What a guy: notes from Ayatollah Khomeini
Now that Iran has been so much in the news lately, I though it might of interest to revisit the words of the regime’s founder, Ayatollah Khomeini, who is still much revered in that country.
First, we have his supple flexibility:
Khomeini once protested the shah’s enfranchisement of women, and then encouraged women to participate in his revolution and vote for his government when he needed their numbers. He once promised that clerics would hold only temporary positions in government and then allowed them to hold the most senior positions…He once said that the fact that “I have said something does not mean that I should be bound by my word.”
Next, we have his attitude towards good times:
One of his first orders [on returning to Iran in 1979] was to censor pictures of himself smiling, on the ground that this made him look frivolous. Mr. Khomeini later explained: “An Islamic regime must be serious in every field. There are no jokes in Islam. There is no humor in Islam. There is no fun in Islam.”
And lastly (although there’s lots more, of course) we have his strategy. The following was written by Daniel Pipes in 1986, long before a certain other politician emerged in our own country who was fond of employing a similar technique of deceptiveness about his own plans:
But all those years on the far fringe [before taking power] taught Mr. Khomeini lessons that he applied brilliantly to chart his path to power from 1977 to 1979. In a perceptive passage, Mr. Taheri explains the “lead from behind” strategy that Mr. Khomeini adopted. To keep his agents – mostly mullahs – from falling into police hands, Mr. Khomeini instructed his supporters to pretend to back secular opposition leaders. Delighted with this unexpected attention, these leaders were carried away by their own importance, and quickly found themselves in jail. Meanwhile, Mr. Khomeini’s followers remained free.
Leading from behind had another critical advantage. The majority of Iranians, who did not agree with Mr. Khomeini’s goal of an Islamic Republic, were fooled into thinking that he and the mullahs were mere figureheads who would return to their mosques after the shah’s fall. It took several years for Iranians to realize fully that the mullahs in power were determined to implement Mr. Khomeini’s radical vision.
I’ve written a great deal more about Khomeini. For background, see this, this, and this.
In your related post, “A trip back in time: Bakhtiar and the Revolution (Part II)” you state and ask, “What lessons can we draw from the life of Bakhtiar? The first is that one can be both committed to freedom and personally courageous, and yet lose the battle against repression and tyranny. The second is more of a question: is it sometimes acceptable (or perhaps even necessary) to use greater ruthlessness, to be willing to use oppressive tools against an enemy that—if successful—would not hesitate to abolish all the civil liberties and the advances for which you are fighting?”
Only in the movies does the good guy always win and only in the minds of liberals can one win a gun fight with a knife. One more example of their disconnection from reality.
“Jimmy Carter was dedicated to the cause of spreading human rights throughout the world, and he decided to put pressure to bear on the Shah to expand civil liberties and relax his policies towards those in his country who were against him. Carter threatened the Shah with cutting arms shipments…” neo
Put a liberal “useful” idiot in charge and disaster will follow. That threat by Carter sealed not only the Shah’s fate but Iran’s as well. The blood of tens of thousands lies upon Carter’s hands as they paved Iran’s road to hell with Carter’s good intentions.
When the Ayatollah Khomeini came to power in 1979, one of his first legal reforms was to reduce the marriageable age of girls to nine years old, exactly in line with the example of the Prophet, announcing: “It is a blessing for a family to have a daughter out of the house before her first blood.”
“Those who oppose the mullahs oppose Islam itself; eliminate the mullahs and Islam shall disappear in fifty years. It is only the mullahs who can bring the people into the streets and make them die for Islam– begging to have their blood shed for Islam.” -Ayatollah Khomeini
“I say let Iran go up in smoke, provided Islam emerges triumphant in the rest of the world.” Ayatollah Khomenei
The man was evil personified and justified it in the name of religion.
Geoffrey Britain:
Yes, I look back at those old posts and feel like weeping at what Obama wants to give the regime that is the extension of Khomeini’s.
I first thought that Carter was just incompetent but later decided he was really evil.
It’s so confusing and disturbing that the outcome of the Iraq war 2003, while Khomeini were very known within US administrations, when they dad gone to Iraq they used Iranian backed ilk to get them help to set new democracy in ME!
They either forgot or the necessity of politics they use them as a horse to rife tyrant regime there, but then those guys they just turned to all teaching and love to mullahs in Tehran by following Mullah’s instructions how to rule Iraq rather that what US would like.
Too late now US today represented by Secretary of State John Kerry on Monday that the United States would be open to cooperating with Iran militarily in Iraq to beat back al Qaida-inspired fighters who pose an “existential” danger to that war-torn country and may look to target Europe and the United States. So dose that let Iran is taking over Iraq?
You know this man the most wonted head from Iran regime who is the breads of Khomeini, This Shadowy Iranian general behind Iraq’s push for Tikrit and he is free inside Iraq while US and western troop on the ground there.
So is the democracy will be flourishing under Mullah control?
Anyone a can tell why US sacrifice so much in blood and money ended to hand Iraq to Iraq?
If you interested to read more about The Shadow Commander
Tyrants from Khomeini to Obama always use the same basic playbook of strategies to amass power, exert their personal will, and destroy all opposition.
I am sure it goes back to the Pharaohs. Wicked people are so predictable it is truly amazing we are still fooled by them, only realizing our plights until it is too late.
In the end we are all to blame for the chains we wear. But let’s hope it is true that there is a special circle of hell for the Tyrants. Justice is mine sayeth the Lord. God I hope He’s right.
“He once said that the fact that ‘I have said something does not mean that I should be bound by my word.'”
Khomeini was just following the example of his Prophet and the teaching of Allah when he said he wasn’t bound by his word.
Surat At-Taĥrīm (The Prohibtiion) 66:1-2
“O Prophet, why do you prohibit [yourself from] what Allah has made lawful for you, seeking the approval of your wives? And Allah is Forgiving and Merciful. Allah has already ordained for you [Muslims] the dissolution of your oaths. And Allah is your protector, and He is the Knowing, the Wise.”
The lovely background for this “revelation” is that one day Muhammad was visiting one of his excessive numbers of wives. And she had a slave girl, Miriam the Copt, whom Muhammad found attractive. So he sent his wife on a wild goose chase of an errand so he could rape his slave girl. His wife, though, figured things out quickly and returned to find him in the act.
She told his other wives, particularly his favorite Aisha, and they united to demand he stop raping the slave girls. After all he had 9 wives (Muslims are only lawfully allowed 4). He agreed. But then Allah said, “Hey, wait a minute. You can’t agree to that. I decreed that you can use the women you buy in the markets or capture as war booty as sex slaves and you, Muhammad, need to set an example. I’ve already said you can break your promises; you need to break this one.”
The surah goes on to admonish Muhammad’s wives that if they don’t submit to Allah’s will and approve of Muhammad raping the slave girls they can easily be divorced and replaced with a new set of wives who are “believing, devoutly obedient, repentant, worshipping, and traveling – [ones] previously married and virgins.”
So when Khomeini said he wasn’t bound by his word, he said so with the stamp of Allah’s approval.
It has not yet been confirmed but Ayatollah Ali Khameni is rumored to be dead:
Ding dong!
g6loq:
Yes, I heard he was in critical condition, but the news only appeared in a few outlets. Not sure the news you mention is correct, either.
But if he has died, they’ll just replace him with more of the same. Just as he replaced Khomeini.
It’s amazing how these ayatollahs keep misinterpreting Islam in the exact same wrong way so each one is basically a clone of any other ayatollah.
Why, it’s almost as if their scripture has a clear, consistent meaning!
Mr. Taheri explains the “lead from behind” strategy that Mr. Khomeini adopted.
Is it strange that I read that as:
… the “bullet in the back of the head” strategy …?