Iran: Blast from The Past

As the leader of the only opposition party tolerated in Iran, former Prime Minister Mehdi Bazargan is one of a handful of political figures allowed to voice mild criticism in public of Ayatullah Ruhollah Khomeini. Bazargan has usually exercised the privilege with restraint. But last week Iranian exiles in Paris distributed copies of an open letter to Khomeini, said to have been written by Bazargan, in which the Ayatullah was accused of having created a "despotism worthy of the pharaohs."

The letter charged that Khomeini stooped to "collaboration" with Israel in order to secure U.S. weapons, sponsored terrorists who have "filled the entire world with hatred against our country" and led Iran to the "verge of bankruptcy." In the unkindest cut, the missive laid the blame for recent setbacks in the eight-year-old war with Iraq at Khomeini's feet and begged him to "stop trafficking in the blood of our martyrs."