Despite Radicals’ Grumblings, Iran Intensifies Birth-Control Program : Population: With one of the highest birth rates in the world, fears grow that the country could face a major social explosion.

Iran’s government is intensifying a birth-control program--despite opposition from radicals--because the country’s fast-growing population is imposing strains on a struggling economy.

“If the Islamic Republic’s government does not implement proper and swift plans for controlling population growth in Iran, future generations will definitely face severe social and economic problems,” Tehran’s Kayhan International newspaper warned recently.

“Can we be proud of a nation of hungry Muslims who have to beg the infidels of the world for charity?” declared Mohammed Yazdi, a member of the 12-member Council of Guardians, a legislative watchdog body.

Iran has one of the highest birth rates in the world, between 3.5% and 4% a year. Even in the Middle East, where soaring populations are the norm, Iran’s baby boom is fast outstripping development.

Before the 1979 Islamic revolution, Iran had about 35 million people. Last month, the government’s chief statistician, Majid Shamshidi, said the population had reached 55 million.

Experts estimate that by the year 2010, Iran will have 140 million people. They warn that unless something is done soon to curb the birth rate and rapidly expand the economy, the country faces a major social explosion.

While Iran struggles to cope with its baby boom, rival Iraq is striving to expand its population to keep up with the Iranians should the Iran-Iraq War, halted by an August, 1988, cease-fire, flare up again.

Iraq has about 16 million people, and President Saddam Hussein has declared that increasing its birth rate a “strategic duty.” He offers hefty financial incentives, including cash grants and interest-free home-purchase loans.

Iran launched a half-hearted birth-control campaign last year, with some religious leaders encouraging Iran’s predominantly Muslim population to have fewer children. Now Iran’s spiritual leader, the Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has declared that birth control is not un-Islamic, although abortion is illegal.

The Health Ministry announced it has set up centers in major cities to provide free contraceptives. But the contraceptives reportedly are in short supply.

Some newspapers say that unless more is done to get the message across, the government program will have little impact on Iranians, who have traditionally favored large families.

The English-language Tehran Times called in December for a media campaign to warn Iranians of the danger of unrestrained population growth “to bring this immense problem . . . under control.”

Kayhan International declared: “This phenomenon should be seriously and properly dealt with. Using economic incentives, the government should encourage Iranian couples to have only two children.”

One of President Hashemi Rafsanjani’s most important priorities is expanding the economy to at least five times its current size to accommodate the expected population growth.

As it is, Western economists believe the economy, plagued by bad management during the revolution and the 8-year war with Iraq, is already severely stretched and needs massive investment just to cope with the current crisis.

Rafsanjani’s rivals oppose birth control. They believe that the larger Iran’s population, the greater its chances of becoming the undisputed leader of the Muslim world.

By the year 2020, demographers estimate that the Muslim population will be 2.5 billion, double the present total and more than one-quarter of the projected world population in the first quarter of the next century.

The Third World, which would account for more than 80% of the projected world population by then, would provide fertile ground for the Islamic revolution, the hard-liners argue.

When a 1986 census showed that 11 million Iranians had been born since the revolution, then-Prime Minister Hussein Moussavi publicly rejoiced that they had been reared to the credo of “Death to America!” and “Allahu akbar!” or “God is great!”

The radical daily Jomhuri Islami noted recently amid a broadside of press criticism of birth control: “The problem is not the increasing population, but the lack of policy and planning, and in the end it is the unfortunate population that gets the blame.”

Rafsanjani’s postwar development plan calls for building 12 industrial cities in five years to help absorb the swelling population.

Tehran’s population has swollen to an estimated 8 million in recent years amid a widespread drift from the countryside to urban areas. Officials say the city is bursting at the seams, with housing, water and electricity shortages, traffic-clogged streets and worsening pollution.

Oil-rich Iran was able to feed itself 10 years ago, but now has to import $2 billion worth of food a year.

Agricultural output has slumped severely. In 1979, one-third of the population worked in that sector. Now, government figures show that it is only one-fifth.