BRIEF ON IRAN
No. 591
Tuesday, February 11, 1997

Representative Office of
The National Council of Resistance of Iran
Washington, DC


Revolution Anniversary Displays Mullahs' Isolation at Home, Iran Zamin News
Agency, February 10

	The eighteenth anniversary of the mullahs' rule faced total disaffection of
the people, reports from Tehran say.
	A statement by the National Council of Resistance of Iran, quoting sources
inside Iran said: "Despite the propaganda of the mullahs' regime, foreign
reporters put the number of participants in Tehran's march at 100,000,"
almost "0.7% of the capital's population. This is while the regime had tried
as an annual routine, to forcibly bring all the military personnel,
students, factory workers, government employees and the students of seminary
schools to this ceremony..."
	In a related report from Tehran, Reuters wrote:
	"More than 100,000 men and women in black veils marched to a rally in
Tehran, chanting the trademark slogans of the 1979 revolution: 'Death to
America' and 'Death to Israel.'
	"The official news agency IRNA said millions attended the rallies across
Iran....
	"A resolution read at the rally warned the United States and its Gulf Arab
allies against any assaults on Iran.
	'This nation of martyrdom and Jihad (holy war) would aim all its wrath
against the glass palaces of reactionary puppets and the Great Satan's
(U.S.) material interests,' it said...."


Islamic Regime's Power  Dying, Agence France Presse, February 10

	NICOSIA - Iran's main armed opposition group on Monday warned the country's
Islamic government that its days were numbered, 18 years after they both
took part in the revolution that toppled the Shah.
	"From a political, social and economic standpoint, the clerical regime is
reaching the end of the line," said a statement received by AFP in Nicosia
from Massud Rajavi, leader of the Baghdad-based People's  Mujahedeen....
	"In our country 15 million people are unemployed, three to four million are
drug addicts and 25 million are homeless.  The mullahs have plundered some
300 billion dollars of oil wealth," said Rajavi, who also heads the National
Council of Resistance of Iran.
	He accused the Islamic government of "stepping up oppression and exporting
terrorism," saying 32 dissidents were executed abroad during 1996.
	The Mujahedeen broke ranks with the Shiite clergy, led by the late founder
of the Islamic revolution Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, after accusing the
clerics of trying to monopolize power.
	Rajavi was barred from running for president, and Mujahedeen gatherings
were attacked by groups of club-wielding diehard supporters of the clergy....


Youth Represent a Timebomb for the Clerics, Agence France Presse, February 9

	TEHRAN - The Islamic Republic of Iran, which celebrates the 18th
anniversary of the downfall of the Shah on Monday, is attempting to woo
millions of youngsters more familiar with rock music than revolution....
	"Our youth, constituting half of our population, needs to be informed
about the achievements of our revolution," wrote the conservative
English-language newspaper the Tehran Times....
	"To be arrested by the Bassiji (Islamic volunteers) has almost become a
form of glory, of bravado, for certain adolescents," said one mother.
	She said young people in grim suburbs sprawling south of Tehran or in the
provinces, usually the most traditional areas, had become disenchanted by
the prospects of high unemployment and poor living  standards....
	"Youth represents a timebomb.  If there is any trouble, it will come from
those who don't know the revolution, nor the war against Iraq, the regime's
favorite themes to mobilize the population."[said an Iranian academic]... 


Iran Isolated Abroad, 18 Years After Revolution, Reuters, February 10

	DUBAI - Iran's ties with much of the outside world show little sign of
improvement eighteen years after the country's tumultuous Islamic
Revolution, analysts and Tehran-based Western diplomats said on Monday.
	With no thawing in relations between Washington and Tehran and nagging
pains with its trade partners in Europe, Iran is one of the world's most
diplomatically isolated states, they said.
	Even ties with its Gulf Arab neighbors, notably Saudi Arabia and Iraq, are
riddled with suspicion, disputes over territorial sovereignty and
accusations of meddling in domestic affairs....
	Speculation that U.S. President Clinton's second term could see a revision
and softening of U.S. containment policy towards Iran has been quickly
dashed....
	Iran's relationship with Germany -- Tehran's main European trading partner
and a leading advocate of maintaining a "critical dialogue" with Iran -- is
also under pressure from a pending German court decision on the 1992
killings of three Kurdish dissidents and their translator in a Berlin
restaurant....