IRAN: No More Mr. Nice Guy

Khomeini gets tough with the rising forces of opposition

"This country is halfway toward war," declared Iran's Defense Minister Taqi Riahi last week. So it seemed. Heavy fighting, by both the army and the "Islamic guard," whose loyalty is to the ruling clergy, raged in the Kurdish town of Saqqez as government forces tried to expel a band of 2,000 Kurdish rebels. Scattered skirmishes took place elsewhere in the region inhabited by 4 million Iranian Kurds, who for centuries have been seeking independence, or at least a measure of autonomy. After a tribunal ordered the execution of 36 Kurds for "counterrevolutionary crimes," a Kurdish political leader, Karim Hessami, warned the government: "From now on, for every Kurd executed, we shall punish one of the Islamic guards in our captivity."

Beset by troubles in other areas where Iran's restless ethnic and religious minorities live, the seven-month-old government of Ayatullah Ruhollah Khomeini is moving desperately to keep its grip over the chaotic country. One measure of its new-found realism was the disclosure last week that Tehran is negotiating with the U.S. for the delivery of at least part of the $5 billion in American arms and equipment that the Shah had ordered. Iran is still anxious to sell back to the U.S. the 78 advanced F-14 fighters that the Shah bought in the mid-1970s, but it is now in need of spare parts for its American equipment, as well as ammunition, new helicopters and artillery. At the time of their victory last February, the ayatullahs rejected all American influence. Now, they evidently feel the need of some U.S. military help to survive.

The Carter Administration's decision to sell 1.5 million bbl. of heating oil to Iran on an emergency basis drew some caustic criticism in the U.S., not only because of the coals-to-Newcastle nature of the transaction but because the U.S. itself is expected to be short of heating oil this winter. But the Administration, in defending the sale, pointed out that Iran needed the oil quickly because of sabotage on pipelines near the big Iranian refinery at Abadan. The White House also argued that the sale could have important advantages for the U.S. in paving a new relationship with post-Shah Iran.

Angered by the challenges to his authority, Khomeini lashed out in a speech to his followers in the holy city of Qum. In effect he declared: No more Mr. Nice Guy. His government had made a mistake, Khomeini said, in trying to be tolerant toward the dissident groups, especially leftists who encourage militancy among the minorities. "We knew they were non-Islamic, but they proved to be nonhuman." The Ayatullah also fumed at his appointed government's failure to rule effectively. Said he: "I shall come to Tehran and straighten things out in a revolutionary way if they don't shape up."