GETTING THE AYATOLLAH WRONG: PERCEPTIONS AND MISPERCEPTIONS OF IRAN’S REVOLUTIONARY LEADERSHIP DAVID PATRICK HOUGHTON DEPARTMENT OF POLITICAL SCIENCE P.O. BOX 161356 UNIVERSITY OF CENTRAL FLORIDA ORLANDO, FL 32816 USA EMAIL:
[email protected] TEL: (407) 823-6025 FAX: (407) 823-0051 Paper presented at the Annual Convention of the International Studies Association, San Diego, CA, April 2012. Abstract Relations between Iran and the West have long been plagued on both sides by misunderstandings and misconceptions of the motivations and beliefs which drive the behavior of foreign policy elites. This paper focuses in particular on script-driven misperceptions of the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, and on how and why these changed over time. Why in particular did the Carter administration get Khomeini so wrong? It is argued here that a ‘cult of the Shah’ left the American intelligence community singularly unprepared to deal with any new regime after Mohammed Reza Pahlavi’s fall, and that the prevalence of the Cold War strategic script in particular led many to downgrade the importance of the Iranian clergy. Perceptions of Khomeini, it is suggested, passed through three stages: he was initially viewed as a figure of irrelevance by many in the West, or as someone who could not possibly influence the course of events in Tehran. This misperception then gave way by late 1978 to another: the notion that Khomeini was a ‘Gandhi-like’ figure with whom American leaders could bargain, but ignorance about Khomeini’s background and aims within the White House and other elements of the administration led to a disastrous attempt to court his moderate allies within the provisional government.