establishment. He was not a primary political target, for he
claimed no political title.
Indeed, he did not need one. As the supreme ayatollah, he was
established in iron control of the country. Presidents and prime
ministers of the new republic rapidly would come and go, just
as they did in other countries rocked by revolution. Khomeini,
on the other hand, would remain entrenched and removed from
the political turmoil going on beneath him. He largely determined
who would have key roles in government, including military
commanders and judges. In many instances, he later gave his
blessings to their opponents when he felt it was time for them to
be replaced.
To the ulema, the objective all along had been an Islamic
republic. Naturally, they felt they should be at the heart of power.
Many young people, on the other hand, wanted a socialist
state—Islamic in religion, but not primarily Islamic in operation.
Others, meanwhile, favored a more liberal, Western-style system,
one which was neither aligned with the United States nor
controlled by the ulema.
While different groups theorized and opined, religious leaders
set up a form of secret government. Courts sentenced members
and supporters of the old regime to be executed—at least six
hundred. The exiled shah himself was proclaimed a fugitive, to
be put to death if he returned to the country.
Special targets of the early purge by revolutionaries were
SAVAK agents. SAVAK, the shah’s notorious security force
organized in the aftermath of the 1950s Mosaddiq affair,
was created specifically to sniff out and deal with conspirators
against the government. It secretly probed opposition groups,
notably Mosaddiq’s National Front and the communistic
Tudeh Party. Few were exempt from SAVAK scrutiny, however.
Its agents even infiltrated Iranian radical organizations in
foreign countries. It paid thousands of informers to spy on the
activities and sentiments of the people around them. Anyone
arrested by SAVAK was in dire jeopardy. Interrogators often
used torture.58 AYATOLLAH RUHOLLAH KHOMEINI
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