Word: ayatullah
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...reminiscent of the destruction of the U.S. embassy in West Beirut last April that killed 63 people, including 17 Americans. One of the groups claiming responsibility for that action was the Islamic Jihad Organization, an obscure pro-Iranian group made up of Shi'ite Muslims loyal to Iran's Ayatullah Ruhollah Khomeini. On Sunday evening the State Department received an unconfirmed report that a faction calling itself the Islamic Revolutionary Movement had taken responsibility for the terrorist attacks. An unidentified caller had apparently phoned the Beirut office of the French news service Agence France-Presse to say that...
...government of Ayatullah Ruhollah Khomeini left no doubt of how it views the new development. "The Persian Gulfs jugular vein is in our hands," declared Iranian state radio. "Should an attempt be made to use the planes to damage Iran's vital resources, Iran would turn the Strait of Hormuz into a quagmire for the West's imperial objectives." Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, Speaker of the Iranian parliament, put it more chillingly. If Tehran bottles up the gulf, he warned, "the West will have a very cold winter...
...hours later, the Iranian air force dispatched American-made F-4 Phantom fighter-bombers to blast the ruins. The fire and the fury represented a new American tragedy-the inability of the U.S. to extricate 53 American hostages held by Iranian militants and the unstable, faction-torn government of Ayatullah Ruhollah Khomeini. In a startlingly bold but tragic gamble, President Jimmy Carter had ordered a courageous, specially trained team of American military commandos to try to pluck the hostages out of the heavily guarded U.S. embassy in Tehran. The supersecret operation failed dismally. It ended in the desert staging site...
...private arms dealers you describe in your story "Arms for the Ayatullah" [July 25] are frightening individuals who earn their wealth by selling death. Even more despicable are nations like South Korea and Israel that resell arms ostensibly bought for their own defense. For our "allies" to turn around and sell those weapons to Iran, where we have banned such sales, is shocking...
There are other consequences. If the whole world is like me, then certain conflicts become incomprehensible; the very notion of intractability becomes paradoxical. When the U.S. embassy in Tehran is taken over, Americans are bewildered. What does the Ayatullah want? The U.S. Government sends envoys to find out what token or signal or symbolic gesture might satisfy Iran. It is impossible to believe that the Ayatullah wants exactly what he says he wants: the head of the Shah. Things are not done that way any more in the West (even the Soviet bloc has now taken to pensioning off deposed...