Banisadr office

 The Iranian Revolution 35 years ago had two conflicting impulses exemplified by what could be called the legacy of "the two Khomeini's" -- the democrat and the despot. These dual legacies still underlay the tensions within Iran today.
In its initial phase, the Iranian Revolution was a departure from the violent and armed models of 20th century revolutions in Russia, China and elsewhere because it introduced a non-violent model of change. It was called at the time, "the victory of the flower over the bullet." The Shah was overthrown, freedoms were restored and the first democratic elections took place. The soft revolutions in Eastern Europe at the end of the Cold War followed this model. But then the "coup within the revolution" that followed the overthrow of my presidency left a bloody legacy of intolerance and repression. The roots of the political violence across much of the Islamic world today -- in which different religious based groups vie for control of the state in order to impose their beliefs -- can be traced to this second act of the Iranian revolution. Ayatollah Khomeini was the first figure in modern times to sanctify and glorify violence in the name of Islam.
As a grand ayatollah, Khomeini knew well that, according to the Koran, the murder of one innocent person is equal to "the murder of all humanity." He also knew that one of the main principles of Islamic jurisprudence is that it is better to let 100 guilty people escape punishment than to punish an innocent.
Yet, in pursuit of total power over society, Khomeini appointed "hanging judges" who rationalized that they could execute anyone since -- if a mistake were made and they were innocent -- they would nonetheless end up in paradise. By the lights of this twisted wager, Khomeini ordered the execution of thousands of prisoners, turned a blind eye to the systematic use of torture in Iranian prisons and prolonged the Iran-Iraq war in which over two million people were killed, maimed or injured.