Word: khomeini
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...forces at play were beyond American control. The surge of Islamic fundamentalism that carried the Ayatullah Ruhollah Khomeini to power struck a resonant chord with Shi'ite organizations in Lebanon. So did the Iranian mobs that stormed into the American embassy in Tehran and held 52 hostages for 444 days...
Some politicians in the Middle East did think the U.S. should have threatened Ayatullah Khomeini with force. A French intelligence report, based partly on testimony of Hizballah defectors and Iranian opposition members, claimed that every act of terrorism committed by Iranian or pro-Iranian agents during 1986 was personally approved by the Ayatullah...
That same year Amiram Nir posed as an American diplomat at a meeting with an Iranian official. According to a tape recording of their conversation, the Iranian told Nir he should analyze Khomeini's character. "If he is faced with someone who is strong," said the Iranian, "he retreats 100 steps. You were softies with...
...going to launch a military strike against you,' and not only that, you'll do it. You have to show you are strong." There were Americans who felt the same way, but apparently none of them could make a solid case for what the U.S. should do if Khomeini called the bluff...
...circumstances, more than people, made the difference. Hizballah began to run into trouble in 1989. Iran was in terrible straits after eight years of war with Iraq. The fiercely anti-American Khomeini died and his successor, President Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, decided it was necessary to cool revolutionary rhetoric in order to woo desperately needed trade and investment from the West. The slow shift in Iran toward more pragmatic policies to end the country's pariah status was the biggest single reason the last U.S. hostages in Lebanon were finally released...