Imam Khomeini’s Deportation from Turkey to Iraq

 

On 13 Mehr 1343 AHS/13 October 1965, His Holiness Imam Khomeini, accompanied by his son, Ayatollah Hajj Aqa Mostafa was deported from Turkey to their second country of exile, Iraq. Explanation of the motives and causes for this transfer is beyond this brief work. However, they can be mainly listed as follows: The constant pressures of the religious community and the theological assemblies and the efforts and actions by foreign Muslim students for the Imam’s freedom; the attempts by the Shah’s regime to show the conditions of the country normal and show its power and stability; to appease the U.S. and obtain more support; the mental and security problems presented for the Turkish government; increased internal pressure by Turkish religious community. And more important of all, the thinking of the Shah’s regime that the silent and anti-confrontation atmosphere in Najaf and the condition of the ruling body in Baghdad by itself, would be a great obstacle in limiting Imam Khomeini’s activities.
Upon arrival in Baghdad, Imam Khomeini went on pilgrimage to the holy shrines of the Infallible Imams in Kazemeyn, Samaria and Karbala. A week later, he moved to his residence in Najaf. The tumultuous welcome of Imam by the people in these cities indicates that, contrary to what the Shah’s regime had imagined, the message of the Imam’s 15th of Khordad Uprising had indeed found supporters in Najaf and all over Iraq, too.  The brief talk of the Imam with the representative of Abdul-Salam Aref, President of Iraq, and the declination of a proposed radio and T.V. interview by the Imam proved, from the very beginning, that he is not a person who would make a scapegoat of his divine challenge to the ruling regimes of Baghdad and Tehran. This fast and stable policy was pursued by the Imam during his entire stay in Iraq, and for this reason Imam Khomeini is indeed a rare world political leader who, even at the height of political difficulties and pressures, did not enter in any political intrigues or collusions that were customary then, nor did he compromise on his ideals and principles. When strife between Iraq and Iran were at their peak, the showing of a minor green light by the Imam would make available to him, all kinds of possibilities to fight the Shah. Not only he did not do that, but he was fighting in two fronts simultaneously, and at several stages he advanced to the point of engaging the Baghdad regime in heated skirmishes. Undoubtedly, were it not for the Imam’s intelligence, the Islamic Revolution would have ended up where other Iranian movements, political fronts and parties had often landed, and would have terminated in dependence and defeat.
The long 13-year period of Imam Khomeini’s stay in Najaf, started in conditions, when seemingly there was no direct pressure and limitations as hard as there was in Iran and Turkey. However, the opposition and obstructions and taunting by the face-to-face enemy and even by the pseudo-clergy and the worldly men disguised in religious vestments, were so widespread and harmful that the Imam, in spite of his well-known patience had, several times, recalled and mentioned its bitterness. Nonetheless, none of these hardships and difficulties could dissuade the Imam from the path, which he had chosen with awareness. He knew, beforehand, that talking about challenge and uprising in that atmosphere was pointless. He knew he had to start from the same point as he had taken in Iran, including the Qom Assembly long before the 15th of Khordad Uprising, that is, with gradual reform and change of conditions and training a generation who could comprehend his ideals and messages. Therefore, in spite of all obstacles and oppositions, Imam Khomeini began his lecture teachings in jurisprudence at the Shaikh Ansari Mosque in Najaf in Aban 1344AHS/November 1965, and continued these classes until his migration to Paris, France. Imam Khomeini’s firm fundamentals in jurisprudence and principles  and his proficiency in Islamic sciences were such that after a short time, in spite of all the impediments, his teaching classes came to be known as the most outstanding theological assembly in Najaf, both qualitatively and quantity. A large number of students-clergy of Iran, Pakistan, Iraq, Afghanistan, India and other countries of the Persian Gulf region attended his classes daily. Those of the Iranian theological assemblies attached to the Imam wanted to make collective migration to Najaf, but desisted at the recommendation of the Imam, since it was deemed necessary to keep the theological assemblies in Iran active. However, a large number of those deeply attached to Imam Khomeini had already reached Najaf and, gradually, a center of revolutionary figures, who believed in the path of the Imam, was formed in Najaf. It was this very group that undertook the responsibility of conveying the Imam’s challenging messages in those years of strangulation.
Since his arrival in Najaf, by sending letters and couriers, Imam Khomeini maintained his contact with fighters in Iran, and at any opportunity, called on them to resist and remain steadfast in pursuing the objectives of the uprising of the 15th of Khordad. It is a wonder that in many of these letters, clear indication of an imminent, sociopolitical explosion in Iran was given and the society of the Iranian clergy was called upon, to get ready to assume responsibilities in the guidance of the Iranian society in the near future. Those predictions were made at a time when, apparently there was no hope for changing the conditions, as the Shah’s regime, more powerful than before, had broken up every resistance.
The Shah’s darkest period of police rule, began with the exile of Imam Khomeini and severe suppression of opponents. Savak was the tool and instrument of absolute power, so much so, that the hiring of a petty employee, in the most remote areas had to be confirmed by the Security Organization (Savak). Of the three constitutional branches, nothing had remained but a name. The Shah, personally, with a few male and female courtiers had everything in their hands. However, the confessions of the Shah in his last book, his interviews and the writings of other members of the Pahlavi family, those of army generals and the regime’s authorities that were published after the fall of the monarchy in Iran, and the documents that were available in the American Embassy, all make it impossible to doubt that the Shah and the Royal Court were merely tools and agents, with no will of themselves. These documents also reveal that the activities and current affairs of the Royal Court and the regime, and even the appointment of cabinet members, army generals and the arrangement of sensitive legislation bills all were decided and written out in American Embassy in Tehran and sometimes in the British Embassy. Here, we will do with only two cases of confession by the Shah. He writes: “...American and British ambassadors told us at any meeting we had: ‘We shall support you’. During the fall and winter of 1978-79, they encouraged me to develop an extremely open political atmosphere....Whenever I received American diplomats or emissaries, they invariably suggested that I should remain firm and resist, but when I asked the American Ambassador about this, he said he had not received such instructions....Several weeks before, when I received the new CIA representative in Tehran, I was amazed at the triteness of his words. For a moment, we spoke of the open political atmosphere, and I observed a smile on his face....All in all, those who were our faithful allies for years, had other amazing surprises reserved for me....”
It is interesting to note that, in this book, the Shah has tried to ascribe the fall of his regime to these same unreal and surprising factors. He has stated that General Rabi'ei, Chief Commander of the Air Force, had told the judges before his execution that: “Like throwing out a dead rat, General Huyser threw the Shah out of the country!” Although such saying is the distortion of history, and per documentary evidence available and, more telling than all, in his book, Huyser himself has confessed that he had come to Tehran to save the fading monarchy in critical conditions and arrange a coup d’etat and not for throwing out the Shah.  However, assuming such a claim is acceptable, the Shah, contrary to the title he had chosen for his book, did not provide history with an answer, that—in spite of such claim like “O Cyrus! Rest assured; we are awake!”—how has the Shah treated the independence of his country during his 37 years of reign; that a second-rank American general, after only a couple of days stay in Tehran be able to throw him out like a dead rat?!!
At any rate, after suppression of the 15th of Khordad Uprising and exile of Imam Khomeini, the Shah saw no further obstacles before him. The country was in such a condition that the Royal Court women were dismissing and appointing the cabinet ministers, House deputies and the judges. The Shah’s sister, Ashraf Pahlavi, whose moral scandals and leadership of narcotic smugglers were reflected even in the foreign press, had been called the “Jack of all trades” of the Royal Court. The appointment of the son of a Bahai by the name of Amir Abbas Hoveyda, whose customary humiliating compliment was “Devotee to Your Majesty”, and whose heading of the puppet cabinets for 13 years, meant that the constitutional power and “democracy” did not exist in the country even on the lowest levels.
The Shah was riding a galloping horse towards his imaginary grand civilization; a civilization whose pillars were based on promotion of foreign culture; on promotion of debauchery; on pilferage of national resources by hundreds of American and European companies; ruining the relatively independent agricultural structure of Iran; making the population productive forces move to city suburbs, as idle consumers and workmen; development of non-essential, dependent, assemblage industries; equipment of military bases for eavesdropping and spying by American military in Iran and the Persian Gulf region at the expense of the Iranian nation.
Only between 1970-1977, about 26.4 billion dollars of oil revenue was spent on importing military hardware from the U.S. In 1980 alone, the Shah had ordered from the U.S.A, 12 billion dollars' worth of military equipment, whose foremost and ultimate aims—according to White House policy—were to be spent on protection of American interests in the sensitive Persian Gulf region. The management and utilization of these armaments were assigned to 60 thousand American advisors, exclusively.
At the zenith of his stability, when he felt no foreign pressures or problems, the Shah produced 6 million barrels of oil per day, while the Iranian population at that time was below 33 million and the price of oil—for reasons such as the Arab-Israeli war, the struggle of the West to horde and store more and more, to combat probable oil boycotts, and the closer unity of the oil-producing Islamic countries—had surpassed 30 dollars a barrel. Yet, in spite of all this, many of the basic highways of Iran lacked asphalt and a great part of the country was without electricity and elementary healthcare and welfare facilities. Even, at a time when tens of presidents, prime ministers, and other heads of states had traveled to Iran to attend the legendary festival celebrating the 2500-year Iranian monarchy, tens of thousands of the Iranian productive forces of yesterday and the then unemployed stranded men, had converged on the peripheries of the country’s capital, in cave-like hovels, hutments, and tin-towns (halabi-abad) next to the Tehran airport, and other locations to the south, east and west of the metropolis, living in poverty and under dire conditions.
The sight of such extensive tin-towns presented such an eerie spectacle that during the festival, the regime concealed them from the sight of foreign guests by painted walls so that these signs of the “grand civilization” may not be seen! At the time of the festival, many districts in the south and west of Tehran still lacked potable water and every several hundred families had to obtain their drinking water from a single water faucet. In 1355/1976, illiteracy rate was 52.9% for the population of 7 years of age and up. By the time the Shah fled the country in 1357/1978, 15 years had passed since the implementation of the White Revolution and American-style reform. During this period, in spite of haphazard production and sales of oil and other resources and support by foreign governments, Iran could not escape dependency. In addition, every day the country became more and more dependent on foreigners economically, agriculturally and industrially, and along with this, dire economic conditions, general poverty and inequity increased.  Politically, the Shah had turned Iran into a country most dependent on the West, particularly on the U.S.A.
In the entire period following Imam Khomeini’s exile, in spite of countless difficulties, he did not relent his challenge and kindled the light of hope for victory in the hearts through his speeches and writings. On 27 Farvardin 1346/16 April 1967, in a message to the theological assemblies, the Imam wrote: “I assure you ulama, and the Iranian nation, that the regime will meet defeat their forefathers were slapped by Islam...they, too, will be slapped....Stand firm; do not submit to oppression; they shall be gone, and you shall remain....These dull and borrowed swords shall be put back into their sheaths!” On this day, Imam Khomeini wrote an open letter to Amir Abbas Hoveyda, the Prime Minister. In it, the Imam recounted the tyrannical acts of the regime and warned Hoveyda regarding the conduct of the Shah vis-à-vis the Islamic governments, in the following words: “Do not enter into pacts of brotherhood with Israel, this enemy of Islam and the Muslims, who has turned more than one million Muslims homeless. Do not hurt the feelings of the Muslims. Do not open any more, the hands of Israel and its treacherous agents, into the markets of the Muslims. Do not threaten the economy of the country for the sake of Israel and its agents. Do not sacrifice the culture for whims and desires....Beware of the anger of God; the anger of the nation....” “Verily, your God looks out for the enemy.” 26 The Shah took no heed of the Imam’s warnings. Although the Muslim countries were on the threshold of war with Israel, Israeli goods, enjoying special privileges, had a very good market in Iran, and all kinds of Israeli fruits and foodstuff such as Israeli eggs and chickens were abundantly found in Iranian markets at price lower than domestic prices.
In a message dated 17 Khordad 1346/7 June 1967, on the occasion of the 6-day war between Israel and the Arabs, Imam Khomeini issued a revolutionary fatwa interdicting any kind of political and commercial relation with Israel and the consumption of Israeli goods in Islamic communities. This fatwa was a damaging blow to the expanding relations of the Shah with Israel. The Iranian ulama and students-clergy by issuing announcements placed the Shah’s regime under pressure. The regime took revenge by raiding Imam Khomeini’s house in Qom, plundering all his books and documents, and by raiding the Islamic schools in Qom and ransacking the works and pictures of the Imam. During this raid, Imam Khomeini’s son, Hojjatol-Islam Hajj Sayyid Ahmad Khomeini, and Hojjatol-Islam Hajj Shaikh Hassan Sanei and the late Ayatollah Eslami-Torbati (The Imam’s canonical proxy) were arrested. Their efforts, and those of other revolutionary supporters, had frustrated the Savak in its hope to cut off sending the Imam’s stipend and the lawful monies of the people to their religious authority. Sometimes before this, Hojjatol-Islam Hajj Sayyid Ahmad Khomeini, who had gone to Najaf to receive the Imam’s messages and orders about administration of activities of the Imam’s house in Qom, on return in early 1346, was arrested at the border by the Shah’s security agents, and was imprisoned at the Qezel Qal’eh prison for some time. During these years, the Savak’s major effort—according to Savak’s documents—was to sever the connection of the Imam with his followers in Iran, and to prevent the remittance of Imam’s stipend to him. Meanwhile, the efforts of Imam’s canonical proxies such as Eslami Torbati, Hajj Shaikh Mohammad Sadiq Tehrani (Karbaschi) and Ayatollah Pasandideh (Imam’s elder brother) which, in spite of the regime’s threats, arrests and exiles, were continuously carried on, as well as the activeness of the Imam’s family (ahl-e-bait) in Qom—that had been recognized as the core of the 15th of Khordad Uprising, and was administered by Imam’s son—were major obstacles to the fulfillment of the regime’s objectives. Savak was so sensitive to the revival of Imam’s name and his remembrance and to the activities of his family in Qom, that for a period of 4 years, it had stationed police force and security agents from morning until few hours past sunset, to control the residence of Imam’s family preventing the frequentation of Imam’s followers to the place. Yet, even in these years, the Imam’s supporters would get together in the house at midnight hours, and after the agents had left, handled the business relating to contacts between the Imam and the people. It was at this time (Khordad 1346) that the intention of the regime to transfer the Imam from Najaf to India was aborted by the revelations and efforts of the struggling internal and external political groups.
With the coming to power in Iraq (17 July 1967) of the Baath Party, and its animosity with Islamic moves, further obstacles appeared before the movements of Imam Khomeini. Yet, His Holiness did not relent his challenge. His sojourn in Najaf and more of the Islamic world in the Arab-Israel war presented an opportunity for Imam Khomeini to pose and discuss his ideals on a much wider scale, which meant the revival of faithfulness and belief, in an anti-religious era, and the recovery of Islamic grandeur, identity and unity. This was not limited to challenging the Shah in Iran.
On 19 Mehr 1347/9 October 1968, Imam Khomeini, in a talk with the representative of Al-Fat’h Organization of Palestine described his viewpoints about the problems of the Islamic world and the jihad of the Palestinian people. During this interview, the Imam issued a fatwa on the necessity of allocating a portion of religious alms funds to Palestinian fighters.
Early in 1348, the dispute between the Shah’s regime and the Baath Party of Iraq over the river    borderline, heightened. The Iraqi regime expelled from Iraq, in dire conditions, a large number of Iranian residents of that country. The Baath Party tried hard, under these conditions, to take advantage of Imam Khomeini’s enmity with the Iranian regime. On the other hand, the Shah sought the slightest available opportunity and excuse to present a distorted picture of the integrity of the Imam’s movement. However, Imam stood up to and resisted the intrigues very wisely. Ayatollah Hajj Aqa Mostafa Khomeini made formal delivery of the Imam’s message, opposing the deportation of the students-clergy and other Iranians and rejecting any compromise between His Holiness and the Baath Party in Baghdad, to Hassan al-Bakr, Iraqi President, and others who were present at the meeting.
On 30 Mordad 1348, a part of the Masjid al-Aqsa was burnt down by the extremist Zionists. The Shah, who was under pressure by public opinions, proposed to pay the expenses of reparation and thus came to assist Israel and palliate the anger of the Muslims, In a message, the Imam revealed the ruses of the Shah, and made a counter-proposal: “Not until Palestine is freed, should the Muslims repair the said Mosque. Let the crime of Israel remain exposed to the Muslims and be a cause for a move to liberate Palestine.”
Four years of teaching, effort and enlightenment by Imam Khomeini had somewhat changed the atmosphere of Najaf Theological Assembly. Now, in the year 1348, in addition to countless internal challengers, there were very many people in Iraq, Lebanon and other Islamic lands, who considered Imam Khomeini’s movement as their adopted mode of action. Imam Khomeini began the series of his lessons about Islamic government or the guardianship of the jurisconsult in Bahman 1348. The publication of a compendium of these lessons in book form entitled Velayat-e-Faqih [Islamic Government-Religious-Guardianship] imparted, In Iran, Iraq, and Lebanon and during the Hajj season, a fresh sensation to the challenge.  In this book, the outlook of the challenge and the objectives of the movement were drawn up, and the jurisprudential and intellectual fundamentals, and principles of Islamic government, and theoretical arguments related to the ways and modes of Islamic government, were posed and discussed by the leader of the Revolution. In April 1970 (Ordibehesht 1349), the American press announced the arrival in Iran, of a mission of the most prominent American capitalists headed by Rockefeller. They had arrived there to study the return to the U.S. of the Iranian oil revenues that were on the increase from this year on, and the mode of participation of the American corporations in this spread tablecloth. From months before, the Savak had announced many of the clergy, attached to Imam Khomeini, forbidden to preach from the pulpit. Yet, the pro-Imam Khomeini dedicated clergy figures, who were delighted after studying the opinions of the Imam about Islamic government, began revealing and opposing further extension of American influence in the country. One of the most ardent supporters of Imam Khomeini was Ayatollah Saidi. In April 1970, he was arrested and, after 10 days of savage torture by agents of Savak, was martyred in the Qezel Qal’eh prison. His challenge was praised by Imam Khomeini, who said in a message: “Ayatollah Saidi is not the only person who succumbs to torture in the corner of a prison!” Imam’s message also revealed that: “Giant American experts and capitalists have rushed to Iran, aiming at the strangulation of this nation under the guise of the largest foreign investment....Any agreement entered into with American capitalists or with other colonialists, is against the wishes of the Iranian nation and the precepts of Islam.”

 

Source: The Narrative of Awakening, Page. 97-117