Abstract
Chapter seven shows how Khomeini used religious language to normalise the continuation of the war. For instance, Khomeini selectively quoted from the Quran to normalise war between the two Islamic countries. This chapter also demonstrates how Khomeini rarely used the word ‘defence’ to describe the war between Iran and Iraq after the liberation of Khorramshahr. Such a labelling strategy helped Khomeini to refuse all the calls for a ceasefire. For the Ayatollah, Iran was defending itself; therefore, there was no need for a ceasefire.
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Notes
- 1.
See Chapter 1.
- 2.
For instance, in his speech for the Egyptians after the popular uprising in 1977, Sadat, the third president of Egypt, selectively used a Quranic verse and transformed that verse from "a conditional sentence into a simple declarative one" (Abdul-Latif, 2011, p. 62).
- 3.
The First Imam for Shias and the Fourth Caliph for Sunnis.
- 4.
Imam Hassan’s Peace Treaty and the tragedy of Karbala have become the two primary sources of rationalisation for the Islamic Republic policymakers when they are in a dilemma of decision-making between peace and war. As mentioned earlier, Shias consider all their 12 Shia Imams infallible. Therefore, they cannot question Imam Hasan’s decision for peace or Imam Hassan’s fight with Yazid. Instead, they argue that both acts were righteous choices, and Shias should analyse these two discourses in their contexts. In other words, if Imam Hasan had been in the situation of Imam Hussein, he would have done the same and vice versa. However, what is important is that in the Islamic Republic those who have a more moderate political view usually refer to Imam Hassan’s Peace Treaty as a political act, while hardliners like Khomeini argue that the peace was imposed on Imam Hassan otherwise if Imam Hassan was in an identical situation, he would have acted similar to Imam Hussein. A more recent example of the use of the Imam Hassan Peace Treaty in normalising Iran’s foreign policy is Hassan Rouhani’s, the Iranian president, use of this discourse to normalise the compromise that his government made with powerful countries over Iran’s nuclear programme in July 2015. Rouhani in a speech indicated that “I believe that heroic flexibility is harder than heroic jihad. And Imam Hassan, the bigger grandson of the prophet chose this heroic and braveness. We should follow the way of Imam Hassan” (Rouhani, 2015, cited in Mashregh news, 2015). In contrast, Hamid Rasaee, a hardliner and a former Iranian MP, told Hassan Rouhani that Imam Hassan was forced to accept the peace and Imam Hassan’s preference was not to compromise with Muawiyah (Mashregh News, 2015). Hardliners in Iran, including Khomeini, believe that an Islamic country should not allow unjust and powerful states to force Iran to accept their orders.
39 See Chapter 5.
- 5.
In Khomeini’s discourse, the palace (darbar) was a symbol of non-legitimate power.
- 6.
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Tayebipour, M. (2023). Khomeini and Prolonging and Normalising the Iran-Iraq War. In: Ayatollah Khomeini Through the Lens of the Iran-Iraq War. Studies in Iranian Politics. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-14907-8_7
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