Word: ayatullah
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Lebanese Shi'ites soon gained another source of inspiration: the Iranian revolution led by the Ayatullah Ruhollah Khomeini. Moussa Sadr had supported Khomeini during the Ayatullah's long exile in Iraq and later in France. Fouad Ajami, director of Middle East studies at Johns Hopkins University's School of Advanced International Studies, describes the galvanizing effect of the Iranian upheaval in the spring issue of Foreign Affairs. "For the moderate Shia mainstream, this was a chance for the country's largest group to lay claim to its legitimate share of power," he says. "For more marginal and intemperate men, there...
...buffeted by feelings of outrage and concern, tied yellow ribbons to trees and prayed for the hostages' safe return.* Ronald Reagan meanwhile grimly contemplated his severely limited options. He had assumed the presidency vowing to make America "stand tall" after its 444-day humiliation at the hands of the Ayatullah Ruhollah Khomeini and warning terrorists to "be aware that . . . our policy will be one of swift and effective retribution...
...more secure. Despite being a devout Muslim who prays daily and shuns alcohol, he believes in separation of church and state. That puts him at odds with the Shi'ite Party of God, which advocates an Islamic state. Many of his own Amal militiamen carry pictures of Iran's Ayatullah Ruhollah Khomeini on leather thongs around their necks. Says one Washington intelligence source with expertise on the Lebanese Shi'ites: "Berri may be well known and popular among Shi'ites, but if you ask, 'Does he have control?' the answer is no." If Berri were to order the unconditional release...
Unseen, unknown, apparently unstoppable, Islamic Jihad may not even exist. It could be merely a cover name for a loose confederation of Muslim Shi'ite fanatics. Or it may be the code name for a carefully coordinated campaign by Iran's Ayatullah Ruhollah Khomeini. The Iranian government has expressed sympathy for the extremists' goals but denies supplying or controlling them. U.S. National Security Adviser Robert McFarlane insists otherwise. Said he last March: "There is sufficient evidence that radical Shi'ite terrorists are responsive to Iranian guidance for us to hold Iran responsible for attacks against U.S. citizens...
Maybe it is hyperbole to call Mengele the most hated man in the world. There are certainly other candidates for that lamentable title. Pol Pot, for example, who directed the terrible massacres in Kampuchea in the 1970s. Or the Ayatullah Ruhollah Khomeini, who has led Iran back into the darkness. Or the director of the Soviet KGB, who has to be a leading candidate, ex officio, no matter who he is. But none of these political killers seems so utterly diabolical as Josef Mengele. The Nazi death camp at Auschwitz-Birkenau, where about 3 million Jews and other victims were...