T
he Pahlavis, father and son, dreamed of a return to grandeur
for their country, harking back to the magnificence of ancient
Persia. By the beginning of the twenty-first century, they hoped,
it would be a model for the rest of the Middle East to follow.
They even envisioned it as a world power.
What emerged instead is a nation that is neither a world
power nor a model for the region. It little resembles the Persia
of bygone splendor. In fact, some of its archaeological treasures
were destroyed in the revolutionaries’ zeal to forget the age of
the dynasties.
But what of Ayatollah Khomeini’s dream—the dream of a
genuine Islamic state? It was Khomeini’s dream that doomed
the vision of the Pahlavis.
Iran’s Council of Experts named Hojjatoleslam Ali Kahmanei
to be valayate-faqih, Khomeini’s successor in power and the
ultimate leader of Iranian affairs. The valayate-faqihis appointed
for life and has veto power over the decisions of the president
and the Majlis. Kahmanei was president of Iran at the time of
the ayatollah’s death. The man originally selected to succeed
Khomeini, Ayatollah Husein Ali Montazeri, had been dismissed
shortly before Khomeini’s death because he had expressed dis-
agreements with the revolutionary regime. Hashemi Rafsanjani,
speaker of the Majlis, became the new president.
The lifelong mission of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini had
been accomplished. The ulema, the men he insisted were best
qualified to lead a government, were Iran’s leaders. Historian
Sandra Mackey wrote:In the most secular of ages he had raised the power of religion
to assert Iran’s Islamic identity. To a whole generation
empowered by his revolutionary government, Khomeini had
affirmed Islam as a way of life and had established the faith as
a means of governing a modern society. For a people haunted
by alien invasions, he had delivered the conviction that only
through religion can Muslims end the humiliation and
exploitation of their societies by the West.^6682 AYATOLLAH RUHOLLAH KHOMEINI
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