Word: khomeini
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...Washington, the Administration was guarded in welcoming Khomeini's statement that there would be visits. But the announcement contributed to a feeling that the crisis might be solved through diplomacy after all. The President's spirits seemed greatly improved. Confidants noted that he had more color in his cheeks, a lift in his step and smiled more often. One reason, no doubt, was the swelling American support for him: a Gallup poll showed that because of his handling of the Iranian crisis, he was leading Ted Kennedy among Democrats for the first time...
...Khomeini regime falls, it is quite possible that the Iranian left will come to power because of the virtual disintegration of all political forces in the mod erate center. Of the three major leftist parties, the Fedayan and Tudeh believe in Marxism and the Mujahedin in Islamic socialism, a variant that provides for a belief in God. Only the Communist Tudeh Party appears to be closely associated with the Soviet Union. All three parties are hostile to the West...
...Mujahedin is the more moderate of the two parties. It practices the same religion as Khomeini, but it differs in wanting to establish a classless society, or "pure Shi'ism." The party boycotted the referendum on the theocratic constitution, and it refused to surrender the arsenal it had built up during its long struggle against the Shah. Persecuted by Khomeini forces, the Mujahedin nevertheless feel they are spiritually akin. Says a party leader: "The struggle is between two kinds of Islam, two kinds of Shi'ism, not them...
...Fedayan, on the other hand, are a hard-line secular group with no ties of any kind to Khomeini. They were the first political group to stage marches against the government after the fall of the Shah. They sent thousands of guerrillas to fight against Khomeini's forces in Kurdistan, thereby demonstrating a capacity to put an army into the field. But they did not take part in the recent rebellion against the constitution in Tabriz. Explains a Fedayan leader: "We do not join any movement simply because it is opposed to the government. For us, what matters...
Unlike the Fedayan and Mujahedin, the Communist Tudeh Party operates openly in Iran despite its firm ties to the Soviet Union. It has cheerfully supported the establishment of a rigid Islamic state in Iran. Says Tudeh Leader Noureddin Kianuri: "Our party's objectives are identical with those of Khomeini: the eradication of all forms of imperialism, particularly from America...