[Prefatory Note: In February 1979, along with two others, I had a meeting with Ayatollah Khomeini. The post below is an edited text of an interview by two Iranian journalists, Maryam Khormaei & Javad Heiran-Nia, which was published a few weeks ago in Iran. As few Westerners had such an opportunity to meet the leader of the Iranian Revolution in a relatively relaxed atmosphere and for an ample length of time, there seemed interest in Iran and elsewhere in my recollections of that meeting. At the time, it was one of the first extended discussions with this mysterious individual who led the revolution from exile, first from Najaf, Iraq, and during its final stages from Paris. One cannot help but wonder about what this religious leader would say of Iran, the world around him, given the passage of more than 40 turbulent years. It seems his leadership in the early post-Shah period set the Islamic tone for Iranian political life and established a theocratic structure that has persisted for four decade, despite periodic protests, yet achieving durability even in the face of persistent efforts to destabilize the government, accompanied by coercive steps taken by its regional and global adversaries to promote regime change. Israel, Saudi Arabia, and the United States have continuously confronted Iran, imposing sanctions and threatening military action. Efforts of the West overtly focused on preventing Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons, and this goal seemed well within reached as a result of energetic diplomatic efforts during the Obama presidency. Since Trump became President in 2017 progress toward normalization has ended, and been sharply reversed. Tensions have steadily mounted after the U.S. withdrew from the agreement and Iran gradually discontinued compliance with the breached treaty. As of now, the danger of war cannot be ruled out. I doubt that the situation would be much different if the Supreme Guide of Iran was still Imam Khomeini rather than his successor, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. The nuclear proliferation issue is not the only concern of Iran adversaries. Iran’s additional influence in the region and indeed the persistence of an anti-Western outlook in Tehran have kept burning the fires of confrontation.]
Interview Questions February 1979 Meeting with Grand Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini
-Toward the climax of Iran’s Islamic revolution, as a member of an American delegation, you visited Iran. What were the objectives of that trip?
Response: I was chair of a small committee in the United States with the name, “Committee for the Defense of Human Rights in Iran,” which sponsored events with Iranian students and arranged university speaking visits for some prominent Iranian political figures living in the United States. Our efforts became active within university settings as the revolutionary movement in Iran gathered momentum during 1978.
The Committee had almost no funding, but had dedicated members, and achieved a certain visibility as there was so little attention being given to these historic developments in Iran unfolding with increasing intensity as the months passed. The treatment of these issues in the Western mainstream media was not only mostly very pro-Shah but also quite uninformative, and even uninformed, and minimized the political challenge being posed by this popular uprising.
It was in this context that I received as chair of the Committee an invitation from Mehdi Bazargan to visit Iran as part of a delegation of three persons for a period of two weeks. I was also invited to find two other persons to form the delegation. The stated purpose of the visit was to convey to selected Americans a better understanding of the revolution underway. I felt that it was important to accept this invitation precisely for the reasons given in the letter of invitation. Our objective, then, was to achieve a clearer understanding of the nature and objectives of the revolutionary movement in Iran, and do our best after returning to share the experience and our impressions as widely as possible, and this is what we did.
In this spirit I tried hard to find two persons who would benefit from such a visit, possessed an open mind toward the challenge being posed to imperial rule in Iran, and had some access to and credibility with media and influential audiences back in the United States. My first two choices both agreed without hesitation or conditions to join the delegation. Ramsey Clark was my first choice. He had been prominent in government, having been Attorney General, was part of a well-known American political family, and had quite recently even been considered as a possible Democratic candidate for the American presidency. Besides being extremely intelligent, Ramsey had a high profile that generated media attention and he had a well-deserved reputation for courage and integrity, quietly telling America unpleasant and inconvenient truths without mincing his words.
My second choice was Philip Luce, a prominent religious activist who achieved world fame by his public acts of civil opposition to the Vietnam War. Phil gained widespread notice in the late 1960s when he evaded official protocol to show a visiting group of American Congressmen ‘the tiger cages’ in a Saigon jail used by the government to torture political prisoners. Like Ramsey, Phil was a person of unquestioned integrity, and fearless in searching for the truth in controversial political settings.
The three of us made the trip without deep prior personal associations, although we had known and respectd each other and were friendly, having cooperated several times in the past on anti-war political projects. During the somewhat arduous trip to a country in the midst of a popular revolution, we got along very well, and enjoyed each other’s company, despite the extremely tense times we experienced in Iran. We also cooperated in sharing our impressions subsequent to the trip.
-How different was what you witnessed in Iran from the US media narratives about the Iranian revolution’s character?
Response: The differences were dramatic, and rather disturbing. The US media conveyed very little understanding of the character of the movement in Iran, and was perplexed by its strength and outlook. At the time, the Shah’s government was a close ally of the United States in the midst of the Cold War, and Iran’s strategic location with respect to the Soviet Union made it very important to Washington to keep the Shah’s regime in control of the country. As well, the US Government, having played an important role by way of covert intervention in the 1953 coup that restored the Shah to the Peacock Throne displacing a democratically elected leader, there was a particularly strong commitment made in Washington to doing whatever was necessary to crush this nonviolent mass movement led by a then still rather obscure religious figure living in exile, and portrayed as a remnant of the Middle Ages. It was deemed unthinkable within the United States government that such a seemingly primitive movement of the Iranian people could produce the collapse of the Iranian government that had formidable military and police capabilities at its disposal, possessed a political will to use lethal ammunition against its own people when challenging the government in a series of unarmed demonstrations. The Shah’s government had also gained the geopolitical benefits of a ‘special relationship’ with the most powerful state in the world, and in return was deeply invested in upholding the regional and global interests of the United States. In such a setting Western media was uncritical, reflecting the propaganda and ideological outlook of the government, and was not a source of independent and objective journalism. There was some confusion arising from the fact that Islamic forces had been seen as anti-Marxist and anti-Soviet, and until the Iranian developments, were not seen as a threat to Western interests.
It was in such an atmosphere that we hoped that we could bring some more informed and realistic commentary on the unfolding revolutionary process in Iran, including identifying its special character as neither left nor right, seemingly led by a religious leader who remained virtually unknown in the West. It was even unclear to us at the time of our visit whether Ayatollah Khomeini was the real leader of the movement or only a temporary unifying figurehead, whose political role would end as soon as the Shah was removed from power. We hoped to provide some insight into such questions, as well as to understand whether the new political realities in Iran would produce confrontation or normalization with the United Stats. Was the U.S. now prepared, as it was not in 1953, to live with the politics of self-determination as it operated in Iran or would it seek once more to intervene on behalf of its geopolitical agenda and in support of its political friends?
Indeed, we did have some effect on the quality of Western media coverage of the developments in Iran. Ramsey Clark and myself were invited to do many interviews and asked to describe our impressions of what was happening in Iran by mainstream TV channels and print outlets. As a result, at least until the hostage crisis in the Fall of 1979, discussion of Iran politics became more informed and some useful political debate emerged, at least for a while, on the implications of this Islamic challenge to the entrenched Iranian political and economic leadership.
-You met the then Prime Minister of Iran Shapour Bakhtiar on the same day when Mohammad Reza Pahlavi left Iran. What was Bakhtiar’s assessment of the developments including Shah’s departure?
Response: We had the impression from our meeting that the Prime Minister was himself uncertain about the situation and his own personal fate. Of course, we met with Mr. Bakhtiar at a tense time, only a very few hours after the Shah was reported on the radio as having abdicated, abandoning his throne by leaving Iran, seeking asylum. Bakhtiar had a reputation. of being hostile to intrusions of religion in the domain of politics, and had a personal identity strongly influenced by French culture along with its very dogmatic version of secularism. When we met, the city of Tehran was in a kind of frenzied mood, with cars blowing their horns in celebration, and posters of Khomeini appearing everywhere. We had trouble maneuvering through the traffic so as to keep our appointment in the official office of the Prime Minister.
We found Mr. Bakhtiar cautious and non-committal, and possibly intimidated, not by us, of course, but by the dozen or so others in the room who were never introduced, and wore clothes associated I our minds with security personnel. We assumed that at least some of these anonymous individuals were from the SAVAK, and maybe explained partly why Bakhtiar seemed so uncomfortable and nervous while talking with us. When we asked his help in arranging a visit to prisoners confined in Evin Prison, he seemed unsure of his authority to deal with our request until he received guidance from one of the official advisers present in the room. After a short, whispered instruction, the Prime Minister told us that a visit could be arranged on the following day so that we could meet with the political prisoners, but that we would not be allowed to enter the part of the prison reserved for common criminals. We were surprised by this manner of imposing a limitation. We had, if anything expected the opposite, permission to meet with the common criminals but not the political prisoners. After being at the prison, we realized why this distinction has been made. The political prisoners seemed treated reasonably well, possibly because regarded as members of a future ruling elite, while the ordinary criminals held no interest for the governing leadership past or present, and were confined to crowded cells often with no windows. Although we only met with political prisoners, we walked through the prison past the cells holding common criminals, with ample opportunity to note how bad were their living conditions.
Overall, we were left with not much clarity about how Bakhtiar viewed the future of his caretaker government. We had no real opinion on whether what he was saying to us with the others in the room was what they wanted him to say, or expressed his real views, or maybe reflected some sort of compromise. Would he be soon replaced, and his own role challenged as unlawful, or even criminal? We had the impression of a frightened bureaucrat lacking in leadership potential, at least under the prevailing revolutionary conditions. Maybe our impressions were distorted by the reality that our visit took place at such a tense and difficult moment of uncertainty, which soon turned out to be transformative for the country and its people. As a result, my impressions of this sad and entrapped individual may leave too negative a picture of his political character. A day or two earlier or later might have produced a quite different set of impressions.
- What was the Central Intelligence Agency’s assessment of the Iranian revolution’s developments? Did CIA have a lucid exact assessment of the revolutionary forces and Iran’s future political system?
Response: As far as we could tell, we had no direct contact with the CIA, but did meet with the American ambassador to Iran at the time, William Sullivan, who despite being a diplomat had a counterinsurgency background with a militarist reputation. He gave us a briefing that was much more illuminating as to Iranian developments than was our meeting with the Prime Minister a few days earlier. Sullivan acknowledged that the U.S. was caught off guard by both the character and the strength of the movement, and was struggling to keep up with events. He told us that the Embassy had previously constructed no less than 26 scenarios of political developments that might threaten the Shah’s leadership, but not one was concerned about a threat to the established order mounted by an Islamically oriented opposition. The American preoccupation, reflecting Cold War priorities, limited its concerns to containing the Marxist and Soviet-oriented left, and the belief that to the extent there was a political side to Islam it was aligned with the West, sharing its anti-Communist agenda as seemed evident in the setting of the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan.
Somewhat to our surprise, Sullivan spoke of his acute frustrations in dealing with the Carter presidency, especially with the National Security Advisor, Zbigniew Brzezinski, who he claimed to be unwilling to accept the finality of the Shah’s loss of power or of the outcome of the revolutionary movement. Sullivan told us that he advocated coming to terms with the emerging new realities as representing America’s national interests, but he spoke very clearly of the resistance to this view at the White House. Sullivan partly attributed this stubbornness to the influence of the Iranian ambassador on. Brzezinski, a view later confirmed to me by frustrated State Department officials.
- What were the issues discussed at a meeting you had in Neauphle-le Chateau with the late Islamic Republic’s founder Ayatollah Khomeini and how would you describe his personality?
Response: We met for a long time, maybe three hours, and covered many issues. During the conversation, after some rather long introductions on our sides about our experiences in Iran, we listened and responded to concerns expressed by Ayatollah Khomeini. After that we posed a series of questions. I will mention here a few topics discussed that have a lasting interest.
Ayatollah Khomeini’s initial preoccupation and understandable concern was whether the U.S. Government would try to repeat the intervention of 1953 or would be prepared to live with the outcome of the revolution. Of course, we were not in a position to give anything other than a guess. We did think there was less disposition by the U.S. to intervene than 25 years earlier, given the lingering sense of failure associated with the Vietnamese intervention. At the same time, we realized the strategic importance attached to keeping Iran allied to the U.S. in Cold War contexts and of the personal as well as ideological closeness between Carter and the Shah, especially after the Carter family spent New Year’s Eve in Tehran as the Shah’s guest in 1978, and Carter made his famous toast about the Shah being surrounded by the love of his people.
Ayatollah Khomeini was also concerned about whether the military contracts with the United States would be fulfilled now that there would be a change of government in Iran. This line of questioning gave us a sense that Ayatollah Khomeini had a rather practical turn of mind, and followed rather obscure policy issues closely.
At the same time, this victorious leader volunteered the view that he hoped that soon he would be able to resume his religious life, and explained his intention to take up residence in Qom rather than Tehran, which seemed consistent with such an intention. Ayatollah Khomeini told us that he has reluctantly entered politics because in his words ‘there was a river of blood between the Shah and the people.’
When we asked about his hopes for the revolutionary government, this religious leader made clear that he viewed the revolution as an Islamic rather than an Iranian occurrence, that is, a civilizational rather than a national triumph. He stressed this interpretative perspective, but without any sectarian overtones. He did go on to say that he felt that the basic community for all people in the Islamic world was civilizational and religious, and not national and territorial. Ayatollah Khomeini explained in ways I subsequently heard from others in Iran and elsewhere, that territorial sovereign states built around national identity did not form a natural community in the Middle East the way they did in Europe.
Ayatollah Khomeini also made clear to us that he viewed the Saudi monarchy was as decadent and cruel to the people as was the Shah, and deserved to face the same fate. He felt that dynastic rule had no legitimate role in Islamic societies.
We also asked about the fate of Jews and Bahais in the emergent Islamic Republic of Iran, aware of the close working relationships of these two minorities with the Shah’s governing structure. We found the response significant. He expressed the opinion that Judaism was ‘a genuine religion’ and if Jews do not get wrongly involved in supporting Israel, they would be fine in Iran. His words on this, as I recall them, were ‘Judaism is a genuine religion, and it would be a tragedy for us if they left.’ He viewed Bahais differently because of their worship of a prophet after Mohammad, leading him to adopt the view that Bahais were members of ‘a sect’ and did not belong to ‘a true religion,’ and thus adherents of the Bahai faith would not be welcome in the new Iran. Afterwards, I learned that Ayatollah Khomeini intervened to oppose and prevent genocidal moves being advocated in relation to the Bahai minority living in Iran, but I have no confirmation of this.
- What was the last US Ambassador to Iran William Sullivan’s mission? He is known to be an anti-riot man. Did he give any intellectual help to Iran military or SAVAK (the secret police, domestic security and intelligence service in Iran during the reign of the Pahlavi)?
Response: Of course, Sullivan never would tell us about his covert activities, nor did we ask. He had the reputation of being ‘a counterinsurgency diplomat’ as he had served in Laos as an ambassador during the Vietnam War. It was at a time that the embassy was being used to take part in a Laotian internal war that included directing US bombing strikes against rebel forces.
With this knowledge, I was invited to testify in the U.S. Senate to oppose Siullivan’s confirmation a year or so earlier. Unfortunately, my testimony did not prevent him from being confirmed as ambassador to Iran, although several senators at the time indicated to me privately their agreement with my testimony, but were unwilling to oppose President Carter’s choice so early in his presidency. When in Iran I urged the meeting, and Ramsey Clark was skeptical at first, saying that he had had an unpleasant encounter with Sullivan some years earlier. I convinced Ramsey that the credibility of our trip would be compromised if we made no effort to get the viewpoint of the American Embassy. We did make an appointment, Sullivan’s first words as we entered were “I know Professor Falk thinks I am a war criminal..” Yet he welcomed us, and talked openly and at length about the situation and his efforts to get Washington to accept what had happened in Iran. In retrospect, I think he hoped we would be a vehicle for making his views more publicly known.
He made the point that there were no social forces ready to fight to keep the Shah in power. The business community, or national private sector, was alienated by the Shah’s reliance on international capital to fulfill the ambitious state development plans, the so-called ‘White Revolution.’ The armed forces were also not favorable enough to the throne to fight on its behalf, complaining that the Shah’s abiding fear of a coup being mounted against him, created distrust of his own military commanders, and led him to frequently shuffle the leadership in the armed forces. This resulted in a low level of loyalty, and helps explain why the military watched the political transformation take place without showing any pronounced willingness to intervene, despite being nudged toward aggressive action against the movement, especially in the context of a provocative visit by an American NATO general at the height of the revolutionary ferment. The general was widely reported to be exploring whether it was plausible to encourage the Iranian military to defend the established order.
We also asked about what would happen to the surviving leaders from the Shah’s government who had been accused of crimes against the Iranian people. Ayatollah Khomeini responded by saying that he expected that what he called ‘Nuremberg Trials’ would be organized to hold accountable leading figures from the fallen government, and some from bureaucratic backgrounds, including SAVAK officials. We wondered why this plan was not later followed, and why those from the Shah’s regime accused were often executed after summary, secret trials. We knew that some of those who had led the revolution had received support from the CIA during their period as students overseas or even when serving as mosque officials, which would be damaging and confusing if made public at a time of transition in the governing process and an accompanying anti-American atmosphere. It is important to remember that until the Islamic Revolution in Iran, Western intelligence assumed that the anti-Marxist approach of those of devout Islamic faith would make all religiously oriented personalities strong allies of Western anti-Communism, a view that persisted to some extent until after the Afghanistan resistance to Soviet intervention which was headed by Islamic forces, and was only decisively shattered by the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon in the United States.
- Why did the liberal–Islamist groups fail to secure the support of Ayatollah Khomeini at the end of the day?
Response: It is difficult for an outsider like myself to comment on the internal politics in such a revolutionary period. The situation in Iran was still fluid, and worries about a counterrevolutionary coup to bring the Shah back to his throne a second time were widespread and understandable. Added to this, the change in Iran came so quickly. Several secular personalities of liberal persuasion told us that ‘the revolution happened too quickly. We were not ready.’
Ayatollah Khomeini while still in Paris, seemed originally to believe that liberal Islamically oriented bureaucrats would be needed to run the government on a day to day basis. He may have envisioned a governing process relying on technical experts, especially to achieve good economic policies and results that he thought necessary to keep the support of the Iranian masses. Such expectations seem to be not entirely consistent with the vison of Islamic Government set forth in his published lectures, available to us in English, that were written while he was living as an exile in Iraq. His insistent theme in that text was to adopt the view that a government consistent with Islamic values could not be reliably established on democratic principles without being subject to unelected religious guidance from top Islamic clerical scholars as the source of highest political authority.
We also were aware of several other explanations for this about face on the governing process. Some in Iran believed that Ayatollah Khomeini only discovered his political popularity after he returned to the country, and this made him believe he had a mandate to impose a system of government that reflected his ideas. Others offered the opinion that he became convinced by his entourage of advisors that the revolutionary spirit and agenda was being lost by the liberals, and hence were urging him to take direct and visible charge of the government to protect the Islamic spirit and substance of the revolutionary movement. And finally, there arose the view that the liberals were given a chance, and their performance disappointed Ayatollah Khomeini, leading him to reenter politics and move to Tehran to lead the country. As far as I know, this story of transition from the Pahlavi Era to the Islamic Republic remains veiled in mystery and controversy. Hopefully, before long the mystery will disappear with the appearance of more authoritative accounts of what transpired after the Ayatollah Khomeini returned to Iran.
What we do know is that what was established in this transition period has survived for more than 40 years despite being faced with threats, provocations, harsh sanctions, and even a variety of covert interventions intending destabilization. Arguably, Iran has been as stable as any country in the region, and more stable than most. This is impressive, although it does not overcome some criticisms directed at violations of basic human rights of people in Iran and its own regional expansionism.
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Global Justice in the 21st Century 
Revisiting Meeting Ayatollah Khomeini in January, 1979
10 Jun[Prefatory Note: The post below is a slightly modified text of responses to Javad Heiran-Nia’s interview questions that was published on 2 June 2020 in Mehr News. From the Iranian publication I received some criticisms to the effect that I failed to associate Ayatollah Khomeini’s legacy with the repressiveness of the policies and practices of the Islamic Republic of Iran. I refrained from such commentary after some reflection as I consider that the political movement led by AK was under serious, credible, and continuous threat from the moment it challenged the Shah’s rule, and that in recent years that threat has been intensified by the aggressive coalition of anti-Iranian forces consisting of the United States, Israel, and Saudi Arabia.
With the role of Ali Khamenei, as AK’s chosen successor, coming to an end, attention has again been given to upholding AK’s legacy and respecting his mentorship
In view of the Washington supported coup in 1953 that overturned the democratic election of Mohammad Mossadegh, it was reasonable to take exceptional steps to safeguard the new government, a process that became entangled with authoritarian and repressive features of governance, which certainly followed from AK’s leadership. How such an issue should be addressed is a complicated ethical and political matter that needs to be carefully contextualized. I will attempt to do this in a subsequent post.]
Revisiting Meeting Ayatollah Khomeini in January, 1979
1- A few days before the victory of the Islamic Revolution of Iran, you had a meeting with Ayatollah Khomeini. What memories do you have of that meeting and what conversations took place during that meeting?
The conversation took place a few days before Ayatollah Khomeini returned to Iran after being resident in France during most of the revolutionary challenge directed at the Shah’s governing structure after being expelled by Iraq in 1978. It was for me a memorable meeting after spending. ten days in Iran on a factfinding mission to understand the revolutionary developments better. The three of us (Ramsey Clark, Philip Luce, and myself) were deeply impressed by Ayatollah Khomeini’s keenness of mind and clarity of vision about why a transformed Iran was necessary and desirable. I was particularly struck by the uncompromising nature of AK’s vision, which clearly rejected the reform of the old order and insisted on the establishment of a new order from top to bottom, starting with the institutions of the state. It struck me then and now as an unconscious embrace of Islamic Leninism in the context of building the new on the wreckage of the old.
I would stress a few themes from several hours of conversation:
–uppermost in AK’s mind in our meeting was the menacing prospect of a counterrevolutionary intervention organized by the United States so as to restore the Shah to the Peacock Throne. He seemed to be worried that what happened in 1953 to reverse the outcome of democratic elections that had brought the nationalist leadership of Mossadegh to power would be repeated. He sought our opinion as Americans, but we could only express our hope that such an intervention would not happen. We did indicate that the Carter presidency had important pro-interventionist high officials, thinking especially of Carter’s National Security Advisor, Zbigniew Brzezinski;
–AK also expressed the view that he hoped that normalized relations with the U.S. would become possible, but expressed his opinion that this could only happen if the U.S. refrained from interference in Iran and fulfilled existing state contracts, including those concerned with the national security of Iran, and most of all, AK stressed respecting the will of the Iranian people as embodied in the unfolding revolutionary process;
–AK strongly emphasized his insistence on comprehending the anti-Shah revolution as being in its essence Islamic, and not primarily a nationalist Iranian phenomenon. In general, AK expressed the view that the imposition of European style states on the region after World War I when the Ottoman Empire collapsed, distorted and disrupted the most fundamental affinities and identities of the Iranian people, which centered on belonging to the community of Muslim faithful, a non-territorial community that assigned only secondary significance to national boundaries and identities. AK conveyed his view that territorial sovereign states were not highest form of political integration, and regretted the termination of the Caliphate by Turkey as part of Kemal Ataturk’s conception of a modernizing, secular state, which broke its non-territorial bonds;
–AK also suggested to us that there should be accountability for the crimes committed by officials in the Shah’s government, and indicated his expectation that this challenge of political transition would be addressed by what he called ‘Nuremberg-style trials.’ It is has never been officially explained why this never happened, but there is speculation that public trials were abandoned because the accused Shah high officials would testify to CIA links of AK’s entourage, the disclosure of which would be awkward for the new leadership;
–AK also indicated that he hoped personally to resume a religious life upon returning to Iran leaving the government to be run by politicians and experts, expecting an Islamic orientation in a new post-revolutionary constitution, perhaps hoping for the application of his ideas about ‘Islamic Government,’ but he didn’t openly tell us this;
–AK also expressed open hostility to other instances of dynastic rule in the Islamic world, focusing especially on Saudi Arabia. He made clear that monarchy was inconsistent with the principles of Islam, and that the Saudi monarchy was no more legitimate as a source of governing authority than had been the Shah’s rule in Iran.
It was our impression that AK was very confident that with the abdication of the Shah, which had occurred a few days earlier, the victory of the revolution was assured, and only an intervention by the U.S. or NATO or a staged coup could alter this outcome. His focus was upon defending the revolutionary victory against future internal, as well as external attempts to reverse the will of the Iranian people and how to plan a smooth transition from the old imperial order of the Shah to some version of an Islamic republic. We did not sense an openness on AK’s part to political pluralism or dissenting. Views.
We were particularly struck by the moral and political clarity of AK, and to some extent by the severity of his demeanor, which seemed averse to any kind of compromise with respect to the transition from the old Iran to what he envisioned as the new Iran. It became evident to us that AK regarded the revolution as motivated by the desire to obtain deliverance of the Iranian people from corrupt, secular, modernizing, oppressive governance structures tied to the West. He expect that this discredit past would be replaced by institutions and practices rooted in Islamic values, assuring virtuous policies and a political process guided by religious leaders.
I was encouraged to write the article by the Opinion Page Editor of the NY Times who acknowledged to me that very little was known about AK by the American people, and that their own coverage had been inadequate. I had the impression that this interest arose because of the growing understanding that the political struggle was over, and that the forces led by AK had prevailed. It was felt to be important to grasp this new reality in Iran so as to adapt to this unexpected nonviolent expression of the self-determination rights of the Iranian people. It should be recalled that this revolutionary challenge was confusing to Americans who in the dominant Cold War atmosphere had supported Islamic political aspirations, aside from in relation to Israel/Palestine, and were for the first time confronting a political development that was both anti-Marxist but also anti-West.
I was attacked because the article was critical of the Shah’s regime and expressed guarded optimism about the future of Iran under this new revolutionary leadership. The Times had titled the piece ‘Trusting Khomeini’ without consulting me. It was this title more than the content of the article that seemed to infuriate people who were either were loyal to the Shah or felt that America’s strategic interests suffered a serious and unacceptable setback when the Shah was overthrown. The Shah’s government was regarded as a strong regional ally, a source of oil for the West, a crucial element in the U.S. effort to contain Soviet expansion, and an ally willing to absorb political heat for exporting oil to Israel and apartheid South Africa.
4- In the conversation, you introduced Ayatollah Khomeini as a real and elite revolutionary. What was the difference between the Iranian revolution and the revolutions of the 20th century, and how much do you appreciate the role of Ayatollah Khomeini in leading the Islamic Revolution in Iran?
AK struck me as a true revolutionary, but not in the familiar modes of left secular politics, inspired by Marxist and Leninist thought. AK was definitely not a reformer, but someone who wanted an entirely new governing structure animated by Islamic values that was not oriented around Enlightenment rationalism, leftist proletarianism, and the values and priorities of modernity as it evolved in the West after the Industrial Revolution. Unlike other Western revolutions, AK had advocated and practiced a politics of revolutionary nonviolence in the manner of Gandhi throughout the political struggle, but it was pragmatically motivated. Unlike Gandhi, AK supported the violent defense of the revolutionary outcome in responding to internal and external enemies, and never urged the incorporation of nonviolent ideas into the new constitutional framework. It is tempting to speculate that Gandhi might not have been assassinated if he had followed AK’s manner of shifting from the revolutionary ethos of nonviolence to the post-revolutionary acceptance of internal and national security. Yet this might also have meant that India never became a constitutional democracy that accepted ideological diversity.
When we met, the character of AK’s leadership role after the collapse of the Shah’s regime was very much in doubt. AK himself seemed ambivalent about his future role, stressing his intention to reside in Qom and resume his madrassa life after his return to Iran. It had seemed while in Paris that AK might be the face of the revolution but not necessarily the ultimate leader. When AK returned to Iran these perceptions changed, perhaps altering his own ideas about his preferred future role. First, was the dramatic evidence that AK enjoyed a fervent and mass following among the Iranian people, which no one else in the country could hope to match. Secondly, despite returning to Qom, AK still remained the ascendant political figure in the country with government officials making constant trips to visit him, and gain his advice and approval. AK was persuaded to make his home in Tehran rather than Qom, and take charge of the post-revolution state-building process and organizing responses to security challenges. AK’s. special role as leader became formalized in a religious idiom. He was not given any standard designation as president or prime minister, but the novel title of ‘supreme guide’ that expressed both the Islamic orientation of the government and the religious nature of his leadership that was vested with authority to override elected officials, including the president of the Islamic Republic. It was AK’s political supremacy, as well as the explicitly Islamic governance structures, which led outside commentators to regard Iran as a ‘theocracy,’ with features that have endured after AK’s death in 1989. I find it relevant that AK’s. successor, Ayatollah Ali Kamenei, always keeps the picture of AK by his side when he gives TV interviews as if to exhibit his deference to AK’s legacy and mentorship.
As I suggested earlier, AK conveyed a visionary confidence that what he proposed was the embodiment of Islamic virtue and teaching, and that this was the basis for carrying the revolution forward after the fall of the Pahlavi dynasty. Throughout the revolution when many believed that AK should accept a compromise, and if that was not done, his movement would be defeated and destroyed by a military coup or outside intervention, or some combination. As someone rooted in religious tradition and conviction, who had borne witness to his beliefs by accepting exile rather than defer to the authority of the Shah, AK never wavered in the course of prolonged exile in Iraq. AK remained firm in his belief that the Iranian people deserved a government that was not beholden to Western decadence and its hostility to Islam. In this sense, AK embodied an opposition leader who through ideas, vision, and personal courage inspired the people of Iran to risk their lives in fighting for a new political order, and adopted tactics that led to a surprise victory over what was regarded as the strongest and most ruthless regime in the Middle East, which enjoyed the unqualified backing of the United States.
6- What is the legacy of Ayatollah Khomeini for the revolutionary and freedom-seeking currents of other countries?
The legacy of AK may be best grasped by comparing the fate of Egypt since the Arab Spring of 2011 with that of the Islamic Republic of Iran. The overthrow of Mubarak by the Egyptian masses was followed by an accommodation with the governing structures of the old order, which directly led to tensions that generated a counterrevolution that restored the old regime to power in a harsher form than it had possessed before the Arab Spring uprising. In contrast, the clarity of AK’s practice and policies led to the durability of the Iranian revolutionary process in the face of many threats to weaken or destroy what Iran had become. This durability survived a Western- backed all-out military attack by Iraq on Iran in 1980 designed to weaken if not reverse the revolutionary changes brought about in 1979, and through continuous harassment and threats from such regional adversaries as Israel and Saudi Arabia with nuclear weapons as well as geopolitical pressures mounted by the United States, backed by many threats and policies of ‘maximum pressure.’
The legacy of AK can also understood by his unconditional insistence on a clean break with Iran’s dynastic secularism and its replacement by a revolutionary new political order built on the firm foundation of Islamic principles, which not only constructed an Islamic state, but reshaped the education, social mores, and the economy of the country to harmonize with this pervasive Islamic profile. To realize this vision that would have seemed utopian until it became established in the first years of AK’s leadership was one of the great accomplishments of the last century in completing the work of decolonization. Meeting the many challenges directed at Iran’s political survival by internal, regional, and global adversaries should also be considered as one of the great de-westernizing achievements of the last 75 years. It was a largely unacknowledged contribution to the demise of European colonialism and Western imperialism. This remains an ongoing struggle that has changed its character over time, although not its essence, and is not fully resolved. A major dimension of AK’s legacy is that he managed to bring stability to the Islamic Republic by overcoming formidable obstacles during the first difficult decade of its existence. Unfortunately, for Iran the struggle goes on with no end in sight, and even intensified confrontation given the belligerent coordination of an aggressive anti-Iranian coalition of the governments of the United States, Israel, and Saudi Arabia.
Tags: 1953 Coup, Islamic Leninism, Islamic Revolution, Kamenei, Khomenii, Shah