Iran Memorial Resurrects Anti-Americanism

Roars of “Death to America!” swelled from the shrine to the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini on Thursday as hundreds of thousands of Iranians marked the third anniversary of the Islamic revolutionary leader’s death.

A special group of about 10,000 mourners pounded their heads and beat their chests in a choreographed display of grief. On cue, the breast-beating stopped, and the crowd chanted, “Death to America” and “Death to Israel,” familiar refrains of the ayatollah’s followers.

About 120,000 people packed the gold-domed shrine inside the Behesht-e-Zahra cemetery, 10 miles south of Tehran, for Thursday’s memorial.

Khomeini clamped his brand of revolutionary Islam on Iran in 1979, after the fall of the pro-Western shah, Mohammed Reza Pahlavi. Although Khomeini’s influence is in decline, he is revered by millions of Iranians, and his social teachings are widely followed.

But his political disciples, who follow his uncompromising anti-Western radical line, accuse the current government of abandoning Khomeini’s policies as a way to curry favor with the West and revive Iran’s crippled economy.

Khomeini’s successor as Iran’s spiritual leader, the Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, told mourners at the shrine that Iran has not embarked on a new course.

President Hashemi Rafsanjani also is anxious to dispel accusations by his radical rivals that he has steered away from the path Khomeini set in 1979.

Rafsanjani is trying to attract foreign investment and loans to jump-start the economy. That task has become more critical in recent weeks, which have been marred by anti-government protests.