NOTE (SANITIZED)

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP88B00443R001203980161-4
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 20, 2016
• Document Release Date: May 29, 2007
• Sequence Number: 161
• Publication Date: November 5, 1982
• Content Type: MEMO

Approved For Release 2007/05/31 : CIA-RDP88B00443R001203980161-4
Approved For Release 2007/05/31 : CIA-RDP88B00443R001203980161-4
STAT
 Approved For Release 2007/05/31 : CIA-RDP88B00443R001203980161-4
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After the ayatollah
The mayhem in Iran could turn into civil war
Things could be worse in Iran, and may well become
so. That may seem a remarkable thing to say after this
autumn's guerrilla outbreaks, which on October 15th
claimed another prominent victim in Ayatollah Ash-
rafu-Isfahani, the central government's proconsul in
western Iran; after the renewed fighting in Kurdistan,
which is said to have cost 300 lives in the past week;
after a year in which some 12,000 people have been
executed for political reasons and another 20,000 have
been jailed in Bastille-like conditions; and after Ayatol-
lah Khomeini has just rejected another appeal to end
the Gulf war, which is modestly reckoned to have cost
more than 50,000 lives.
Yet post-Khomeini Iran is getting nearer, and it
looks like being even blacker than the Iran he has given
Iranians already. The 82-year-old reaper of Iran's
revolutionary whirlwind is now too ill to leave his home
in northern Teheran. The continued resistance by left-
wing Mujaheddin guerrillas in the face of such savage
repression is evidence of the hatred many Iranians now
feel for the ruling mullahs. The few westerners who are
allowed into Iran speak of the hostility of most middle-
class Iranians-and particularly of the chador-swathed
women-for a regime which has deprived them of most
of the good things in life. The country's large shop-
keeper class blames the government for the empty
pockets of its customers. The urban working class is no
supporter of a regime' which has brought half of
industry to a standstill. That leaves the mullahs with
little more than the backing of illiterate ex-peasants
who trekked to the cities in search of jobs during the
Shah's industrial revolution, and who are now subsi-
dised to act as Ayatollah Khomeini's sans-culottes.
Revolutionary terror and the support of a mob will
probably not be enough to keep the mullahs in power
when Ayatollah Khomeini dies. The spiritual authority
of Iran's leader derives from his prestige as one of the
country's five "grand ayatollahs". His chosen succes-
sor, Ayatollah Montazeri, does not belong to this
charmed circle. The other grand ayatollahs are elderly
traditionalists who have long grumbled about Ayatol-
lah Khomeini and want to stay above politics.
Ayatollah Montazeri and his followers, on the other
hand, want to stay in the political kitchen-and reach
for the red-pepper pot. These left-wing clerics wish to
expropriate medium-sized farms and to nationalise
much of industry and trade. They favour closer eco-
nomic links with the Soviet Union. Some argue that
Marx and Lenin were heirs of the message of equality
preached in the Koran; even that Allah is the same as
the people.
The crack between conservatives and radicals now
opening at the top of the mullah hierarchy could fissure
all the way down Iranian society. The opposition
THE ECONOMIST OCTOBER 23, 1982
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Mujaheddin could split too, between those who want to
get the clergy out of politics at all costs and those who
support the collectivist ideas of Ayatollah Montazeri.
Iran's pro-Soviet Communist party, the Tudeh, is
already a camp-follower of the left-wing mullahs. The
party is small, but its supporters have burrowed their
way into senior jobs in many Iranian ministries.
On the other side of the Iranian political divide, the
hope of the Iranian middle classes is the army. The
soldiers would make powerful allies for those elderly
ayatollahs who want to return to the prayer mats.
Iranian officers today make little secret of their con-
tempt for the preachers who want to stay on as their
political masters. The generals have regained their self-
respect in the war against Iraq. So long as the war
continues, the soldiers seem unlikely to turn their
attention to politics. Should the conflict fizzle out, in
exhausted stalemate, the soldiers' hands will be freed"
Into the black hole
The numbers, and fanaticism, on both sides of the post-
Khomeini divide look like a prescription for civil war.
Such a war could draw in outside powers. Russia has
long been musing thoughtfully on Iran's northern
border. At least 1,500 Soviet advisers have percolated
into Iran since the fall of the Shah. The Russians have
up to 24 divisions along the border; it seems unlikely
that they are there to deter an Iranian attack.
If the Russians were to take the admittedly huge risk
of intervening on behalf of the radical mullahs, the
United States would almost certainly have to help their
opponents. The swallowing by Mr Brezhnev of this
country of more than 40m people, which stands be-
tween him and the Gulf, would make the Soviet
occupation of Afghanistan look like an appetiser. The
scene would then be set for yet another proxy war
between the superpowers over the suffering body of a
third-world country.
There is one slender hope that Iran can dodge
between the depressing alternatives of civil war and
collectivist drudgery. The hope is that the army can at
the right moment organise a swift, conclusive coup like
the one which brought the Shah's father to power 60
years ago. That anyone should consider this desirable
shows how far opinion has swung back since the Shah
was forced out in 1979. Many western-educated ideal-
ists in Iran-ranging from the Shah's last prime minis-
ter, Mr Shahpur Bakhtiar, to the ayatollah's first
president, Mr Abolhassan Bani-Sadr-believed that
western-style democracy was possible in Iran. Their
voices have been blown away on the winds of unreason
sweeping the country. The Shah made many mistakes;
his conviction that only a strong government could save
Iran from itself was not one of them.