BRIEF ON IRAN
No. 446
Tuesday, July 2, 1996

Representative Office of
The National Council of Resistance of Iran
3421 M Street NW #1032
Washington, DC 20007


Blame the West, Partly, for Islam's Radicalism, The Wall Street Journal, July 1

	A week in which Muslim fanatics killed 19 Americans in Saudi Arabia also
brought another shock: Turkey made a significant retreat from the secular
form of government established by Ataturk 75 years ago....
	... It is by no means certain that something approximating the
fundamentalist Iranian revolution of the 1970s will not spread further in
the Muslim areas of the Middle East and Turkic Asia.  Certainly, propagation
is the goal of Iran's ayatollahs and mullahs and the radical groups they
support in other countries.
	Iran's government frequently denies involvement with terrorist
organizations, but it is making a distinction without difference... The
government's efforts to distance itself from evangelical terrorism abroad
are thus not particualrly persuasive.
	And indeed there are reasons to suspect Iranian involvemnet in the truck
bomb blast... Even if there is no smoking gun that can be traced directly to
Iran, it is quite clear that Iranian clerics, and even the government
itself, have been stocking the fires of Islamic radicalism throughout the
region, most especially in Saudi Arabia itself....
	It is not too early to speculate about a Middle East in which the two most
important Islamic states, Turkey and Saudi Arabia, would suddenly switch
from friendship with the West to enmity.  For one thing, the Middle East
"peace process" would be in deep trouble... Mr. Erbakan [new Prime Minister
of Turkey], if he should achieve real power, would most probably renounce
Turkey's recent military cooperation agreement with Israel.  He offers
praise for Iran and for Hamas... A similar swing toward radical Islam in
Saudi Arabia would have wide economic implications paralleling the strategic
implications.
	Should this frightening scenario come to pass, a lot of people are going to
be asking, "Who let it happen?"... The warning signs should be taken seriously.


Iran Says Turkey Sending Team to Probe Air Raid, Reuters, July 1

	TEHRAN - Iran said on Monday Turkey would send a delegation to investigate
a Turkish cross-border air raid last week which Tehran said killed six
Iranian civilians.
	Turkey has denied any incursion into Iran took place....
	Ties between Tehran and Ankara have been tense over Iranian objections to a
Turkish military cooperation accord with Israel.
	Turkey has also accused Iran of having links to armed Turkish Islamists
while Tehran has said it has uncovered alleged spy rings led by Turkish
diplomats.


Abusing Islam to Preserve Survival, state-run Kermanshah Radio, June 22

	Mullah Zarandi [Khamenei's representative to the western province of
Kermanshah] in Friday payers sermon: "At this crucial time when the enemies
are mobilized to destroy us, we have to enforce Islam with full force... We
must not listen to the words of enemy disguised with deceiving talk of human
rights...  God willing, these corrupted, these thieves, these murderers...
must be stopped with firmness."
A Woman and a Man Hanged, Radio France International, July 1

	Daily Kayhan reported that a woman and a man where hanged in [southern]
city of Shiraz for murder.
	Kayhan identified the woman as Homeira, 29, and the man as Mohammad Ali
without mentioning his age.


Speaker of Parliament Warns So-called Liberals, BBC Radio, June 27

	According to daily Resalat, Nateq Nouri, the speaker of mullahs'
parliament, who is the definite candidate of the Association of Combatant
Clerics for the next president, attacking "liberals" said the danger of
infiltration of liberalism and puppet nationalists remains.  He commented
that all antennas must be in tune with velayat [religious jurisprudence].
One should not permit any grounds to those in tune with foreigners.


Widespread Corruption, Reuters, July 1

	TEHRAN - An Iranian court has convicted a former head of a petrochemichal
complex to seven years in jail and 74 lashes for taking bribes, a newspaper
said on Monday.
	The daily Hamshahri said the Islamic court in Shiraz, 670 km (420 miles)
south of Tehran, also banned Alireza Qomi, former head of the city's
petrochemical complex, from state employment for life for taking unspecified
bribes and financial corruption....
	In a separate case, the former head of customs at Tehran airport is being
tried for graft, newspapers said....