OPINION
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The Michigan Daily
Vol. XCIII, No. 21-S
93 Years of Editorial Freedom
Managed and Edited by students of
The University of Michigan
Editorials represent a majority opinion of the
Daily Editorial Board
The Michigan Daily
Tuesday, July 12, 1983
Challenge to Khomeini's
power rises in Iran
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Reagan's Will
A PHONE conversation overheard in
Washington recently:
Ron: Hello, George. How's my favorite
reporter?
George: Mr. President, gee-whiz I wish you'd
stop calling me here.
Ron: Well, there's no reason to get upset
about it, George.
George: That's easy for you to say, Mr.
President, but I've been taking a lot of flak
about this debate business - some of the
biggest papers have even decided to stop run-
ning my column.
Ron: Well George, as I told Nancy last night,
this whole debate story is much ado about
nothing. You know that Dickens fellow really
came up with some great lines.
George: I believe that was Shakespeare who
said that, sir.
Ron: Well, Shakespeare, Dickens,
whomever, I guess I have a pretty bad memory
when it comes to American literature, George.
Say, I've got a dandy idea, George, how about
stopping by sometime and giving me a
refresher course in it?
George: I believe Dickens and Shakespeare
were British, Mr. President, and uh, I've been
meaning to talk to you about my tutoring and
coaching you.
Ron: Well, what is it, George?
George: I think we'd better postpone our
sessions for a while.
Ron: Well, what ever you say, George.
George: I still think you're a thoroughbred
and the best president we've had since Hoover.
Ron: Hoover, really? Gee, George, I think
you're pretty swell yourself.
George: Thanks, sir. Getting back to what I
was saying, you see some of the liberal and
communist journalists - and I use the term
loosely - are out to get George Will. In fact,
even some of the guys I thought were real men,
like Safire and Kilpatrick, have been bad-
mouthing me.
Ron: Well, Will, that's terrible. Next time you
see those wimps tell 'em the Gipper said they can
kiss your kiester.
George: Thanks for the encouragement,
Commander. Just talking to you makes me feel
a lot better.
Ron: Well, good, George. You just lay low for
a while, but I'm gonna' need your coaching
come election time.
George: Yes, sir.
Ron: And George, tonight before Nancy and I
turn in, -we're going to drink a toast to you and
all the good, honest, hard-working members of
the press. For it is your hard work and
pursuit of truth, that prevents evil from
prevailing over good; "To the press," George.
George: To the press.
By William Beeman
Iran once again is experiencing
change. In the past few months it
has purged the pro-communist
Tudeh Party, expelled 18 Russian
diplomats and cautiously begun
to entertain for the first time a
United Nations mission to obser-
ve damaged areasin the war
zone - perhaps the initial step in
a settlement of the three-year
war with Iraq.
In addition, it has patched up a
long-standing quarrel with the
Japanese Mitsui company over
renewed construction of a giant
petrochemical complex. And U.S.
companies are rumored to have
entered talks in Geneva with the
Iraniang governmentraimed at
repairing the great refinery at
Abadan damaged in the Iraqi
conflict.
The source of all these wonders
is not the Ayatollah Khomeini, as
speculation has had it. It is rather
the rising influence of a political
group heretofore little known in
the west - "the Hojjatieh" -
who stand in opposition to
Khomeini's rule. Staunchly anti-
communist, ultra-conservative in
religious matters and strongly
supportive of individual property
rights and entrepreneurship, this
group is likely to leave a per-
manent mark on the course of
Middle Eastern political affairs.
The Hojjatieh are members of
a religious movement whose
roots date back 50 years to the
teachings of a prominent Shiia
scholar, Mirza Mehdi Isfahani.
Isfahani preached a doctrine
which emphasized the in-
fallibility of the 12th leader of
Shiia Islam, the Mahdi, who
disappeared 12 centuries ago.
The Mahdi is a messianic figure
who is thought to be hidden but
who will, it is believed, return to
judge men's sins at the end of the
world.
This doctrine is important be-
cause if forms the religious basis
for the rule of Ayatollah
Khomeini. Khomeini's major in-
novation in Shiia religious law in
fact is his own rule, legitimized
by the constitution of the Islamic
Republic. He maintains that until
the Mahdi has returned, men
must be ruled by the wisest and
most knowledgeable religious
leader at hand - at present, him-
self.
The Hojjatieh oppose Khomeini
because they argue that no man
can substitute for the Mahdi.
This excludes Khomeini's claim
to the right to rule. It also sets
them directly in opposition to the
central leadership of the Islamic
Republic - a group frequently
identified as belonging to the
"Imam's Line."
Their conservative doctrine
also leads the Hojjatieh to pursue
and execute Bahais, since that
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religion's founder, Baha'ullah,
claimed to be a legitimate
prophet of God. Indeed, in the
eyes of the Hojjatieh, Bahais are
heretics and must be dealt with
accordingly. Naturally, this doc-
trine also brands communism as
godless.
The Hojjatieh have acquired
power since the revolution
through slow and silent un-
derground growth. Their belief in
ownership of private property as
a sacred right has gained them
enormous support among mer-
chants, who have watched with
dismay as the government has
tried to increase its power at the
expense of private enterprise.
The Hojjatieh has flexed its
strength chiefly through its
adherents on the "Council of
Guardians," a body of clerics
who are constitutionally em-
powered to veto legislation voted
by the parliament. Recent
decisions by this body suc-
cessfully nullified legislation
designed to nationalize trade,
revise land reform and seize
property of absentee owners.
These decisions reveal the in-
stitutional base of Hojjatieh sup-
port - namely, those clergy
whose family origins are in the
middle and upper economic
classes. By contrast, "Imam's
Line" politicians presently ruling
the Islamic Republic, such as
President Ali Khamenei and
parliamentary speaker Ali Am-
bar Hashemi-Rafsanjani, have
risen from humble origins. It
may be for this reason that
Khamenei has been supportive of
laws, policies and political
groups which are seen as
"socialistic," or at least unsym-
pathetic to merchants and en-
trepreneurs.
The leader of the Hojjatieh is a
man as obscure to the West as
Khomeini was before the Iranian
Revolution. He is Sheik Mahmud
Halabi, a student of the founder
of the movement. He gave the
organization its present form and
is now quietly directing its ac-
tivities from his home in Teheran.
He never talks to the outside
world directly but issues orders
to a series of spokesmen, the
most prominent of whom is his
secretary, a man named Ab-
dullahi.
U.S. government analysts have
taken note since early spring of
significant internal conflict in
Iran but often don't know
whether to attribute it to the
movement or not. "At present we
can't tell who is and who isn't a
member," says one State Depar-
tment Iran watcher. Among
probable adherents close to the
center of power are the Foreign
Minister and Minister of Labor.
Khomeini's unwillingness to
speak for or against the
movement is perhaps the most
poignant illustration of its
strength. He has yet to find a suc-
cessful way to approach their
leader, who outdoes him several
times over in inscrutability. His
best course is to draw as little at-
tention to the movement as
possible.
In the end, the Hojjatieh are
gaining in strength primarily
because they offer the Iranian
population a chance to reaffirm
the religious ideals of the original
revolution of 1978 and 1979 while
repudiating the Khomeini regime
and its current central leader-
ship.
Beeman, a professor at Brown
University and specialist on
Iran, wrote this article for the
PacificNews Service.
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