# How Khomeini Came to Power in Iran
## Part One: The Man Who Came from Exile
**Dhafer Hamad Al-Zayani**
---
I was sixteen years old.
I had no idea that what was happening in Iran would change our region forever.
---
## The Beginning
He was arrested in 1963.
Not for carrying a weapon.
But for carrying words.
He criticized the Shah.
And paid the price.
Prison. Then exile.
---
## Iraq.. Thirteen Years
He arrived in Najaf in 1965.
They welcomed him as a guest.
They gave him a place to teach.
But he was not only teaching.
He was recruiting.
Cassette tapes recorded in his voice.
Spreading secretly across Iran.
One repeated message:
*"The Shah is an infidel. Revolution is a duty."*
---
## Saddam Discovers the Game
When Saddam tightened his grip on power,
he looked through the files.
He understood what was happening.
A man living on our soil.
Burning someone else's land.
An immediate decision:
**House arrest.**
You will not export your sedition from here.
---
## Kuwait Refuses Him
He requested to leave.
He headed toward Kuwait.
The land borders closed in his face.
There is no place for you here.
---
## France Opens Its Arms
He flew from Baghdad.
Arrived in Paris on October 4, 1978.
The West thought he was just an oppressed clergyman.
They did not know they had opened a door that would never close.
---
## From Paris.. The Fire Ignites
In France he did not stop.
The tapes multiplied.
The promises grew.
*"Oil for the people."*
*"Freedom for all."*
*"Najaf, Karbala, Mecca and Medina under rightful Islamic rule."*
The Iranian people believed.
All parties believed.
Left, right, and center.
All behind him.
---
## The Swift End
January 16, 1979.
The Shah left Iran.
The country without leadership.
February 1, 1979.
Khomeini returned.
Millions welcomed him.
February 11, 1979.
The revolution triumphed.
He declared the Guardianship of the Islamic Jurist.
And what no one had anticipated began.
---
## The Guillotine Above School Rooftops
The moment he secured the chair, the "death ceremonies" began.
On the rooftop of "Refah" school — his first headquarters —
executions of army commanders and politicians began.
He was not satisfied with eliminating the Shah's men.
He turned against his own allies — the leftists and intellectuals who had supported him in Paris.
In Khavaran cemetery, west of Tehran,
more than 30,000 victims were buried in mass graves.
The regime later attempted to erase its traces and demolish the gravestones.
But history cannot be buried.
---
## International and Human Testimonies
These crimes were not secret.
The world recorded them with horror.
TIME magazine quoted "the execution judge" Sadegh Khalkhali saying:
*"If they are guilty they will go to hell, and if they are innocent they will go to heaven."*
Amnesty International documented in its 1979 reports that the trials were theatrical performances, with executions carried out minutes later.
---
## A Testimony That Will Never Be Forgotten
Iranian director Nima Sarvestani speaks of his brother Rostam, executed at the age of eighteen:
*"Sometimes I envy him.. We grow older and become aged, while he never grows old.. He stays at eighteen forever."*
His mother wanted to embrace him before the execution.
The guards pushed her and threw her to the ground.
---
## Summary of Part One
A man who came with promises of freedom.
And replaced them with gallows.
Iraq hosted him and he betrayed it.
France welcomed him and he deceived it.
He returned to Iran to turn his people's dreams into mass graves.
---
*To be continued.. Part Two: What did Khomeini do to those who helped him?*
---
**Dhafer Hamad Al-Zayani**
**Source: FmBahrain Historical Archive**
---
## Sources
**[1]** Khomeini's Legacy for Iranians... Execution, Death and Graves
Independent Arabia
**[2]** Families of Victims of the Mullahs' Execution Crimes
Al-Majalla Magazine
**[3]** Amnesty International Report 1980
**[4]** Associated Press Archive, February 1979
---
Continues Part2
0 Comments