"On June 3, 1989, Khomeini, eighty-six years old and ailing, died of heart failure. In his will, he left a parting shot against the Saudis. The twenty-nine-page document was read by Ali Khamenei, the president and soon-to-be Supreme Leader. “Muslims should curse the tyrants, including the Saudi royal family, these traitors to God’s great shrine, may God’s curse and that of his prophets and angels be upon them … King Fahd spends a large part of the people’s wealth every year on the anti-Qorani totally baseless superstitious faith of Wahhabism. He abuses Islam and the dear Qoran.” Khomeini’s death would in fact allow a détente to begin between Iran and Saudi Arabia. The president, Ali Khamenei, became Supreme Leader; the speaker of the house, Ali Akbar Rafsanjani, was elected president. Despite the vitriol Rafsanjani had spouted at the Saudis during the 1987 hajj crisis, he was a pragmatist, eager to rebuild the country’s economy after the war with Iraq. In August 1990, Iran’s enemy Saddam Hussein invaded and annexed Kuwait; his troops were on Saudi Arabia’s border. The Iranians and the Saudis were suddenly united in fear of the same madman. By September, the foreign ministers of both countries were talking in New York on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly."