Word: ayatullah
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
From the U.S. came a warning of military force, from Iran an appeal to mob violence. Such violence broke out from Turkey to India, most seriously in Pakistan, where the first American blood was shed. And by this time Iran's fire-eating Ayatullah Ruhollah Khomeini had become so extreme, so demagogic, so streaked with irrationality that serious diplomats wondered how the breach could be repaired. "This is not a struggle between the United States and Iran," Khomeini declared. "It is a struggle between Islam and the infidels." He repeatedly threatened that the 49 American hostages held in the captured...
...Ayatullah Khomeini's speech, which included an incredible taunt. The President, said Khomeini, "knows that he is beating an empty drum. Carter does not have the guts to engage in a military operation...
When the President heard that, said one aide, "he clenched his teeth so tight that his jaw turned white." The reaction went far beyond personal pique: Carter and his aides took the speech as a sign that the Ayatullah had misread U.S. restraint as an indication that the nation was afraid to take any action. They agreed that he must be disabused of that notion. The President, who was spending Thanksgiving week at Camp David, returned immediately to the White House by helicopter for a late-afternoon meeting with the Special Coordination Committee, which has been meeting twice...
...Soviets concede privately that, in the longer term, the turmoil in Iran has potentially worrisome consequences for the U.S.S.R. Islamic fundamentalism is anathema to Communism, and the Ayatullah is religiously akin to the Muslims of Soviet Central Asia just across the border. On the other hand, the National Security Council last week pondered the possibility that anarchy in Iran could lead to a radical leftist takeover. No doubt the same possibility has occurred to Iran watchers in Moscow. That helps explain the ambiguity of Soviet behavior so far: provocative Farsi-language broadcasts from a Soviet radio station in Baku, combined...
...that a single stroke of paint . . . could restore to man the freedom lost in 20 centuries of apology and devices for subjugation." The Met's catalogue is stuffed with this kind of rant and salted with fulminations against the demons of the "corrupt" art world that make the Ayatullah's views on the Shah seem, by comparison, mere tickling. Nevertheless, Still's notes on the history of abstract expressionism, which sharply contradict some idées reçues of the official version, are largely borne out by the evidence of his paintings. We see, for instance...