All Islamic movements, even that of Khomeini's, started out as a backlash to overt influences of America in the region. From late 50s to late 60s there were many movements in the region which are better understood as reflections of indigenous nationalism against colony by proxy methods of the West in general and America in particular. If you really want to understand the present, you need to go back and read the political Islmist writings in those days.
If you wanted to oppose the regimes in the region, for the most part you were also opposing America. The movements took many shapes. In Iran Mosadeq, in Iraq Abd al-Karim Kassem , and in Egypt Nasser each took the nationalist tone. Mosadeq was the most indipendent of them and was overthrown by CIA. Kassem was overthrown by Baath party with the support of CIA. Nasser was of course the great believer in pan-Arabism and had a fate worse than death.
Another set of movements were the semi-western intellectuals. They wanted incorporations of some Western ideas in a local form. While the west was happy to sell western goods, they had no intention of selling means of production of those goods. Establishment of key national industries such as auto factories, steel industry, unified high voltage electrical grids, and so on were opposed by US and allies. Those who insisted on pressing on had to import technologies that no sane person in the West would want (e.g. Fiat auto factories and Steel Volcano from USSR). This left the "neutral" technocrats toothless and discredited.
There were two more factions who could push for reform. One was the socialists and the communists and the other was the Islamists. Events like the removal of Alende allowed the soviets to convince the left that freedom can only be achieved at the point of a machine gun. This played well into the hands of State department that wanted to see the damn commies blasted to the kingdom come but had little understanding of the political heritage of Islam.
The Islamists cooperated with the government against the communists. The puppet regimes and their masters welcomed this. They both saw communists as the greater threat and saw the religious faction as part of the superstition that only the poorest segment of the working class would listen to. The end result was that only the Islamists survived and managed to convince all others to back them up.
A detailed look at the Iranian Revolution and its roots is most educational. Despite what you may think, the revolution did not happen on the back of Khomeini and his group. Khomeini was simply the arrow point behind which everyone from the communists to the nationalists gathered. They all united to remove the one common enemy whom had evaded them for so long. "Then" was not the time for them to bicker over who should run the events or what ideology should prevail. It was believed that Khomeini is an old cleric who can easily be controlled and that all these differences will sort themselves out once the regime changes. Surprisingly, many factions inside the State department and Carter Administration also supported the Islamists. America had been worried about Shah's ambitions for some time. And carter believed that an Islamist wave in Iraq, Iran, and Afghanistan would be the best defense against the soviet expansion and would also have bring internal problems inside the soviet union (he predicted Chechnya and Tajikistan while the soviets were still around).
You can see all this in the writings of the intellectuals of those decades. Jalal Al Ahmed was a very good example of where the Islamists got their greater base. As was Prof. Ali Shariati. And you can even see this in the revolutionary slogans that were shouted in Iran at the time. The number one slogan was not anti-American or overly pro-Islam. It was, "Independence-freedom-Islamic Republic". This crystallizes the priorities of the revolutionaries. They were most concerned with national independence from the foreign influences. Secondly they wanted more freedom inside the country. And finally a republic, albeit an Islamic one, was the goal. Nobody called for the pure Islamic Sharia to be the law of the land.
America was the Great Satan long before Khomeini vocalized what everyone believed. And this had nothing to do with Islam. It had everything to do with US wishing to rule by proxy and destroying any reformist movement that threatened its right hand dictators.
Sun Tzu |
