I talked about these images from the funeral and death of Ayatollah Khomeini in the podcast episode today. This scene from the funeral procession of the Ayatollah Khomeini convinced us in the 1980s that the Iranians of the Islamic Republic of Iran were crazy, religious nuts, and would one day have to be dealt with. American policy and perspective has pivoted around this mentality ever since.
You can learn more about the life and death of Ayatollah Khomeini in the podcast episode I did today or by reading my Essential Guide to Understanding Modern Iran. Khomeini was not a good man and these scenes are clearly bizarre. That being said, the next couple of decades would show there was far more to the Islamic Republic of Iran and its leaders than revealed here.
