Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, August 1989, Page 9

Iran After Khomeini

U.S. Played Key Role In Khomeini Rise

By Jerry Levin

We in the West would be best advised not to view the extraordinary events at the funeral of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini with our too often characteristic condescension. Although the wild and frenzied outpouring of grief may have seemed to be an exotic, fanatic, and somewhat amusing propagandistic display staged for the press, it was a genuine expression of a deeply felt veneration and adoration for the man who freed Iran from what his traditionally deeply and conservatively religious followers perceived as Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi's self-centered and too worldly yoke.

Khomeini's successors-whatever their true international leanings might be-were wise not to interfere in this traditional grieving procedure. The feeling exhibited at the funeral are likely to motivate them to lead the nation for some time to come generally along the anti-Western course he set. A premature turn toward "moderation" in this regard could easily turn the public passions exhibited at the funeral against them.

Besides being an adroit political firebrand as well as a spiritual spellbinder, Khomeini was also a creative and uniquely innovative leader. It is those last two qualities that made him a figure of international consequence. After his accession to power, he was able quickly to harness his liberated people's pent up rage over brutal civil repressions and their frustrated spiritual fervor. They were easily persuaded to use their energy to foster his new political movement-theocratic Islamic republicanism-which, according to some specialists, has been the only genuinely new political form and forcer born in this century.

Khomeini's goal was to build a spiritually purer and therefore politically and socially purer Iran, and spread this "purity" throughout the Middle East and the whole Islamic world. Of course, in the realm of ideology, what is purity to some is poison to others. So the ayatollah's use of violence and brutal repression (similar to the shah's) to maintain internal control, and his use of a variety of forms of disruptive terror (uniquely his own) to settle scores abroad and to advance his revolutions elsewhere, has put much of the world, including his Arab neighbors, on the defensive.

Many in the West, particularly in the United States, have characterized the hatred for us expressed by Khomeini and his followers as baseless fanaticism. The United States, however, bears much responsibility for this hatred. In the name of national interest, the Eisenhower administration, through the CIA, actively supported the overthrow in 1953 of the short-lived nationalist regime of Mohammad Mosaddeq after his peaceful, secular revolution had earlier nationalized the Iranian oil industry.

After the shah was persuaded by the US to return from exile in Rome, he deliberately set out to modernize his nation in the Western image. That image, however, was quite alien to millions of his citizens. In effect, he rubbed salt into the wounds of his own people. Opposition leafers such as Khomeini never forgot or forgave either the shah or his mentor, the United States.

Perhaps the ayatollah might have ultimately been forgiving if, shortly after Khomeini's triumphant return to Iran, President Carter had not been persuaded to admit the once again exiled, but this time dying, shah to the US for medical treatment. Although the president's grounds were "humanitarian," the gesture indicated to the Iranians that there was no American sympathy for, or even worse, no comprehension of the reasons for their revolution and the part the US had played in necessitating it. The US seemed to lack any "humanitarian" concern for the tens of thousands of Iranians who had suffered political repression including imprisonment, torture and death under the shah.

Nevertheless, the violent manner in which Iran under the ayatollah vented its rage on the "Great Satan" was neither appropriate morally, nor effective politically. Khomeini may have gotten revenge, but that has not won his cause any lasting victories abroad or brought spiritual, social, political, or economic tranquility to his nation.

If those of us who have been objects of the violent rage of the ayatollah and his followers are ever going to be able to deal with that rage in a mutually beneficial way (the only ethically decent goal), then it is important to understand the mistakes we have made in order not to make them again.

Can we expect Khomeini's successors to embrace the US now that he is gone? With the historic wounds so deep on both sides, will it be politically expedient for either the Iranians or the US to rise above mutual hostility by acknowledging with regret the other's offenses, and then try to build reassuring bridges from there? Probably not anytime soon, if present attitudes continue among Iran's Islamic revolutionaries.

Moderation in the Iranian revolution can only be relative. So-called moderates, such as the ones Oliver North and Robert McFarlane dealt with during Iran-contradays, are in reality close to Khomeini in their fundamentalist extremism. They still find America bashing a potent political tool. With Americans still being held hostage by Iranian-backed Lebanese terrorists, President Bush would find it difficult to move toward a reconciliation that was not preceded by their release.

With Khomeini gone, and a new president in the White House, the time ought to be ripe for peace between us. There will be such peace, however, only when both sides begin to sharpen the tools of reconciliation that they have left rusting for too long.

Jerry Levin was a CNN correspondent in Beirut when he was kidnapped in 1984 and held for nearly a year chained to a wall in solitary confinement.