BRIEF ON IRAN    
        Representative Office of 
        The National Council of Resistance of Iran           
        
        No. 479 
        Monday, August 19, 1996 
 
 
 
3421 M Street NW #1032, Washington, DC 20007 


U.S. Is Israel's "Slave" for Hitting Iran - Cleric, 
Reuters, August 16  
 
        A senior Iranian cleric on Friday said the 
United States was acting as Israel's "slave" by 
punishing Iran for its opposition to the Jewish state. 
        "It is really unfortunate that the White House 
and the American government are following Israel like 
a slave," Ayatollah Mohammad Emami Kashani said 
in a mass prayer sermon broadcast on Tehran radio. 
        "Because of our (Islamic) doctrine, we cannot 
compromise with Israel. And because we cannot 
compromise with Israel, they (U.S.) organize all kinds 
of plots against us," he told worshippers who 
responded by chanting "Death to Israel."... 
        "It has become clear to the world that America 
is a servant of Israel...and Europe and the world 
opposed America," he said, referring to European 
Union and other opposition to the law. 
        Washington accuses Tehran of sponsoring 
terrorism and seeking to develop nuclear arms.... 
        U.S. officials also say Iran should be isolated 
for trying to wreck Middle East peace efforts. 
        Iran says Israel has no right to exist. Tehran 
condemns the peace accords between Israel and the 
Palestinians.... 
 
 
Argentina Bombing, Associated Press, August 17   
 
        The Argentine government may order a new 
investigation into the 1992 bombing of the Israeli 
Embassy in downtown Buenos Aires that killed 29 
people and injured 250. 
        Two previous probes have failed to solve the 
bombing, angering Argentine Jews and the Israeli 
government over lack of progress in the investigation. 
        Justice Minister Elias Jassan said late Friday 
that the government will order a new inquiry only if 
the Supreme Court accepts the findings by the National 
Academy of Engineers that the explosion was caused 
by a bomb placed inside the building. 
        Argentine and foreign investigators initially 
blamed a car bomb. The Iran-backed terrorist group 
Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility.... 
 
 
Iran Sets Parliament By-elections for Early 1997, 
Reuters, August 17  
 
        Iran will hold parliamentary by-elections next 
February in districts where results from general 
elections earlier this year were canceled, a newspaper 
said on Saturday. 
        The daily Ettelaat quoted election officials as 
saying the February 7 polls would be held in 15 
constituencies to fill 22 seats of the 270-member 
parliament, or Majlis. 
        The seats were left empty after the clergy-
based Guardian Council, which oversees elections, 
canceled some vote results in two rounds of voting in 
March and April... 
        Some newspapers had criticized the council's 
move, charging that the cancellations favored 
conservatives... 
        The conservative Combatant Clergy 
Association has a strong standing in the parliament 
where its leader Ali Akbar Nateq-Nouri holds the post 
of speaker. 
        The position gives Nateq-Nouri, a Shi'ite 
Moslem cleric, wide exposure ahead of presidential 
elections next year in which he is expected to be a 
major contender.... 


News Overview 
 
Mullahs' Incompetence, People's Resistance 
Nouvelle Observateur, August 15 
 
        Fear of lashes is not enough anymore to rule 
over a people who is living under crisis and has 
become rebellious by mullahs' incompetence. The 
tongues will eventually speak.... 
        Seventeen years after a revolution that started 
under the banner of the oppressed, there is no sign of 
hope for a better life. The youths and the bearded are 
gripped in an endless civil war.... The poor of the 
Shah's era are just the same under the mullahs' rule. 
The wages do not go up, the inflation accelerates, and 
the university professors, engineers and technicians 
must have two or three jobs to survive.... 
        The women, who have been eliminated from 
the majority of important positions and their wisdom 
and physical beings have been casted out and are the 
prime victims of the regime, have been resisting.... 
        The periodical Women has published 27 
issues during the past four years.... In one of its most 
recent issues, a female reader dreams of "a day when 
women will be at the apex of the society with a woman 
as the country's president."... 
        The color-coat of the Islamic Republic is 
being cracked everywhere. The mullahs who were 
considered skilled politicians when they came to 
power, proved that they are incompetent economists 
and, just like the Shah, rely solely on oil imports. They 
concealed their incompetence and inability to progress 
toward future by invoking excuses such as 
unwillingness to play the world economy and the 
Western values that are attached to it.  The result is 
that the regime has no more money to control the 
people. Despite suppression and commando operations 
of Ansar-e Hezbolah (a para-military group close to 
Khamenei), in a country where 26 million people (40% 
of population) are under 20 years of age, the mullahs'' 
regime can no longer control everything....