When the Ayatollah took over in 1979, the Mojahedin immediately denounced the new regime's dictatorial policies and campaigned for democratic rule. The Mojahedin exhausted every opportunity for peaceful political struggle until June 1981, when Khomeini ordered his followers to open fire on a nonviolent demonstration of half a million Tehran residents. This left the Iranians and the Mojahedin with no choice but armed resistance to defend themselves.

The Mojahedin have lost tens of thousands of men and women so far in their crusade for a free and democratic Iran that will follow the laws of the civilized family of nations. They have a full-fledged, highly trained army based along the Iran-Iraq frontier and a huge underground in Iran.

As this book demonstrates, Khomeini-style Islamic fundamentalism leaves no room for "moderates" and "moderation." Any slackening of repression at home will invite a rising by the citizenry that is chafing under a brutal regime. Any real opening to the West will threaten to disclose the ruling clergy's grisly crimes against humanity. Tehran can afford neither. Deception is thus one of the key elements of Khomeiniism that persists to this day. The Ayatollah used it to persuade Iranians that he was fighting for everything they craved: freedom, democracy, human rights, and social justice. Yet after the Pahlavi throne toppled, he ordered the takeover of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran, created an international crisis, and used it to gag his opponents at home, railroad a theocratic constitution, and build institutions of political repression and coercion. In the same way, he used the war with Iraq, which he prolonged for eight years, to equate all popular complaints and criticisms with treason.

The crisis in the Persian Gulf, in this light, was a godsend for Khomeini's heirs. Behind all the blue smoke and mirrors, the ruling mullahs are spreading lies, money, weapons, and agents throughout the region to encourage the creation of one Islamic republic after another, styled after Tehran.

This book is a timely exposé. It offers us a chance to give Khomeini style Islamic fundamentalism a prominent place on the agenda of public debate here and abroad. We cannot afford to leave unchallenged the claims of Iran's publicists that the regime has become more moderate and "normal."

The Mojahedin's message is that Muslim nations should not look to Khomeini for guidance in their struggles for freedom, democracy, and social justice. The Mojahedin's ideology shows how Islam can support all these ideals. Thus, the Mojahedin illustrate a powerful truth to Iranians

-xviii-