Back to Brief on Iran
… From his vantage point… Khatami viewed a sea of desperate people [in Iran's port of Bandar Abbas], heads and arms stretched in supplication through a dividing barrier of scaffolding. Aides and policemen collected letters by the bagful.
Their requests were simple. "We have no house or refrigerator. We need help," said one woman. "My husband has died. There is no one to take care of me," cried another.
Just offshore, the oil wealth of the Middle East passes through the Straits of Hormuz in supertankers to supply thirsty western markets. Bandar Abbas is a major port and the island of Qeshm, one of Iran's three free trade zones, is next door. Nonetheless, the city's situation is grim, filling with rural migrants but lacking jobs and infrastructure.
Its wealthy thrive on smuggling, whether television sets, cars, alcohol or narcotics.
… On the economic front [Khatami's] administration is vulnerable, and expectations of change are enormous… Nonetheless, doubts exist that the loose coalition of "reformists" or "leftists" in local terminology will implement the restructuring Iran needs.
"The people we now call reformists... I doubt if they will be brave enough to reform the economy and the legal structure of Iran. There are factions in the reformist camp that are very much for centralized economic policies," commented Heydar Pourian, editor of Iran Economics…
Some analysts and diplomats predict the elections will produce a "weak" majority held by the fractious May 23 Front and a "strong" minority of a more cohesive conservative alliance. With a number of independent MPs in-between, there could be deadlock on such issues as privatization and maintaining huge subsidies for loss-making state industries, fuel and foodstuffs.
All factions tend to blame Iran's economic crisis on the costly 1980-88 war with Iraq and continued US sanctions. But in a comprehensive review of the post-revolutionary period, a Human Development Report released this month by the United Nations and Iran's official Plan and Budget Organization makes sobering reading…
Mehdi Taghavi, economics professor
at Allameh Tabatabaei University, believes most indices are worse now than
20 years ago. A serious failing was making appointments based on Islamic
credentials, rather than expertise. "If we continue like this, we will
be much poorer and there will probably be an uprising," he added.
Regime's Foreign Ministers Targets of Paint-filled, Rotten Eggs in Davos, Agence France Presse, January 30
DAVOS- Iranian exiles pelted the car of Tehran's foreign minister, Kamal Kharazi, with paint-bombs during a blue-chip summit in Davos, Switzerland, police said Sunday.
Kharazi was not personally hit, but deputy Foreign Minister Hossain Adili Mohammad was hit with paint on his back in a separate incident Saturday, as he stood in the lobby of his hotel in this Alpine Swiss resort.
[Swiss police spokesman Rolf] Schatzmann said the Iranian exiles, who are living in Switzerland, were protesting the deaths of relatives at the hands of the Iranian regime.
[According to a statement by the NCRI,
Four members of the Revolutionary Guards escorting Kharrazi in another
car and using the cover of diplomats charged at the Iranian protesters
to beat them, but were confronted with the chants of "Down with Khatami,"
"Down with Terrorists," and "Terrorist Kharrazi out of Davos." Swiss on-lookers
and foreign visitors at the scene were disgusted by the violent and abusive
behavior of the Revolutionary Guards, who were forced to flee. But before
they sped away in their car, Iranian protesters hit several parts of the
diplomat-terrorists' cars with paint-filled eggs.]
War Games Staged in Light of escalation in Resistance Operations, Reuters, January 30
TEHRAN - The Iranian army will begin maneuvers in western and southern regions of the country on Monday, the official IRNA news agency said.
"These two maneuvers are unprecedented. They are designed to allow the quickest movement of troops at the time of a crisis," IRNA quoted Brigadier general Ebrahim Ashtiani, deputy-commander of the ground forces, as saying on Sunday.
"The main goal is to boost combat capability at the time of crisis and maintain security in western and southern regions."
The first set of mainly commando exercises are to be held in Khuzestan province. The second will begin in the southern city of Shiraz and extend to the western Ilam province, a scene of frequent clashes between government troops and the Mujahedeen opposition.