WILL TUESDAY BE FATEFUL FOR KHOMEINI?

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000706940056-8
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: U
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: November 13, 2012
• Sequence Number: 56
• Publication Date: May 10, 1986
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Declassified and Approved For Release 2012/11/13: CIA-RDP90-00965R000706940056-8
ARTICLE Pkm_ R_
ON PAGE
WASHINGTON POST
10 May 1986
FILE ONLY
I JACK ANDERSON and DALE VAN ,AM
Will Tuesday Be Fateful for Khomeini?
W ill next Tuesday mark the beginning of the
end for the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini's
Moslem fundamentalist regime? fate
t intelli ence anal is believe ere's at
least a chance that widespread riots throughout
Iran on May 13 could shake the oun don of
Khomeini's tower and eventually lead to his fall.
The date is special because It is just 40 days
after the agonizing death from cancer of Khomeini's
revered rival, the 85-year-old Grand Ayatollah
Shariatmadari. Shiite Moslem tradition dictates
that 40 days after a loved one dies. the death be
commemorated with suitable displays of grief.
In Shariatmadari's case, there is a special reason
for honoring him on the 40th day: Khomeini not
only ensured his rival's death by refusing to let him
seek cancer treatment abroad, but would not grant
permission-for a funeral of proper dignity. Tuesday
would be a suitable occasion for Shariatmadari's
thousands of followers to express their outrage
about the death and the dishonor perpetrated by
Khomeini.
Whether the dead ayatollah's followers can pull
off the demonstrations they are planning is a
question U.S. experts can't answer. When
Shariatmadari died April 3. thousands of Moslem
clergymen and other Iranians swarmed into the
streets of the holy city of Qom and elsewhere.
Khomeini responded to this "mutiny" by the
supposed backbone of his Islamic revolution with
the same ferocity he has shown toward less exalted
opposition groups. Police arrested the mullahs by
the dozen.
It is not clear whether these arrests deprived
Khomeini's opponents of potential leaders to rally
around, as he obviously hoped, or will, on the
contrary, add the incitement of martyrdom to the
widespread public outrage over Shariatmadari.
The day after the old ayatollah died, another
group demonstrated its grief and anger. Roughly
half the bazaars in Tehran shut down in protest.
A combined opposition of mullahs and merchants
could be a powerful engine of destruction, as
Khomeini has every reason to know. It was
precisely this alliance that brought down the shah
and opened the way for Khomeini to seize power.
Another crucial question for Foggy Bottom's
Iran-watchers is whether Shariatmadari, beloved as
he apparently was, can become.the kind of martyr
who will galvanize the fanatical Shiites and other
discontented elements of the Iranian populace.
State Department sources told our associate
Lucette Lagnado it has never been all that clear
that Khomeini had a firm grip on the clergy's
loyalty. Many of them, like Shariatmadari, believe
that exercise of temporal power by a holy man
violates Moslem teachings.
But like others in Iran, the clerics were afraid to
make public their misgivings about Khomeini's
fundamentalist revolution, even though they
considered Khomeini himself a flaming hypocrite,
using religion to serve his own worldly ambitions.
When he was alive, Shariatmadari courageously
spoke out against Khomeini, only to be implicated
by the regime in a coup attempt and forced to make
a humiliating apology on television. It may well be
expecting too much for a dead hero to succeed
where he failed in life.
Declassified and Approved For Release 2012/11/13: CIA-RDP90-00965R000706940056-8