Pistol-Packin' Parliament

A new Majlis meets amid fresh efforts to free the hostages

It was variously hailed as "the birth of Islamic justice" and the "fruition of the blood of the revolution's martyrs." At the bidding of the Muslim clergy, tens of thousands of Iranians last week took to their rooftops to herald its coming. Next morning, 17 months after the revolution that drove the toppled Shah into exile, the first session of the new Iranian parliament, the Majlis, convened in the capital of Tehran. It was symptomatic of the country's volatile political climate that most of the 213 newly elected representatives arrived with personal bodyguards. Some even carried their own weapons.

The archrivals of the Islamic regime --President Abolhassan Banisadr and Ayatullah Seyyed Mohammed Beheshti, leading member of the Revolutionary Council--were assigned adjacent seats in the front of the ornate red-and-gold chamber, the size of a movie theater. They scarcely looked at each other during the ceremony, which began with recitations from the Koran and a boys' choir chanting revolutionary songs. The ailing Ayatullah Ruhollah Khomeini, 80, spiritual leader of Iran's revolution, did not attend; he dispatched his son, Seyyed Ahmed, to deliver his inaugural message, warning against "plotters" from either the U.S. or the Soviet Union and stressing the need to purge the parliament of any "leanings to either the right or the left." Then, in the best tradition of the stridency that has marked public life in Iran since the Shah's overthrow, one of the mullahs jumped to his feet and shouted: "Hail to Khomeini! Hail to the martyrs!" The other representatives took up the refrain with gusto.

It was apparent to all that the parliament was coming into being at a time when Iran could hardly have faced graver problems: a dangerously deteriorating economy, mounting internal strife, and growing international isolation. In his own address, Banisadr emphasized Iran's dire economic predicament. Inflation is running at an annual rate of 50%. Unemployment has risen to a third of the work force. Exports of oil, which once totalled 6 million bbl. daily under the Shah, have slowed to 700,000. Moreover, half of Iran's foreign exchange reserve of $15 billion is frozen in U.S. banks at home and abroad. Concluded Banisadr: "An Islamic republic may not remain idle in the face of these indescribable deprivations."

The moderate President is on the defensive at home because of his determination to resolve the crisis surrounding the 53 American hostages, who have been held captive in Iran for seven months. Banisadr did not mention the issue, but eventually the elected assembly, which is dominated by the conservative clergy, will be taking up the hostages' fate. There was speculation late in the week that such a decision would not be forthcoming until late July.

In other quarters renewed efforts to win the release of the hostages came to naught. A ruling by the International Court of Justice at The Hague that Iran was violating international law and "must immediately terminate the unlawful detention" was called meaningless by Tehran. Syrian Diplomat Adib Daoudy, a member of the short-lived U.N. commission that had been formed to investigate the former Shah's reign, traveled to Tehran to lobby for a revival of that initiative on behalf of U.N. Secretary-General Kurt Waldheim.

More ambitious was an effort by Austrian Chancellor Bruno Kreisky, Swedish Social Democratic Party Leader Olof Palme and Spanish Socialist Workers Party Leader Felipe Gonzalez, who flew to Iran to talk with Banisadr and other government officials on an ostensible "fact-finding" mission. Later, on his way home, Kreisky said that in regard to the hostages the group had made its "deep criticism clear."

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