called for a swift resolution of the crisis--by either releasing or punishing the captives--and a return to some sort of normality. Some Western observers thus see in a Banisadr victory one glimmer of hope on an otherwise bleak horizon.

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