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Set on his own course, however, Khomeini indulged the Soviets only as long as they were of use to him. Last autumn, despairing of his two-year campaign to obtain major sophisticated weapons systems from Moscow and to halt Soviet arms shipments to the Iraqis, Khomeini began tightening the screws on the Tudeh Party, at first through restrictions in their publications, later through sporadic arrests. Finally, about six months ago, some 25 Communist leaders were casually arrested.
After last week's outburst, both nations were eyeing each other more warily. Iranian authorities nervously tried to squelch rumors that the Soviet embassy in Tehran would be seized, as its U.S. counterpart had been in November 1979. The Soviet party newspaper Pravda vigorously asserted that the Soviet people "resolutely reject" the charges against the Tudeh. The article went on to argue, speciously, that the Tudeh was unlikely to know any important secrets and, disingenuously, that the U.S. had instigated the sudden crackdown.
Nonetheless, one-third of Iran's imports still travel through Soviet territory and, with its biggest port, Khorramshahr, closed, Iran is dependent on Soviet rail transport. The Soviets could retaliate by stemming those imports, courting the Mujahedin guerrillas or increasing their already considerable supply of sophisticated arms to Iraq. Soviet KGB agents from nearby Soviet Azerbaijan have reportedly infiltrated Iran to replace the agents who were arrested.
The purge against the Communist Party and Soviet diplomats is further evidence of the paranoia that afflicts the Khomeini regime. Ardeshir Asgari, a defected Islamic Guard now living in Spain, maintains that Iran is haunted by internecine savagery and ubiquitous suspicion. The mullahs, he notes, "encourage officers to spy on one another," while forming special squads to eliminate officials suspected of harboring anti-Khomeini sympathies. Moreover, says Asgari, the Khomeini regime is terrified of the Mujahedin guerrillas. Often, he reports, his colleagues would gun down suspected dissidents in the streets, only to discover too late that they were unarmed and apolitical civilians.
Major Mohammed Hassan Mansouri, a former air force pilot who fled to Canada, claims that "because of their medieval mentality and abysmal ignorance, the mullahs feel intimidated by modern skills." This has made them especially hostile toward the air force. "They can neither understand its sophisticated equipment nor fool its better educated cadres," Mansouri explains. The result: air force officers mysteriously vanish. Mansouri describes one pilot, whose plane was shot down, bleeding to death because the clergy refused to rescue him.
The drawn-out war against Iraq has clearly helped the regime to deflect attention from much of its internal strife. The offensive occupies an army that could otherwise become dangerously restless, while allowing Khomeini through assassinations and contrived battlefield accidents to get rid of certain "undesirables." Says Mansouri: "Khomeini is the time bomb the Shah bequeathed to Iran when he fled." It is a lesson even the Soviets have had to learn the hard way. —By Pico Iyer. Reported by Raji Samghabadi/New York