Ideological Divergence
While all four ideologies converge on seven points, they diverge on three issues, namely the role of religion, the distribution of wealth and property, and the nature of utopia. On the first point, communism is atheistic, and fascist ideologues tolerated Christianity out of political necessity. In Islamism and Shia revivalism, religion defines legal and social norms across all aspects of life. For example, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad accorded the Twelfth Imam a special place during his weekly cabinet briefings.
Another point of divergence is the distribution of wealth and property. Communism advocates an equal distribution of wealth and the abolition of private property. Fascism and Islamism do not make that requirement. Shia revivalism appeals to aid the poor but does not require that the means of production be placed in the hands of capital producers. As Fredrick Kagan has remarked, “The Islamic Republic’s ideology has virtually no significant economic component. It is an amalgam of anti-colonialism. . .anti-Zionism, Persian nationalism, and adherence to an idiosyncratic form of political Shiism.”
Finally, the ideologies diverge in their conception of utopia. While all four are utopian, their images of heaven differ markedly. Fascism viewed utopia through the lens of racial and national power and purity. Both Islamic ideologies have found utopia in the first generation of Muslims, as recounted in the sacred Islamic script.
Khomeinism and a New Golden Age of Islam
What finally emerged in 1979 was a revolutionary political and religious philosophy that fused Islamism with Shia revivalism and elements of fascism and socialism. Known as Khomeinism, it echoes Qutb’s view that today’s world is one of ideological darkness and Shariati’s rebuke of materialism. Khomeini was an aggressive rebel within a mostly quietist clergy who became an autocrat in 1979. When he came to power, his countrymen likened him to the prophet Abraham, who “smashed idols, was willing to sacrifice his son, and rose against tyrants.” Once in command of Iran, he crafted religious practices to create a “New Golden Age” of Islam. Like Islamism, Khomeinism is political Islam. Khomeini lectured that Islamic governance is the only valid system of rule, as outlined in the Koran and the canonized history of Mohammed. He wrote, “An Islamic government is based on the laws and regulations of Islam and can, therefore, be defined as the rule of divine will over humanity.”
At the heart of Khomeinism is the concept of velayat-e faqih, or Islamic rule under the guardianship of jurists. Although anticommunist, Khomeini promoted the redistribution of wealth under the slogans “Islam is for equality and social justice” and “Islam will eliminate class differences.” He also held that leaders are duty-bound to provide employment for workers, farmers, and laborers. However, workers' right to strike can be circumscribed by jurists.
When he came to power, Khomeini seized private funds and placed them in the hands of bonyads, vast charities under religious leadership, which will be discussed in chapter 8. Many of these organizations are controlled by the Guards. Many care for the indigent and the war-wounded. Constitutionally, the bonyads stand above the law and are answerable only to the supreme leader. In Khomeinism, the clergy rule by divine revelation. According to Shia Islam, Mohammad vested the duty and responsibility of guiding and leading the community in the clergy. The purpose of the state is to implement Islamic law. Khomeini, like other believing Muslims, held that all scriptures are free of error because they are the exact word of God. At the same time, Khomeini did not believe that Muslims could go directly to the text to understand scripture, as many Protestants think they can bypass a church hierarchy. Khomeinism is a theocratic autocracy.
While Khomeinism contains elements sympathetic to fascism, it differs from Italian or German fascism on issues of race and religion. Khomeinism demands conformity and obedience to authority. It views democracy as weak and arrogant. Like fascist societies, Khomeinism upholds an inflexible leadership principle. Finally, Khomeinism includes elements of Shia revivalism. Both despise all religions and ideologies that diverge from Shia fundamentalism. Khomeini declared that every non-Shia system was a form of idolatry.
The presence of these ideological strands within Khomeinism explains why U.S. policymakers initially struggled to assess Khomeini. Years later, observers of Iran recalled that “few U.S. policymakers knew much about him other than that he was.” Because Westerners could not understand Khomeini, they could not adequately grasp the collective mindset of the Guards.
From Khomeini to Khamenei
Khomeini’s legacy, revolutionary zeal, and philosophy were passed to his successor, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Born in 1939 into a poor, religious family of eight siblings, three of whom became clerics, Khamenei recalls in his autobiography that he loathed the shah and the British and was inspired by the radical Islamist Navvab Safavi, who was later killed by the shah’s security forces after speaking at Khamenei’s school. He studied in Qom, sometimes spelled Qum, from 1958 to 1964 under Ruhollah Khomeini. Few were surprised when he assumed the mantle of national leadership after Khomeini's death. Fewer still were surprised when he bolstered the strength of the Guards. Khamenei’s view of leadership is sometimes referred to as principlism, an umbrella term used by Iranian leaders to encompass various forms of religious conservatism. In summer 2018, a Guards-affiliated journal encapsulated principlism as “an anti-hegemony, anti-aristocracy and pro-dispossessed revolution. Whoever embarks on this path will have the revolutionaries behind him.” For revolutionaries, the author could have substituted Guards.
Subsequent chapters will examine how the Guards seek to protect Khomeini’s revolution at home, or principlism, and to export it worldwide. Former IRGC commander Major General Jafari claimed that Khomeinism is solid in Iran and that “we are on the path that leads to the rule of Islam worldwide.” Jafari promised to use the Guards to “shape the picture of the Islamic world.” Jafari’s successor, Major General Salami, has openly shared this vision of transforming Iran into a global player.
Summary
Iran has a multi-religious and imperial past. Its fortunes faded after being conquered by Alexander and then the Arabs. But Iranians held fast to their language and built a literature of poems and songs that they still adore. The short-lived Pahlevi dynasty tried to modernize Iran but alienated religious leaders and civil society. The shah tried, too late, to appease both liberal and radical opponents and to lessen the incendiary atmosphere. In the early days of the revolution, some reformers were optimistic. Abbas Milani, a former political prisoner, recalls his release from Evin prison: “The gate opened, and with a strange sense of hesitation and exhilaration, I walked to freedom.”
Within a few years, the new regime vaporized civil freedoms. Gone was the salon set’s chirpy romanticism of ancient Persia and the love sonnets of its poets. Great works of the Western canon were pulped or burned to ashes by the Basij. By the mid-1980s, they were read only in secret, if at all. What remained was the mullahs' primitive religious architecture.
In 1944, George Orwell ventured, “Of all the unanswered questions of our time, perhaps the most important is: ‘What is Fascism?’” Thirty-five years later, people would ask, “What is Khomeinism?” There was no quick answer. The question bedeviled successive generations of Iranians and Iran watchers because Khomeinism changed the world. Islamism, communism, fascism, and Shia revivalism overlapped in some respects, and elements of each found their way into Khomeinism. However it is defined, Khomeinism struck the world like lightning. The shock troops of the Revolution were the Guards, who suppressed dissent at home and advanced the mullahs' influence throughout the greater Middle East.
