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hezbollahi
s (partisans of God) viciously
attacked MEK members at their meeting sites and made a practice of
harassing any other perceived opponents of Islamic rule. The
hezbol-
lahi
s hounded Iran’s religious minorities as well, especially Baha’is,
whose entire leadership was arrested and presumably executed in secret.
Although the new constitution recognized Iran’s Christian, Jewish, and
Zoroastrian communities, even guaranteeing them seats in parliament,
Baha’is were excluded as an “illegal political faction”—a status they
still retain.
One of Ayatollah Khomeini’s stated aims was to export Iran’s Islamic
revolution, starting with countries that had large Shi‘ite populations. In
accordance with this policy Iran lent its support to the Hizbullah (Party
of God) movement in southern Lebanon, which had been formed out
of existing Shi‘ite militias in response to Israel’s 1982 invasion of that
war-torn country. Close relations with the Lebanese Hizbullah over
the subsequent decades would become a principal reason for the US
government to classify Iran as a state sponsor of terrorism.
Another obvious target for Shi‘ite revolution was Iraq, the country
where Khomeini had spent most of his fourteen-year exile. In response
to this threat, and employing the pretext of a long-standing border
dispute, Iraqi president Saddam Hussein ordered the invasion of Iran
on September 22, 1980. He clearly hoped to take advantage of Iran’s
internal problems, but the Iraqi invasion only served to strengthen the
Iranian regime, galvanizing public support and providing justification
for the merciless suppression of internal opposition. Apart from the
regular army and the Revolutionary Guards, many young men and
boys joined (or were forced to join) a volunteer fighting force called the
Basij that would go on to thrive as a pro-government paramilitary force
after the war.
The now underground MEK, meanwhile, saw the Iraq conflict as
an opportunity to attack the Iranian regime from within. During the
I r a n i n Wo r l d H i s t o r y
114
summer of 1981 they staged a series of bombings in which dozens of
senior Iranian political figures were killed, including the president, the
prime minister, and the chief justice. Khomeini’s future successor as
Supreme Leader, Ali Khamene’i, was also wounded in one of these at-
tacks. The government responded by clamping down even harder on
suspected MEK members, executing hundreds.
Throughout the eight-year war with Iraq, ordinary Iranians were
subjected to extreme hardships. A generation of young men were sent
to the war front, where more than six hundred thousand were killed
and many more seriously wounded. Food staples were rationed, and
many in Tehran and other cities lived under the daily threat of bom-
bardments and blackouts.
In 1986, the Iran-Contra Affair erupted, resulting in a scandal that
embarrassed both the US and Iranian governments. It was discovered
that the two had been engaged in secret negotiations in which the United
States agreed sell arms to Iran in violation of its own self-imposed
embargo. In return, Iran would help free American hostages being
held in Lebanon. The Reagan administration planned to use money
received from Iran to covertly fund anti-government rebels in socialist
Nicaragua, an act the US Congress had forbidden. Public outrage at
these illegal goings-on erupted in both Iran and the United States, but
the government culprits on both sides eventually emerged unscathed.
In the wake of this fiasco, the United States began more openly to
support Iraq in its war against Iran, providing military intelligence and
putting American flags on Kuwaiti oil tankers that were supplying Iraq
to discourage Iran from attacking them. The MEK, now based in Iraq
and collaborating with Saddam’s regime, attempted to invade western
Iran but were halted by Iranian forces. Most Iranians, regardless of
their views concerning their own government, have seen the MEK as
traitors ever since.
The Iran-Iraq war was finally concluded in 1988 without any per-
manent gains on either side, and Khomeini died the following year.
Shortly before Khomeini’s death, his anticipated successor Ayatollah
Hossein Ali Montazeri distanced himself from the Supreme Leader by
pointing out the government’s record of political arrests and execu-
tions: “The denial of people’s rights, injustice and disregard for the
revolution’s true values have delivered the most severe blows against
the revolution. Before any reconstruction, there must first be a political
and ideological reconstruction.”
3
An outraged Khomeini responded by
quickly ousting Montazeri and appointing Ayatollah Ali Khamene’i as
his next-in-line.
Th e I s l a m ic R e p u b l ic o f I r a n
115
Another of Khomeini’s significant final gestures was to issue a
fatwa
(a formal legal opinion) to the effect that British writer Salman
Rushdie, born a Muslim in British India, had apostatized from Islam—a
ruling based on the allegedly blasphemous nature of Rushdie’s book
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