One of the oddest things about the islamic revolution is that Ayatollah Khomeini lived in exile in the cushy Parisian suburb of Neauphle-le-Chateau for years before flying back to Iran
His leftist allies (whom he will later persecute) knew that French elites would love him
Michel Foucault saw in the future revolution "the most modern form of government" and Khomeini "a saint man"
Sartre believed he would lead an "anti colonialist and anti imperialist regime"
French newspaper liberation called it a "Shiite socialism"
The one french intellectual who somewhat saw through the BS was Simone de Beauvoir who saw that the regime's will to put every woman behind niqabs was incompatible with her feminist ideals
This is where the concept of "islamo-leftism" comes from
For decades you had intellectuals like Ali Shariati (partially educated in France) who worked to tie Islamism and Leftist ideology together
In the end the useful idiots in the West didn't get much comeuppance for their blind ignorance
The useful idiots in Iran however largely paid their mistakes and naivety with their lives
He stayed for *months! Not years! Complete brain fart on my end that usually happens when I write threads on my phone
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