The Religious Fascism Was No Big Surprise

Houshang Asadi plaintively writes that, as of the moment of the fall of the shah of Iran and the imminent return of the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini to Tehran in 1979, nobody—not even the best journalists in the country—could have foreseen the outcome (“From Jubilation to the Jailhouse,” op-ed, Jan. 25). “We expected freedom and got a religious dictatorship instead.”

Mr. Asadi should have known. He and his colleagues should have read Khomeini's speeches, essays and fatwas, which were very explicit. At the time, Steve Rosenfeld, Judy Miller and I wrote at some length about Khomeini's nightmare vision of Iran's future. I described it as “theocratic fascism” in this newspaper.

Mr. Asadi is certainly not alone in failing to look carefully at the doctrines of self-proclaimed revolutionary freedom fighters, and thus jumping from an authoritarian tyranny to a totalitarian regime. Many of Hosni Mubarak's bravest opponents could well write the same words as Mr. Asadi. They, too, face religious dictatorship, as do others in Libya and Syria. Anyone reading the abundant proclamations of the Muslim Brotherhood and other supporters of the new regime in Cairo should have known what was coming.

Michael A. Ledeen, Foundation for the Defense of Democracies