Word: ayatullah
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...Iranian President Ali Khamenei to United Nations Secretary-General Javier Perez de Cuellar, declaring Tehran's willingness to abide by U.N. Resolution 598, the measure calling for a cease-fire in the eight-year-old war between Iran and Iraq. Still, much of the world remained skeptical, aware that Ayatullah Ruhollah Khomeini had personally vowed to continue the fighting "with the last drop of blood in my body." Finally, Khomeini, in an astonishing turnabout, confirmed the unthinkable: Iran would join its hated neighbor in agreeing to lay down arms...
...cease-fire holds, it may mark an end to not only a war but also a crusade. Khomeini had sought to use the conflict to help export his fundamentalist Islamic revolution from non-Arab Iran to the Arab world. The Ayatullah's dramatic about-face must have been all the more painful since it coincided with two anniversaries that are anathema to him. Last week marked the 20th anniversary of the revolt that brought to power Iraq's ruling secular Ba'athist regime, now headed by President Saddam Hussein. Last week was also the beginning of the hajj, the season...
...move confounded the widespread prediction that the hostilities would not cease until he died. In the end, precisely the opposite may prove to be true. His departure is almost certain to open a period of political turmoil in Iran, with prolonged jockeying for position by, among others, Rafsanjani and Ayatullah Hussein Ali Montazeri, Khomeini's designated successor. Iranian leaders may have realized that the old man alone possessed the power to extricate Iran from the war. "It was vital for Khomeini to move now," said a U.S. intelligence analyst. "After his death, there would be nobody with the authority...
Whatever combination of forces was at work, they came to a head on July 16. That evening, according to U.S. intelligence sources, there was a meeting in Tehran of senior political officials, including Montazeri, Rafsanjani, Prime Minister Mir Hussein Mousavi and Ahmed Khomeini, the Ayatullah's eldest son. With Montazeri providing crucial support to Rafsanjani, his rival, the group decided to recommend that the elder Khomeini agree to the cease-fire. The next day they convened again and received what Rafsanjani described as a "historic and important decision of the Imam," presumably similar to the message later read on Iranian...
With the Islamic Republic' s troops stunned by a string of battlefield defeats, the frail Ayatullah Khomeini grudgingly submits to "God' s will." -- Would peace between Iran and Iraq send oil prices skyward once again? -- Contra hard- liners threaten new battles in Nicaragua. -- An album of stark photographs from Ethiopia' s rebellious and famine- plagued province of Eritrea...