Guests of the Ayatollah

On November 4, 1979, a group of radical Islamic students stormed the U.S. Embassy in Tehran, Iran. Inspired by the revolutionary Iranian leader Ayatollah Khomeini, their original plan was to hold a three day protest of the American decision to allow exiled Iranian leader Shah Mohammed Reza to enter the U.S. to seek medical treatment. The hope of something small and peaceful turned into something much more severe and dangerous when the students took all of the sixty-six people inside the Embassy hostage, and kept most of them for 444 days.  After the Shah died the hostages were released, the date was January 20, 1981, which happened to coincide with Ronald Reagan’s inauguration as president of the United States. Coincidence? Hmmmmmm…

Ruhollah Mousavi was born in 1901 or 1902 (this will depend on where you are getting your information from) in the town of Khomeyn. He was a very serious, unpleasant, unjoyous man who once told Time Magazine, “There is no room to play in Islam. It is deadly serious about everything.” And it was with this fervor that he threw himself into his studies of Islamic theology, eventually reaching the rank of Ayatollah, a religious title for advanced scholars that carries no political significance.

In 1962 the Shah passed a bill that allowed officials in the country to take their oath to office with their hand on whatever Holy scripture they preferred. Although this might sound like a trivial, insignificant issue to some, the bill offended Khomeini and other Islamic fundamentalists who viewed the Koran as the only appropriate book on which to swear by. It was then that the Ayatollah started making trouble throughout Iran.

The Ayatollah was exiled but that did not stop him. He began a vicious campaign against the Shah. He didn’t keep his attacks to the Shah’s religious views, he also accused the Shah of pro-Israeli and pro-U.S. sympathies which further inflamed his followers and further destroyed the Shah’s image. Eventually the Shah was forced to flee into U.S. protection and Khomeini seized power.

Khomeini instituted a strict regime of Islamic Law, ordering women to wear veils and suspending the criminal justice system in favor of religious courts. He did put a democratic apparatus into place, but this was obviously for appearances only.

And thus arrived November 4, 1979, the day known as the beginning of the Iran Hostage Crisis. 444 days later, the hostages are released, the US has a new president, and someone is going to pay for this injustice committed against innocent people. What do the Americans, led by former actor Ronald Reagan do? They arm Saddam Hussein with conventional, chemical and biological weapons so that he can fight their enemy. Muaaaa haaaa haaaaa. It was a brilliant plan. What could go wrong? Khomeini was the enemy, Hussein hated Khomeini, Hussein was willing to fight Khomeini with his U.S. sponsored weapons, everyone was happy. So, in 1980, Iraq invaded Iran. The war was long and tiring and deflated the economies and resources of both countries. The Soviets, who had no particular vested interest in this conflict, (but much like the United States they seem to enjoy going to war) sided with Iran.

Finally, in 1988, the U.N. was able to lead a peace agreement between both nations and the war ended. Now the Ayatollah had grown into an evil villain master-mind who actively supported international terrorism. What was the next trick up the Ayatollah’s sleeve? He decided to issue a fatwa (religious edict) calling on Muslims to kill Salman Rushdie for writing his surreal and magnificent FICTION novel ”The Satanic Verses”.

“The author of The Satanic Verses book, which is against Islam, the Prophet and the Koran, and all those involved in its publication who were aware of its content, are sentenced to death. I ask all Muslims to execute them wherever they find them.”

The proclamation was horrifically inconsistant with any intelligent, reasonable interpretation of Islamic Law and it essentially ruined Rushdie’s life. Khomeini had just secured his position as the devil-incarnate du jour. For years he continued to manipulate and distort the concept of the fatwa. (A trend later used by Osama Bin Laden, who also issued religious edicts to give the force of Islamic morality to his politically motivated attacks on the United States.)  But, sadly for Khomeini, and gladly for millions around the world, a few months after sentencing Rushdie to death, the Ayatollah died of prostate cancer in June 1989.

Conclusion (A message to all wannabe Evil Mad-Men): If you are a hideous human being that kills, tortures and abuses other people and/or situations for your own benefit, the U.S. forces will not kill you. So, don’t worry… I cite as examples: Bin Laden, Castro, Hitler, Kim Jong-Il, Bush, and The Ayatollah himself. In the end you should worry more about genetics, because Cancer might kill you before G.I. Joe does.