As far as the nature of Imam Khomeini’s strategy of struggle is concerned, one can say that the founder of the Islamic Republic of Iran didn’t resort to armed struggle against the Pahlavi regime. Rather, he believed in adopting the strategy of soft power and consequently the soft threat. Despite the efforts of the Pahlavi regime to make Imam Khomeini being engaged in an armed struggle, he refused to adopt such a way of fighting. The question is what is the position of armed struggle (severe threat) against the Pahlavi regime in the view of Imam Khomeini? Did he oppose this sort of struggle or it was merely a strategy?
Ethical values are tools for dealing with the obstacles to flourishment, as well as personal and social wellbeing. In Imam Khomeini’s view, the obstacles to the growth of men as well as his prosperity and felicity are divided into two categories: inner and outer obstacles. He considers ethics and politics to be the tools for dealing with the first and second category respectively. Therefore, politics or political struggle (the Minor Jihad) as the same as ethics and overcoming egos (the greater jihad) should empower individuals and society. A believer can overcome the internal obstacles to human flourishment such as arrogance, pride, envy, greed, and selfishness by relying on piety, trust, forbearance and worship, the individuals and human community and nations also by relying on the same factors (soft power) would be able to fight against the tyranny and the regimes which act contrary to the religious and human values. This basis can be seen in the course of Imam Khomeini’s struggles in the realms of ethics and politics. The important point is that such a strategy of struggle (soft power) against the soft threat of egos, Satan, and the global tyrants and arrogant powers are seen as obstacles to human growth both internally and externally. Of course, adopting this strategy does not mean denying the use of force when necessary in the course of the struggle against the tyrannical regime, rather in the view of Imam Khomeini an armed struggle has not been given priority due to the foundations of his political thought, his unique trust in God, and his belief in divine help as well as his idea of the participation of Muslim people of Iran in the struggles.
Imam Khomeini’s Method of Struggle
Imam Khomeini’s method of leadership and struggle during the Islamic Revolution is the result of a long historical tradition that has begun since the early days of Islam. He chose his method of struggle with a deep understanding of the tradition, Quran, the infallible Imams, and the socio-political developments of the Islamic world, in particular, Iran. His strategy was very simple and far from any political games. Therefore, he did not found a cohesive organization or party with predetermined and regular plans, and while using only his ingenuity, charisma and decisiveness and relying on Islamic mottos and criteria he employed the tactics necessary to achieve an ideal society. Accordingly, for Imam Khomeini, propagation was his most important tool. According to Imam Khomeini, propagation in that period had no difference with propagation in the early days of Islam. Imam Khomeini’s intellectual foundations in this regard were rooted in religious doctrine as was the case with his other activities. He paid attention to the element of time and place as they were considered in the divine commandments and the lifestyle of the infallible Imams. Therefore, these methods of propagation also emerged in close relation to the factors of time and place. Imam Khomeini’s emphasis on the use of propagation is not limited to the 1960s. Rather, at the time of writing the book, Kashf al-Asrar, while strongly criticizing the ways and methods used for propagation activities during the regime of Reza Shah, which he considered to be contrary to the concepts of chastity, courage, and religious doctrines, he emphasized using the correct way of Islamic propagation and its implications along with the education and the Islamic rule.
During one of his classes in which he was talking about Wilayat al-Faqih (Guardianship of the Jurisprudent), he made remarks in this regard and said: “We are obliged to take serious measures to establish an Islamic state. Our first activity in this way is propagation, we have to reach the world through this way as others have always done the same thing... they had moved forward via propagation.... they had informed the nation and finally accomplish their goals... right now, you have no country, no army, but propagation is possible for you, and the enemy has not been able to take from you all the means of propagation... through propagation activities, we should create a wave by which a social stream would begin to flow and gradually the conscious masse of people will be formed, stand up, and establish an Islamic state.”
While using the propagation, he has always emphasized the use of this tool throughout his movement. He says in this regard: “The issue of propagation is one of the things that Islam has insisted on from its very beginning and that has a special priority in today’s world.” Also, he says: “by doing the propagation activities in a proper and right way, you should present the true message of Islam to the world.”
The importance of propagation and its application in Imam Khomeini’s movement was such that he believed: “propagation is at the forefront of our affairs.” Accordingly, peaceful opposition in the form of negative resistance was the main method of Imam Khomeini’s struggle.
Choosing this method by the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Revolution caused the clergy to take the same path in their struggle and spread that strategy by carrying out strikes, avoiding performing the congregational prayers, closing seminary classes and marketplaces. Throughout the turbulent life of Imam Khomeini, he used three ways to propagate: message, interview, and the lecture, among which the lecture as a tool for propagation played an important role while writing books and issuing statements were seen as less significant. He focused on giving interviews to the foreign journalists only for a certain period when he resided in Neauphle-le-Château for three and a half months. However, as far as the quantity of Imam Khomeini’s propagation activities is concerned, the interviews are the first such that he had given a total of 132 interviews to journalists from different countries. During his struggles, Imam Khomeini was aware that dealing with the regime and ethical anomalies in different areas requires culture-building. A culture that would emerge in a step-by-step struggle and be able to prove the legitimacy of Islam and the irrationality of the regime by relying on the teachings of prophets and Imams. Therefore, he suggested that the most appropriate tactics to accomplish such a policy are spreading strikes, holding rallies and gatherings, giving the interview, publishing articles in journals, and using mass media to disseminate revolutionary messages.
If we were to summarize the whole message of Imam Khomeini to the people of the world, it would be “The Shah has to leave the country.” A message that few could accept that would become real. But how did that happen? Although no phenomena would occur without divine Will, the divine Will functions through causes and reasons. Hence, in this regard, this would not have been possible without the numerous messages and propagation activities of Imam Khomeini and his followers. Therefore, since Imam Khomeini believed that society is facing problems, he focused on a pure and coherent ideology, which was based on the cultural struggle as the basis of his campaigns, and so while relying on cultural and spiritual supports he managed to present a new perspective regarding the Islamic politic. That is why Iran’s Islamic Revolution is considered the first major revolution in the Third World, which avoided the revolutionary model of armed struggle and had a non-violent nature. It was under this policy that he was positioned as the leader of the movement in three stages of presenting the theory as the representative of the religious school of thought, confronting and opposing the monarchical system, and founding and establishing the new system in the country. This had never happened to any of the world’s leaders in modern times.
The Use of Armed Struggle by Imam Khomeini
Studying the messages, speeches and interviews of Imam Khomeini at that time reveals that he chose the cultural struggle which awakens people as his basic strategy for struggle. According to the documents, Imam Khomeini, during the struggle, has never advocated guerrilla warfare or militant Marxist groups, and always believed that the movement should be based on enlightenment, public awareness, and mobilization of the mass of people.
In his view, the Islamic Revolution would not be occurred except by the widespread, conscious, and willing presence of people, hence he put all his efforts into raising the awareness of people believing that if they reach an acceptable level of consciousness they will make the necessary decisions when is needed; in that case, the military readiness might be necessary. However, Imam Khomeini did not allow the use of force without religious permission even in the most sensitive times and areas. Before the spreading of the movement in 1979, he made this matter clear during his classes on the subject of the Guardianship of the Jurisprudent. At that time, he made remarks regarding the movement and its relation to the armed struggle: “right now, you have no power... at least do not remain silent ... shout out, protest, do not accept tyranny, reject cruelty...”
During his campaign, Imam Khomeini has always been aware that armed fighting, bombings and assassinations would endanger the lives and properties of people, therefore, in 1971 following the Siahkal Incident and in response to Sadeq Tabatabai’s letter, which showed his attention to the political and social consequences of the issue, he stated that the incident would underpin the colonial rule calling for carrying out a more detailed analysis of it; he asked his audiences to try to convey the Islamic conduct and method of governance to Muslim nations, and if young people understand the nature of the Islamic governance, the basis of the oppressive colonialist and Communist heretical schools of thought will be dismantled. It should be noted that the leader of the movement did not support or coordinate with the guerrilla strategies of the leftist groups due to quasi-strategic reasons.
Despite the fact the regime which sought to turn the revolution into an armed confrontation through killings and oppressions so that it would find justification for brutally suppressing and possibly massacring people, on the one hand, and the revolutionary parties and guerrilla groups who were about to lose their existence because of Imam Khomeini’s popular movement and therefore sought to add fuel to the flames of a struggle driving it towards violent confrontations, on the other hand, were putting pressure on Imam Khomeini to adopt a violent strategy and engage in an armed confrontation instead of a peaceful method of struggle; he remained firm on his method and strategy since he was aware of the inefficiency of those methods in succeeding the Revolution and the goal of the regime to adopt the iron fist policy by turning the revolution and struggles into a violent and armed confrontation.
At that time, Imam Khomeini did not approve of the armed struggle because first it was not Islamic and second it was fruitless. He believed that an armed struggle without the leadership and supervision of the pious scholars as well as the widespread uprising would lead to chaos and bloodshed and the loss of innocent people. It seems that Imam Khomeini considered using these measures as a waste of time and risking the lives of the revolutionary people at that time.
In the same vein, in 1978 several members of Tehran’s Combatant Clergy, set a meeting to discuss the question of whether they should form a party or not, and whether they should approve the armed struggle or not. When they asked for the view of Imam Khomeini, he opposed both proposals, namely the formation of the party and the militant struggle, and said, “we have the rationale upon which our fight is based.” In fact, the main reason for using peaceful strategies more than the vigorous ones during the Islamic Revolution was the lack of support from and emphasis of the leader of the movement regarding that method. In this regard, Imam Khomeini did not even agree to the terrorist acts that were limited to the assassination of some individuals. Akbar Hashemi-Rafsanjani points out in his memoirs that although Imam Khomeini remained silent during the armed struggle, yet he did not approve the terrorist acts because he refused to permit the assassination of the Shah.
According to relatives and friends of Imam Khomeini, he merely agreed on training programs and conducting guerrilla training programs for preparing more revolutionary forces so that they could deal with the possible upcoming events. According to Ayatollah Beheshti, Imam Khomeini agreed with the proper use of the weapons by the (Islamic) guerrilla groups in the fight against the regime and believed that the main base of the struggle should be a decisive, uncompromisable, and peaceful Islamic, social and political struggle which would be underpinned by the armed forces. Even he allowed using the shari’ah payments for providing these guerrilla groups with weapons and money. In this regard, Hasan Vaezi, a member of the Falagh Group, says that, concerning the armed and guerrilla strategy, Imam Khomeini emphasized the military training and preparing the forces so that, if necessary, that strategy will be used. He opposed the formation of a terror group.
In fact, despite talking about the military uprising, Imam Khomeini’s emphasis until the final days was on adopting the peaceful method as well as demonstrations and strikes. This can be seen in his remarks and interviews at that time, as in 1978 when giving an interview to an American journalist he stated: “we see strikes and demonstrations. Words and ideas should be spread by the speeches of the clergy... If people are being stopped, they should come out on the streets and with whatever means possible they should express their demands and ideas. We want to make this finish peacefully as far as possible, as the Iranian people are now doing so...but if this method does not work, probably we have to reconsider our strategy.” Also, he emphasizes that he does not want the revolutionary people and combatants to jeopardize their lives and that he only peacefully demands the people’s rights, but it is the Shah who gives the orders to kill people. Declaring that he has no intention of causing bloodshed, Imam Khomeini emphasizes the continuation of his peaceful struggle.
Generally, as far as the specific strategies of Imam Khomeini in the struggle are concerned, one could say that he divided the struggle into two types of peaceful (cultural) and vigorous (armed) and set conditions and limitations for each of them. In this regard, he gave priority to the cultural or soft struggle on which he always emphasized. But concerning using the armed struggle, he believed that if all other methods and strategies fail and the peaceful struggle does not work and if the conditions are met, there would be a possibility of following the path of an armed struggle and that he would choose and approves this strategy. Therefore, generally, he did not reject the approach of an armed struggle against the Pahlavi regime, but given the oppressive atmosphere that existed during the struggle, he considered it as the last resort. It has to be acknowledged that, generally, Imam Khomeini adopted a strategy by analyzing the social situation of that time and the different possibilities of the regime’s reactions. This is regarded as one of the remarkable features of his methods of struggles during the Islamic movement. Therefore, the armed policy, as a tactic for fighting against the tyrannical system, or as an act of removing the obstacles to the struggle, or as the last chain of the causes of adopting a strategy has not been negated by the leader of the movement.
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