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God's Spokesman

GIORGIO ARMANI

The recent death of Ayatollah Khomeini has Western
leaders — and his supporters — wondering if the
Islamic revolution can continue without him.

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34

FRIDAY, JUNE 9, 1989

HELEN DAVIS

Foreign Correspondent

F

ew contemporary lead-
ers enjoyed greater
adoration than
Ayatollah Ruhollah Mussavi
Khomeini, the Shi'ite
godhead who came to
epitomize the cult of
personality.
To Western leaders, he was
reviled as an uncompromis-
ing, cruel, vindictive despot
who relentlessly pursued his
enemies and carved his name
in blood.
But to his millions of Shi'ite
followers, Khomeini, who
died on Sunday, was the
Smasher of Idols, the Glorious
Upholder of the Faith, the
Sole Hope of the Downtrod-
den, the Vicar of Islam — or,
more simply, His Holiness.
The ayatollah was an
anachronism in more ways
than one. In an age of whiz-
kids and quick fixes, the
Divine of Iran spent the best
part of 80 years preparing for
that fateful moment in
February 1979 when he
swooped out of the sky in an
Air France jet to seize control
of his nation's destiny.
A million zealous voices
greeted him with the chant
"Allahu Akhbar" (God is
Great), and Khomeini's swift
response — indeed his sole
purpose — was to give
substance to that sentiment.
He quickly set about transfor-
ming Iran into the modern
world's only theocracy — the
only true Islamic state, accor-
ding to the ayatollah, since
the time of the Prophet.
In the process, God was pro-
pelled into a central, starring
role on the Iranian stage.
Thousands were dispatched to
the executioner (some 205 in
the first month of 1989 alone)
because they had transgress-
ed the will of Allah; a further
half-million, including
children, were slaughtered in
the course of yet another ho-
ly mission — the Gulf War.
But it was not until 1963,
when Shah Mohammed Reza
Pahlavi was making a stab at
modernization, that
Ayatollah Khomeini came to
national prominence.
His fiery sermons denounc-
ing land reforms and votes for
women touched off riots in
the streets and triggered
alarm bells in the Peacock
Palace, and he was expelled to
Iraq. From his isolated exile,

he maintained contact with
his disciples in Iran and con-
tinued issuing strident public
statements.
By the 1970s, however, his
utterances had undergone a
transformation. No longer did
he demand support for the
Palestine Liberation
Organization or denounce the
"gang of Jews" who had in-
jected a "germ of corruption"
into the Islamic world.
Increasingly, he focused his
unblinking, menacing gaze

Alim Montazeri:
Became disillusioned

on the person of the Shah and
on the necessity of replacing
the Peacock Throne with an
Islamic state born out of a
popular revolution.
Having been expelled from
Iraq in 1978, the ayatollah
found refuge — and massive
media exposure — in France.
Journalists beat a path to his
home just outside Paris, and
Khomeini seized the oppor-
tunities presented by his
highly visible platform to ac-
celerate the process of discon-
tent, direct the gathering
revolution and to prepare for
his own return.
When he did return, the
ayatollah acted swiftly to con-
solidate his power and dispel
any lingering doubts about
where authority would lie,
demonstrating a formidable,
if brutal, grasp of the politics
of power.
He first purged the
Western-oriented liberals,
then he rooted out the leftists
and, finally, the Tudeh — the
Iranian Communist Party.

Command of the military was
handed to Islamic Revolu-
tionary Guards, while ab-
solute political power was
vested in the hands of the
mullahs.
The revolution was com-
plete. It was Islamic in deed
as well as in name.
He blessed the execution of
thousands of fellow-Iranians
who resisted his radical
religious fervor and then, in
the name of Allah, sacrificed
hundreds of thousands more
in his unrelenting pursuit of
the Iraqi leader during the
Gulf War.
To neighboring Arab
leaders, Khomeini — who had
not hidden his determination
to export his Islamic revolu-
tion — was an object of
loathing and a source of fear.
Indeed, his most enduring
legacy might well be found
outside his own country in
the generation of radicalized
fundamentalists he inspired
and nurtured.
In Lebanon, where Shi'ites
form the single largest group
in that fractured, fractious
nation, Khomeini fathered
the radical, fundamentalist
Hezbollah (Party of God),
which continues to be train-
ed, equipped and financed by
revolutionary theologians
from Teheran.
In its various guises, Hez-
bollah has been the agent for
a string of terrorist attacks,
both inside and outside
Lebanon, against Israeli and
other Western targets.
Israel, too, has felt the
harsh effects of the ayatollah's
influence, not only in the
steady stream of Hezbollah
fighters who attempt to cross
the border from Lebanon, but
also in the growth of uncom-
promising fundamentalism
among Palestinians — Sunni
and Shi'ite — in the Gaza
Strip and the West Bank.
Less well-documented, but
no less threatening, are the
underground fundamentalist
groups, also inspired by Kho-
meini, which continue to
destabilize regimes
throughout the Gulf, par-
ticularly in Iraq, Bahrain,
Kuwait and, not least, in
Saudi Arabia, where Shi'ites
form a majority in the oil-rich
province of Hasa.
Khomeini's death raises a
large question mark over the
shape of a post-Khomeini
Iran; in particular, whether
the Islamic revolution can
survive its founder.

