part of the illicit drug passageway between Southwest Asia
and Europe.
In name and in principle, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini was a
religious—not political—leader. He became so extraordinarily
popular and idolized, however, that extraordinary political change
resulted from his spiritual teachings. Historians record that it was
the religious nature of the movement that sets the revolution in
Iran apart from those in America, France, and Russia.
Was the Iranian Revolution a success? Only in part, according
to recent commentators. During the decades leading up to the
revolution, Khomeini dreamed of a nation in which the “pure,” strict
law of Islam would be the basis of government and of all activity.
When he came to power in the Islamic Republic of Iran, however,
he soon found it would not work as envisioned. The Iranian people
languished under government by repression. The people—the force
who had brought the ayatollah to power—could not live under
the type of rule Khomeini had demanded for so long. Substantial
concessions had to be made. Meanwhile, other Islamic countries
looked apprehensively at the effects of Khomeini’s revolution.
Without question, the Iranian government sorely missed its
revered leader. “When he died,” wrote historian Sandra Mackey,
“the Islamic Republic lost its all-important authority figure. In
his absence, his heirs were left to struggle into the second decade
of the revolution bleeding from their own divisions and bearing
the burdens of the ayatollah’s legacy.”^82
Elaine Sciolino, in her 2000 book Persian Mirrors, concluded:I’ve learned that it is impossible to talk about a monolithic
Iranian “regime” any longer; the struggle for the country’s
future is far too intense for that. Today there is no unified
leadership or all-powerful governmental superstructure that
makes and executes all decisions. Rather, power is dispersed
among and even within many competing power centers, with
varying agendas and methods of operation and degrees of
authority. Even as I write, alliances are shifting. Players are
adapting. Coalitions are building.^8388 AYATOLLAH RUHOLLAH KHOMEINI
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