[Darksheare]

“No, Khomeini hijacked the Iranian Revolution.”

That is the most laughable thing I’ve heard yet.
The “student revolt” was in order to bring that madman back into Iran.
And Jimmuh toppled the Shah.
Those are facts.
And there was a bloodbath after.

“During the six weeks, I left March 31, 1979, Khomeini was killing off the opposition”

But there’s no competition, right?
That sort of thing just doesn’t happen.
Riiiight.

[kabar]

LOL. You don't have a clue. I was there living it every day in the run up to Revolution and afterwards. There was a broad-based coalition that overthrew the Shah. It consisted of the so-called Bazaaries, the mullahs, the students, nationalists, and expat Iranians living in exile abroad. Each had their own reasons for wanting to topple the Shah.

Except for the mullahs, no one wanted a theocratic state. During the Shah's reign you could buy Playboy at the newsstands, drink alcohol, and women could dress in a Western style, which most in Tehran did. There was an Israeli trade mission in Tehran. There were over 70,000 private sector Americans living and working there. We had over 1,000 people attached to our Embassy, consulates, and military facilities. It all changed overnight.

Anyone who knows anything about the Iranian Revolution understands how Khomeini hijacked the Revolution. I know firsthand what happened based on the communications between our Embassy and Washington. I have no idea what your source of information is, but it is bogus. Robin Wright has probably written the most accurate account of what happened along with Amb Bill Sullivan's and John Limbert's (hostage) books.

But there’s no competition, right? That sort of thing just doesn’t happen. Riiiight.

How dense are you? The "competition" was between the mulllahs and the other elements of the coalition, many of them secular. It was a power struggle. The mullahs won.

Robin Wright wrote: "For the first presidential election in January 1980, a full year after the revolution, Ayatollah Khomeini decreed that no clerics could run for president -- further proof that he still didn't intend to establish a total theocracy. Over the next 18 months, however, Iran was wracked by bloodshed as the ruling clergy and their adjutants gradually eliminated former partners -- leftists, nationalists and intellectuals--from any claim to power."

Iran became fully Islamist in October 1981, when the cleric Ali Khamanei won the third presidential election -- the first election in which clerics were allowed to run. "As of October 1981," Wright wrote, "the mullahs were no longer only the supervisors and shadows of the state. They now dominated all its branches."