It was within this competitive environment that Khomeini worked to consolidate the power of Islamist faction At the time while many political groups operated under the wide intellectual umbrella of the nationalists (both secular and religious) ambiguity gradually gave way to polarization as nationalism stopped functioning as a distinct political category Through this turbulence the leftist and Islamist groups in their various forms quickly and controlled the political theater of revolutionary Iran However in the space of less than two years following the revolution Khomeini and his supporters purged the leftists from government and instigated a long-term comprehensive perpetual revolution to fundamentally alter all aspects of Iranian society The perpetual revolution dominated and transformed Iranian and regional geopolitics for the subsequent thirty years