The Storm over the Shah

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Throughout the week, Khomeini issued a series of inflammatory proclamations, beginning with a call for Iranian youths to mobilize for war. "Prepare yourselves," he declared. "Get military training, give military training." He vowed that any U.S. invasion would be met by an army of 20 million defenders. The Revolutionary Guards immediately announced plans to give teen-agers military training. Nightly on television an instructor showed how to take apart and reassemble a semiautomatic rifle.

Next day, Khomeini called on militant students to protest the Security Council meeting. In response, tens of thousands of young people demonstrated outside the U.S. embassy. They included the black-belt warriors of the Tehran Karate Club, who carried carnations and daffodils. From inside the compound, the militants issued a statement: "The U.S. doesn't seem to realize that it is fighting God."

Khomeini heightened his almost rabid attack on Carter, accusing him of greed, warmongering and hypocrisy for "preparing to wage war and threatening countless lives for the sake of another term in the White House." Said Khomeini:

"We appeal to all religious denominations —Christians, Jews, Zoroastrians—to support our just cause. It is blasphemy to think that Jesus Christ would have sided with the Shah and Carter." Unsuccessful in getting his hands on the Shah, Khomeini declared that he wanted to put Carter on trial too.

The frenzy reached a climax at sundown Thursday, the eve of the tenth and most important day of the month of mourning and penance that begins the Muslim year. The ten days commemorate the death of the 7th century Imam Husain, a grandson of Muhammad, who was beheaded by Muslim rivals. The last day, Ashura, is traditionally observed throughout the country by mass marches of wailing penitents, which last year turned into huge demonstrations against the Shah.

The mullahs took care to keep the crowds under control, lest they charge the embassy in their delirium. Radio announcers advised the faithful to stay away from the U.S. embassy. Militant students barricaded its gates and warned that the grounds were mined for protection against a threatened invasion by "filthy American agents" using Shi'ite marchers as shields.

Hundreds of thousands of men paraded through Tehran's streets in the chill drizzle, reciting verses from the Koran and flailing at their backs with zanjirs, which are small iron chains. Most marchers wore light shirts that were torn and bloodied with each blow, struck to the rhythm of muffled drums.

They were forbidden by the mullahs from another Ashura ritual: slicing then-shaved heads with scimitars. The mullahs feared that the rite would be "misunderstood" by Americans as evidence of a barbaric culture. Many marchers wore kafans, white burial shrouds that signified their willingness to become martyrs. Some of them carried placards: WE WILL SINK THE U.S. NAVY IN BLOOD and IF AMERICA ATTACKS, WE WILL FIGHT TO THE DEATH. On Friday, several hundred thousand Iranians surrounded the embassy, but dispersed peacefully after six hours of prayers.