Word: khomeini
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Khamenei, who smiles about as often as did his dour predecessor, Ayatullah Ruhollah Khomeini, had appealed for a big turnout. It may be days before anyone knows the exact tallies from elections that Khamenei, despite his upbeat words, knows alienated many Iranians, young and old. But whatever the precise totals, the results are likely to hand Khamenei's conservative political allies a healthy majority in the 290-seat Majlis, dealing a devastating blow to reformists who swept into the assembly four years ago trumpeting an era of democratic change...
...religion or politics, but if you want to get a real fight going, talk about your diet. The low-fat vs. low-carb battle got ugly last week, with both sides arguing over how hefty a corpse Dr. Robert Atkins left behind. Not since the death of Ayatullah Khomeini have people fought so much over a dead body. From the moment Atkins died from head injuries after slipping on a patch of ice in Manhattan last April at age 72, the low-fat fanatics have been trying to prove the low-carb guru had been on a diet to disaster...
...unspoken argument for hand-picking Iraqis is Washington's paranoia that in free elections, Iranian-backed fundamentalists will dominate the Shiites, and as 60% of the population, the Shiites will dominate Iraq. The Bush Administration fears they will replace Saddam with Khomeini. But Grand Ayatullah Ali Sistani is the top Shiite cleric in Iraq and he opposes theocractic rule. Rather than leading chants of "Death to America," he's been working quietly to help restore order. But the moderates will lose if America is seen to be marginalizing the Shiites. They win if the Shiites see that America is helping...
...tumult in Tehran's streets suggests that the country's youth will not be quieted for long. More than 60% of Iran's 70 million people are under the age of 30. The oldest were just starting school when the Shah was toppled by Ayatullah Ruhollah Khomeini in 1979. Their fathers and uncles were sacrificed to Iraqi missiles and mines in the eight-year Iran-Iraq war, which claimed more than 300,000 Iranian lives. They have inherited bitter memories and unrelenting strictures, and now the boys want girlfriends with whom they can hold hands and socialize freely...
...Iraq is not destined to become an Islamic Republic like Iran. Iraq has no charismatic figure like Ayatullah Khomeini. The late Iranian ruler actually rose to fame on the back of a nationalist revolution and then cemented his authoritarian power through a Shiite doctrine called velayat-e fagih, or rule of the Islamic clergy. The doctrine is not widely accepted by Iraqi Shiites, including their most revered leader, Grand Ayatullah Ali Sistani, who favors the traditional "quietist" role of the clergy in politics...