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Both men proclaim faith in an Iranian republic that will be Islamic and democratic. They hope to galvanize an anti-Khomeini crusade like the Ayatullah's final campaign against the Shah. "We can overthrow Khomeini within a few months," boasts Rajavi.
But others are not convinced. "Many Iranian technocrats, doctors and engineers fled Iran because they were scared of fanatics like the Mujahedin, not because they supported the Shah," says Ali Shahin Fatimi, editor of an Iranian newsletter in Paris. Other Iranian intellectuals in exile criticize Banisadr's arrogance and political naivete. Says one: "If he could not do anything as President, and if he cannot organize a revolt from within Tehran itself, what can Banisadr possibly do from Paris?" It is a question that the mullahs were also asking themselves last week in Tehran. —By William Drozdiak.
Reported by Raji Samghabadi/New York and Alessandra Stanley/Paris