When the Shah Refused to Kill Khomeini

Picture this: early 1970s, Baghdad. Iraq’s ambitious vice president, Saddam Hussein, sits across from envoys of the Shah of Iran. On Iraqi soil lives an exiled Iranian cleric, Ruhollah Khomeini, whose sermons and cassette tapes are slowly poisoning the Shah’s authority back home. Saddam reportedly makes a blunt offer: do you want us to get rid of him?

According to later accounts, the Shah declined. “We are not in the business of killing clerics,” he is said to have replied. A few years later, that same cleric would topple the Shah and reshape the Middle East.

This anecdote sits at the intersection of three men’s ambitions and miscalculations: Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi, Saddam Hussein, and Ruhollah Khomeini. It opens a window into how regimes think about repression, legitimacy, and risk. By the end of this story, Khomeini will be back in Iran, the Shah will be in exile, and Saddam will be at war with the Islamic Republic he once offered to decapitate.

What actually happened? The offer to kill Khomeini, explained

Ruhollah Khomeini was an Iranian Shi’a cleric who became the leading religious opponent of the Shah of Iran in the 1960s. After being arrested and exiled by the Shah’s regime, he settled in Najaf, Iraq, a major Shi’a religious center. From there, he preached against the Shah and inspired opposition inside Iran.

The core claim in the Reddit anecdote is simple: while Khomeini was in Iraq in the early 1970s, Saddam Hussein offered to have him killed, and the Shah refused. The quote “We are not in the business of killing clerics” appears in several memoir-style accounts and secondary histories, but like many sharp political one-liners, it is not backed by a verbatim transcript. The basic story, however, fits with what we know of Iraqi–Iranian contacts at the time and the later forced expulsion of Khomeini from Iraq in 1978 under Iranian pressure.

So what did happen for sure? By the early 1970s, Saddam, then effectively running Iraq under President Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr, saw Khomeini as both a bargaining chip and a potential problem. Iraq hosted many Iranian dissidents, and Khomeini was the most famous. Iran, under the Shah, wanted him silenced. Iraq wanted leverage against Iran in their long-running disputes over borders, the Shatt al-Arab waterway, and Kurdish rebels.

What is firmly documented is that in 1978, after the Shah and Saddam reached the Algiers Agreement (1975) and sought to reduce tensions, Iraq expelled Khomeini at Iran’s request. Khomeini then moved to France, where his message reached Iran even more effectively. The earlier “offer to kill him” story fits a pattern: Saddam was willing to use or remove exiles as bargaining tools, and the Shah was deeply concerned about Khomeini but wary of turning him into a martyr.

So the anecdote, even if the exact wording is uncertain, captures a real dynamic: authoritarian leaders weighing whether to physically eliminate an opponent or manage him by exile and censorship. That choice would shape the Iranian Revolution that followed.

This matters because it shows that the survival of a single opposition figure often hinges on regime calculations about legitimacy, not just raw power.

What set it off? Why Khomeini was in Iraq in the first place

The story begins not in Baghdad but in Qom, Iran, in the early 1960s. Mohammad Reza Shah was pushing his “White Revolution,” a package of reforms that included land redistribution, women’s suffrage, and closer ties to the United States. Many clerics saw it as an attack on traditional religious authority and a concession to Western influence.

In 1963, Khomeini, then a relatively little-known ayatollah, delivered fiery sermons against the Shah and his American backers. He denounced the regime as tyrannical and un-Islamic. The Shah’s security forces arrested him, sparking protests and a harsh crackdown. Hundreds were killed, according to some estimates, though exact numbers are debated.

After a brief release and renewed criticism, the Shah decided that Khomeini was too dangerous to keep inside Iran but too risky to execute. In 1964, the regime exiled him, first to Turkey and then, in 1965, to Najaf in Iraq. Najaf was a logical place: a major Shi’a holy city, full of seminaries, and outside the Shah’s direct reach.

From Najaf, Khomeini kept working. He taught, wrote, and developed his theory of “velayat-e faqih,” the guardianship of the Islamic jurist, arguing that in the absence of the hidden Imam, a senior cleric should hold political authority. He also recorded speeches on cassette tapes that were smuggled into Iran, copied, and passed hand to hand. Exile did not silence him. It gave him time and distance to refine his message.

By the early 1970s, the Shah’s regime was richer and more powerful than ever, buoyed by oil money and Western support. But it was also more repressive. SAVAK, the secret police, hunted leftists, Islamists, and nationalists alike. Khomeini’s voice from Najaf became one of the few unifying symbols of religious opposition.

This background matters because it explains why Khomeini was in Iraq at all, and why he was too important for both Saddam and the Shah to ignore.

The turning point: From “kill him” to “expel him”

The reported offer from Saddam to kill Khomeini belongs to this period when Iraq and Iran were both authoritarian, both suspicious of each other, and both hosting each other’s enemies.

Iraq, under the Ba’ath Party, was officially secular and Arab nationalist. Saddam, though not yet formal president, controlled the security apparatus. He distrusted independent Shi’a clerics, especially those with cross-border influence. Khomeini, an Iranian cleric with a growing following among Iraqi Shi’a students, looked like a potential threat to Ba’athist control as well as a bargaining chip with Tehran.

At the same time, Iran and Iraq were locked in disputes over the Shatt al-Arab waterway and Iranian support for Kurdish rebels in northern Iraq. Both sides used exiles and dissidents as pressure tools. In that context, it is plausible that Saddam or his envoys floated the idea of eliminating Khomeini to please the Shah or extract concessions.

Why would the Shah say no? Several reasons are likely:

First, killing a senior cleric abroad risked a backlash among Iran’s religious establishment. The Shah already had a legitimacy problem with the clergy. Ordering a foreign regime to murder a grand ayatollah could have turned quiet critics into open enemies.

Second, martyrdom is powerful in Shi’a political culture. The memory of Imam Husayn’s martyrdom at Karbala is central to Shi’a identity. Turning Khomeini into a murdered martyr might have made his message even more potent inside Iran.

Third, the Shah seems to have believed that his security apparatus and modernization program could contain Khomeini’s influence. From his vantage point in the early 1970s, with oil revenues high and Western support strong, Khomeini looked like a nuisance, not an existential threat.

So instead of assassination, the tool chosen was pressure for expulsion. In 1975, Iran and Iraq signed the Algiers Agreement, temporarily easing border tensions. As part of the thaw, Iraq agreed to rein in Iranian opposition groups on its soil. By 1978, as unrest in Iran grew, the Shah pushed harder. Iraq’s security forces began restricting Khomeini’s activities and then expelled him in October 1978.

Khomeini flew not to another quiet religious center but to Paris. There, with access to international media, telephones, and easier communications, his message reached Iran more effectively than ever. Journalists could interview him. His statements could be broadcast. The revolution accelerated.

This turning point matters because it shows how both regimes misjudged the impact of their own tactics. Refusing to kill Khomeini avoided one risk but created another. Forcing him out of Iraq moved him to a far more powerful platform.

Who drove it? The Shah, Khomeini, and Saddam’s different bets

Three men’s choices intersect in this story, each with his own fears and blind spots.

Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi saw himself as a modernizing monarch, backed by the United States and armed with oil wealth. He used SAVAK to crush opposition but still cared about international image and some degree of domestic legitimacy. Killing a cleric abroad would have damaged both. He preferred exile, censorship, and controlled reforms. He underestimated how religious opposition, economic frustration, and political repression would combine into a revolutionary wave.

Ruhollah Khomeini was not just a pious scholar. He was a political strategist. From Najaf and later Paris, he framed the Shah not just as a bad ruler but as an illegitimate, un-Islamic tyrant serving foreign powers. He used religious language that resonated with bazaar merchants, students, and the urban poor. Exile gave him safety from arrest and a kind of mystique. When protests surged in 1978, many Iranians already knew his name and message.

Saddam Hussein was a security man who believed in preemption. He saw threats early and moved brutally against them inside Iraq. Outside Iraq, he treated exiles as bargaining chips. The reported offer to kill Khomeini fits his style: eliminate a potential problem and earn favor with Tehran. When that was declined, he kept Khomeini under watch, then expelled him when it suited Iraqi interests.

Each man thought he was managing the others. The Shah thought exile would neutralize Khomeini. Saddam thought he could trade Khomeini’s presence or absence for concessions. Khomeini used both exiles to build a transnational platform.

This matters because it reminds us that authoritarian politics is not just about brute force. It is about calculations of legitimacy, optics, and risk that can backfire in unexpected ways.

What it changed: From one decision to a regional earthquake

The Shah’s refusal to have Khomeini killed did not cause the Iranian Revolution by itself. The revolution had deep roots in social change, economic inequality, political repression, and resentment of foreign influence. But the decision shaped who would lead that revolution and what kind of state would emerge.

By surviving exile, Khomeini was able to return to Iran in February 1979 as the uncontested spiritual leader of a mass movement. The monarchy collapsed. The Islamic Republic replaced it, built around Khomeini’s theory of clerical rule. Had he been killed in Iraq in the early 1970s, the opposition might have fragmented among leftists, nationalists, and other clerics with different ideas about power.

For Iraq, the survival and triumph of Khomeini had direct consequences. Saddam, who became formal president in 1979, now faced a revolutionary Shi’a theocracy next door that called for Islamic uprisings against secular regimes. He feared the impact on Iraq’s majority Shi’a population. In 1980, Saddam invaded Iran, starting the Iran–Iraq War, a brutal eight-year conflict that killed hundreds of thousands.

For the wider region and the world, Khomeini’s survival and victory reshaped alliances. The United States lost a key ally in the Shah and gained a hostile Islamic Republic that took American diplomats hostage. Sunni monarchies in the Gulf felt threatened by Iran’s revolutionary message and drew closer to the US. The Iran–Iraq War destabilized oil markets and drew in outside powers with arms and money.

Even beyond geopolitics, the model of an Islamic revolution led by a cleric inspired movements from Lebanon to Pakistan. The idea that a religious scholar in exile could topple a powerful, Western-backed monarch became a reference point for Islamist politics.

This matters because it shows how the fate of one exiled dissident can ripple outward into war, regime change, and new ideological currents.

Why it still matters: Assassination, exile, and the problem of martyrs

The Reddit anecdote taps into a question that keeps coming up in history and current affairs: why do some regimes kill their opponents while others let them live in exile? And does killing a dissident actually “solve” the problem?

The Shah’s reported line, “We are not in the business of killing clerics,” was not just moral posturing. It reflected a real fear of martyrdom and backlash. Shi’a history is built around the story of righteous figures killed by unjust rulers. Turning Khomeini into such a figure would have been dangerous. Instead, the Shah chose exile and censorship. He misjudged how powerful a living, exiled opponent could become.

Modern regimes face similar choices. Some poison or shoot opponents abroad. Others strip citizenship and push them out. In the age of satellite TV and the internet, exile can be less a silencing than a megaphone. Khomeini’s journey from Najaf to Paris to Tehran is an early example of how distance and technology can amplify rather than mute a dissident’s voice.

The story also challenges a common misconception: that authoritarian rulers always choose the most violent option. In reality, they weigh costs and benefits, worry about legitimacy, and sometimes choose the path that looks safer in the short term but proves more dangerous in the long run.

That is why this small, almost offhand anecdote about Saddam’s offer and the Shah’s refusal still matters. It captures a moment when three men made different bets about power, fear, and faith. History shows whose bet paid off, and at what cost to millions of others.