Rafsanjani Takes Office, Gets Warning

Iran’s new president, Hashemi Rafsanjani, took office today saying times had changed, but the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini’s son quickly warned him not to stray from revolutionary ideals.

Rafsanjani, urging unity to rebuild the war-hit economy in his 30-minute inauguration speech, pledged allegiance to the ayatollah’s ideals but said political independence should not overshadow all other goals.

“Times are very different from the past,” the Iranian news agency IRNA, monitored in Nicosia, quoted him as saying.

“It is not right to safeguard the nation with the hungry, poor people marching forward and giving their life. It cannot go on like this,” said Rafsanjani, who will turn 55 next week.

Hours after the ceremony, Khomeini’s radical son, Ahmad, vowed that Iran would kick the United States out of the Middle East and rejected cooperation in freeing Western hostages in Lebanon.

“Today the United States thinks that since the Imam (Khomeini) is no longer among us, it can accuse our officials of having contacts with it,” Tehran Radio quoted Ahmad as saying.

“But I tell you that our officials will slap America on the mouth and drive it out of the Middle East,” said Ahmad, regarded by hard-liners as torch bearer for his late father’s policies.

Rafsanjani, sworn in at the Parliament where he served as Speaker for nine years, made none of the attacks on the United States and the West typical of Iran’s leaders since the 1979 revolution.

He also made no mention of the public offer he made two weeks ago to President Bush to help release American hostages held by pro-Iranian militants in Lebanon. The release of Western hostages is a prerequisite for any significant improvement in Iran’s relations with the West, whose money and technology it needs for economic reconstruction.