3
3
2
Carter's hands were tied by his own obsessions. He wanted them out alive, not dead, even if it meant the downfall of his presidency. Also, Carter did not want a war in Middle East. In that respect, he was very accurate. I remember the huge songs in Tehran saying they are not stronger than before and we are not weaker than Vietnamese. These two sets of beliefs made him incapacitated and caused him to loose his presidency. If he had taken an excuse to bomb Iran, the hostages would have been dead and that was not acceptable to him.
Meanwhile Khomeini kept ragging on him and he finally came up with the term "the great Satan is the US'. This type of taunting was difficult to resist, but Khomeini was smart enough that he knew he had intimidated Carter and his goal was not harming the hostages. The old opportunist was using this event to kill all of his real enemies, who were the Iranian people.
13. Constricted affect: Khomeini did not manifest his feelings. He would cry occasionally in religious ceremonies related to one of the Shiite saints. However, this type of crying is a purely religious ritual. The contrast is obvious when we consider the fact that he was not known to cry when his son got killed. When he was returning to Tehran from exile and he was in the plane, a reporter asked him what he felt from returning to Iran after so many years, and his reply was "Nothing."*19
14. There is one right way of doing things and that is my way of doing things. Khomeini was the best example of this old saying. He was so regimented and controlling that his interpretation of Islam and the form of government that he implemented in Iran at this time is a unique interpretation of the Quran, and of Islam as a whole. No one else in history has ever come up with this interpretation. This method of government, which is referred to as "Vellayat Faghih" (the rule of the qualified clergy), is based on a quotation from Imam Reza who was the 8th Imam of 12 Imams of Shiite.
15. Stubbornness. Khomeini had a habit of not retracting what he would say even if that would put his life and the lives of his followers at jeopardy. Once he would make a decision that he was going to do something, he would do it regardless of consequences. Although this characteristic paid off at the end, his insistence on conquering Iraq added six years to the Iran-Iraq war with hundreds of thousands of casualties. He finally had to bitterly accept the peace treaty because of an impending military defeat, and he died soon after.*15
16. Hyper religiosity. Although Khomeini is an Ayatollah and one assumes that an Ayatollah would be a very religious person, he was much more orthodox, detailed, and devoted, than other religious leaders. He adhered to the most minute detail of the faith and was totally intolerant of people who would not follow the rules of Islam as strictly as he did.*12
17. Perfectionism. The mannerism of Khomeini's speech is quite different from other Ayatollahs I have heard. Initially, I used to think that his peculiar manner of broken sentences and his peasant accent were just related to his background of being born and raised in the small city of Khomein. However, upon further examination, it is quite evident that this peculiarity is caused by his perfectionism.
He would explain everything in detail and in the middle of his speech he would remember other things that he had to add to make the sentence more complete. This manner of speech made him difficult to follow. He made a series of lectures for the public on public TV after the Iranian revolution took place. These speeches were actually interpretations of the Quran. Since every section of the Quran begins with "with the name of God the merciful," he spent about 20 sessions or lectures talking about the word with. He never passed talking about the Quran without "with'.*19
18. Prejudice. In Khomeini's mind there was only one right religion, one right faith and that was his interpretation of the Shiite sect of Islam. Everything else was null and void. He was totally intolerant of Jews. In one of his writings - which was quite difficult to read because of the extensive number of complex words that he had put in - he tried to prove that when Jewish people die after death they turn into mice, rabbits and pigs.*10 His prejudice was so strong that when he was informed that his ardent follower and friend, Prime Minister Bazargan's grandmother was a converted Jew, their friendship was gone forever.*8
19. Exercise Rituals. He walked three times a day each time for 30 minutes. He did exercises while lying in the bed, lifting legs and twisting arms and torso three times a day.*4
20. Obsession with the news. He continuously listened to radio news both Iranian and foreign news, he listened at all hours except to sleep or pray. He had a portable radio which he carried even during the fast or during the meals..*4
21. Lack of tolerance for dissent and anger. Although clergymen do have a soft side to them, the only emotion known to come from Khomeini was anger. He was quite brutal in matters that were important to him. When the members of MEK killed several of his students, he signed off on execution of several 15 year old girls who were guilty of selling MEK newspapers.*17
MEK hanged
The effects of Khomeini's psychopathology on the Iranian revolution
Looking at the events of 1979, one can easily see that as a nation we were glorious winners of an honorable revolution, but in the final analysis we were terrible losers, who got duped by a geriatric clergyman. Ironically, the winning and the losing are both connected to Khomeini's pathological personality.
Why did we follow him?
