Word: khomeini
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...World countries, has prompted Harvard to opt for more temporary programs. The Nicaraguan Business School, built in 1962, turned into a hospital for several months during the early part of the revolution. The Iranian business school, opened in 1972, closed in June 1980 by the decree of the Ayatollah Khomeini. These incidents make two-week seminars seem more appealing...
There are other signs that the Soviets are aiming for a comeback in the Middle East. Having failed to win influence with the Iranian government of Ayatullah Ruhollah Khomeini, Moscow is now strongly backing Iraq, which unlike Iran is Arab, in the 2½-year-old Iran-Iraq war. Egypt, which all but severed diplomatic ties with the Soviet Union in 1981, is on the verge of exchanging ambassadors with Moscow once again. There are even reports that Saudi Arabia's King Fahd has sent a letter to Soviet Leader Yuri Andropov pleading for Soviet help in resolving...
...course, however, Khomeini indulged the Soviets only as long as they were of use to him. Last autumn, despairing of his two-year campaign to obtain major sophisticated weapons systems from Moscow and to halt Soviet arms shipments to the Iraqis, Khomeini began tightening the screws on the Tudeh Party, at first through restrictions in their publications, later through sporadic arrests. Finally, about six months ago, some 25 Communist leaders were casually arrested...
...purge against the Communist Party and Soviet diplomats is further evidence of the paranoia that afflicts the Khomeini regime. Ardeshir Asgari, a defected Islamic Guard now living in Spain, maintains that Iran is haunted by internecine savagery and ubiquitous suspicion. The mullahs, he notes, "encourage officers to spy on one another," while forming special squads to eliminate officials suspected of harboring anti-Khomeini sympathies. Moreover, says Asgari, the Khomeini regime is terrified of the Mujahedin guerrillas. Often, he reports, his colleagues would gun down suspected dissidents in the streets, only to discover too late that they were unarmed and apolitical...
...drawn-out war against Iraq has clearly helped the regime to deflect attention from much of its internal strife. The offensive occupies an army that could otherwise become dangerously restless, while allowing Khomeini through assassinations and contrived battlefield accidents to get rid of certain "undesirables." Says Mansouri: "Khomeini is the time bomb the Shah bequeathed to Iran when he fled." It is a lesson even the Soviets have had to learn the hard way. -By Pico Iyer. Reported by Raji Samghabadi/New York