Part 5, Chapter 33 Summary

A week after the Carters left Tehran, a member of the Iranian [ress anonymously attacked an elderly Shiite cleric exiled in Iraq, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, causing Iran to be thrown back to the fierce battles of the 1920s-30s. The reallocation of petrodollars to extravagant modernization (and loss to waste and corruption) was creating economic chaos and social and political tension. Inflation bred discontent. The backward infrastructure could not cope with new demands. Traditional Islam offered solace, and fervent fundamentalism caught hold. Khomeini, born into a family of religious teachers, had emerged as a popular lecturer on Islamic philosophy and law by the 1940s, promulgating the idea of a sternly controlled Islamic Republic. He became involved in politics only in 1962, opposing the Shah's "White Revolution," for which he was jailed and later exiled to Iraq. He hated the U.S., which...