Word: banisadr
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...Nobody dared to break the ice. The Majlis wanted President Abolhassan Banisadr to write the letter. Already stung by his rivals, the President refused to comply. The buck went round again. The country matters more than a personal desire for vengeance. Thus I decided to shoulder the thankless task of resolving the hostage problem for them. I expressed my unqualified opposition to the idea of trying the U.S. hostages. Such trials, from any angle you look at them, are against our interest. Our main demand-the extradition of the criminal Shah to Iran -has become irrelevant. But obviously we cannot...
...Imam Khomeini's follower, the parliament's child and Banisadr's brother." With that modest assessment of his qualifications, Mohammed Ali Raja'i last week accepted his election as Iran's Prime Minister. Raja'i, as Winston Churchill said about another man, has every reason to be modest. His meager government experience was limited to a ten-month stint as Minister of Education, a post in which he mainly presided over the closing of schools and universities in the name of "Islamization." President Abolhassan Banisadr, who is constitutionally responsible for nominating the Prime Minister...
Nonetheless, that was enough to recommend Raja'i to members of the clergy-controlled Islamic Republic Party, which dominates Iran's parliament, the Majlis. That body approved Raja'i's nomination by the lopsided vote of 153 to 24, with 19 abstentions. Banisadr had stated publicly that he considered Raja'i a bad choice. But he finally bowed to clerical pressures and nominated Raja'i at the "recommendation" of a parliamentary commission controlled by the I.R.P. Explained a senior civil servant: "Khomeini was becoming impatient. It was obvious that the more brazen-faced mullahs...
Perhaps the most brazen of all the mullahs, Ayatullah Seyyed Mohammed Beheshti, thus consolidated his party's power and made good on a seven-month-old vow to reduce the popularly elected President to a figurehead. Even Banisadr's attempt to retain his constitutional veto rights over Cabinet appointments was rudely quashed by the mullahs. "The Prime Minister," insisted Beheshti, "must be free to choose anyone he deems fit for Cabinet positions...
...believe that the militants holding the hostages might have directed their allies in the U.S. to stage their demonstration with the hope of landing in jail. This would have given extremist Islamic factions in Iran a cause to exploit and so continue to discredit any efforts by President Abolhassan Banisadr, a relative moderate, to release the hostages. The militants also might be maneuvering to prevent an attempt by their clerical leaders to resolve the crisis. In London, where Iranians have demonstrated against the U.S. and been arrested, Scotland Yard also thinks that militants in Tehran might have been calling...