“I did not know it then – perhaps I did not want to know – but it is clear to me now that the Americans wanted me out. Clearly this is what the human rights advocates in the State Department wanted … What was I to make of the Administration’s sudden decision to call former Under Secretary of State George Ball to the White House as an adviser on Iran? Ball was among those Americans who wanted to abandon me and ultimately my country.” – Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the Shah of Iran

These were the words uttered by the distraught Shah of Iran when, grieving, he reflected on his downfall just before his demise in exile. The tormented former “King of Kings” ardently nurtured a deep-rooted conviction that the Carter Administration, in cooperation with the British Secret Intelligence, ordered and ensured his fall.

During World War II, England and the Soviet Union jointly invaded Iran, dividing the nation into two zones of occupation as the English and Russians had previously done in 1907. In the North, the Soviets secured a viable supply route and in the south the British placed their oil interests under their direct protection. Reza Shah, father of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, and the Nation of Iran were humiliated by the subjugation of Iran’s domestic and foreign affairs to their conduct by foreign powers. King Reza Shah, who had implemented numerous progressive social and economic reforms, was ousted by British and Soviet forces and replaced by Mohammad Reza Shah, his 20-year-old, inexperienced son. The British and Soviets, yielding little sympathy for the mass populace, occupied Iran.

In the North, the Soviets promptly and forcefully revived Iran’s Communist Party with the objective of undermining the royal regime and installing a centralized Communist government. With Soviet assistance, the Tudeh party constituted itself as a pro-Soviet Communist party with its central management in Soviet Union. Meanwhile in the South, the British set monarchists against religious fundamentalists, fundamentalists against nationalists, nationalists against monarchists, faction against faction, and tribe against tribe with a “divide and conquer” agenda. Accordingly, Iran sank into social disorder, political disarray and economic hardship. Under foreign domination by both the Communists and the British, the Iranian people welcomed an increasing role of the United States. By 1946, the Iranian government crushed the pro-Soviet Tudeh party that had been infiltrating the nation and threatening to divide Iran.

Increasingly, Iran became dependent on the United States as a counter-influence to the Soviets and British. As early as December 1954 the Shah noted,

“the potentialities of friendly and close relations between the people of Iran and the United States are immense. There is a deep and fundamental identity of national interests which overshadows everything else. We both believe that the individual is the central figure in society, and that freedom is the supreme blessing. . . Iran has a great deal in common, in convictions with the Western world regarding freedom and democracy.”

He branded his regime’s politics as “positive nationalism.”

In January 1963, the Shah announced democratic reforms as part of a six-point program called the White Revolution, a program of reforms to divide landholdings such as those owned by religious foundations, grant women the right to vote and equality in marriage, and allow religious minorities a greater share in governmental offices. Ruhollah Ayatollah Khomeini led a movement among radical fundamentalists to oppose equal rights for women and minorities and the reform policies of the Shah. On January 22, 1963, Khomeini dictated a vigorously worded declaration denouncing the Westernization of Iran and economic reforms and human rights as anti-Islamic.

In contrast, the Iranian fundamentalists sought to eradicate pre-600 A.D. Iranian culture and history and supersede it with an exclusive focus on post-600 A.D. This is in line with Khomeini’s decrees, such as one issued on March 21, 1963 in which he declared that Persian New Year (“Norooz”) celebrations be cancelled and that references to pre-Islamic Iran be eliminated. In 1964 Khomeini was arrested and exiled to Turkey. On September 5, 1965 he left Turkey for Najaf, Iraq, where he spent 13 years as an exile, out of touch with the Iranian people and culture. On October 3, 1978 he left Iraq for Kuwait, but was refused entry at the border. After a period of hesitation in which Algeria, Lebanon and Syria were considered as possible destinations, Ayatollah Khomeini embarked for Paris. Once arrived in Paris, Khomeini took up residence in the suburb of Neauphle-le-Chateau in a house that had been rented for him by Iranian exiles in France. Subsequently, journalists from across the world visited the cleric, and the image and the words of Ayatollah Khomeini soon became a daily feature in Iran and across the world. The BBC and other agencies broadcast nightly interviews with Khomeini beamed into Iran, which incited the people against the Shah.

In November 1978 then President Carter nominated George Ball as a member of the Trilateral Commission. The commission acted under the direct control of the National Security Council’s Zbigniew Brzezinski, an ardent opponent of the Shah of Iran. This commission cultivated a clandestine Iran task force. While serving on this commission, George Ball championed cessation of United States support for the Shah and clandestine support for Rubhullah Ayatollah Khomeini who, albeit in exile, led a proletariat Islamic opposition. Pursuant to this agenda George Ball sought to garner the support of Robert Bowie, who was at that time the Deputy Director of the United States Central Intelligence Agency.

Meanwhile, Iran and British Petroleum commenced negotiations in Tehran, Iran concerning the renewal of a 25-year-old extraction agreement. These talks collapsed because the British demanded exclusive rights in Iran’s future oil output and refused to guarantee purchase of the commodity. The disintegration of these negotiations was domestically branded as a step towards nationalization of Iran’s oil for the first time since 1953. Subsequently, the Shah turned to prospective buyers in Germany, France, Japan and elsewhere. The Shah had increased Iran’s control over its oil resources, implemented progressive economic and social initiatives, undertook speedy process of capitalist reforms that focused on industrialization, increased Iran’s military capabilities and sought to build a strong, prosperous and independent Iran; however, his goals and policies became the bases for his eventual downfall.

In mid-January 1979, Ayatollah Khomeini returned and the monarchy collapsed on February 11, 1979. Subsequently, Iranians, many of whom believed in Ayatollah Khomeini’s promises of freedom and democracy, voted by a national referendum to become an Islamic Republic on April 1, 1979. They also approved a new constitution, and Khomeini became Supreme Leader of Iran. But Khomeini did not fulfill his pre-revolution promises to the people of Iran. Instead, he started to marginalize and crush the opposition groups and those who opposed the clerical rules. He ordered establishment of many institutions to consolidate power and safeguard the cleric leadership. During his early years in power he launched the Cultural Revolution in order to Islamize the whole country. Many people lost employment, and books were revised or burnt according to the new Islamic values. A newly established Islamic judicial system sentenced many Iranians to death and long-term imprisonment, as they were in opposition to those radical changes. The current regime continues many of the policies of the regime of the now-deceased Ayatollah Khomeini, including revising and eradicating Iranian history, culture and identity.

Perhaps the revolution and subsequent consequences would have never occurred if the Carter Administration had not taken the helm. No doubt, neither President Richard M. Nixon nor President Ronald Reagan would have paved the way for the arrival of the current theocracy. Criticizing the Carter Administration’s handling of the crises in Iran, President Reagan said “I did criticize the President because of his undermining of our stalwart ally, the Shah, I do not believe that he was that far out of line with his people.” Former United States President Richard Nixon was the sole United States representative to attend the Shah’s funeral in Egypt,

Many Iranians believe that the Carter Administration and the British intervened in 1979 and paved the path for the Shah’s demise. Sympathetic remarks about the revolution by high-level American Democrat officials, such as Bill Clinton, who dubbed Iran a “democracy,” and several former members of the Carter Administration, indicate the pretentious attitude of these officials. These officials should be reminded that President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, erroneously labeled by foreign journalists as the “Leader of Iran,” exerts minimal control in Iran. Rather, pursuant to the Iranian Constitution virtually absolute power is in the unelected “Supreme Leader” Ayatollah Khamenei.

Iran is an absolute theocracy and lacks the basic foundations of even a limited form of democracy. Perhaps, if the Carter Administration had not undermined the Shah of Iran, the regime itself would have implemented the proper foundations for a modern democratic republic or constitutional monarchy. Modern Iran could have been an “island of stability” in the Middle East. Without the Carter Administration’s misguided foreign policy initiatives, Iran, similar to Japan, Denmark, Spain or England, could today be a close U.S. ally with a hereditary monarch and a democratically elected President or Prime Minister.

FamilySecurityMatters.orgContributing Editor Slater Bakhtavar is president and founder of Republican Youth of America, a frequent commentator and respected analyst on foreign policy issues, an attorney with a post-doctoral degree in International law, General Counsel of a national corporation and Attorney at Bakhtavar & Associates, PLLC.

In September 2007, US News & World Report stated: “Amid deepening frustration with Iran, calls for shifting Bush administration policy toward military strikes or other stronger actions are intensifying.”  And in June 2008, President-to-be Barack Obama declared: “The danger from Iran is grave, it is real, and my goal will be to eliminate this threat.”

However, suppose a progressive, pro-Western regime ruled Iran, representing no threat? War discussions would be unnecessary. Yet many forget that, until 30 years ago, exactly such a regime led Iran, until it was toppled with the help of the same U.S. foreign policy establishment recently beating war drums.

Meet the Shah

From 1941 until 1979, Iran was ruled by a constitutional monarchy under Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, Iran’s Shah (king).

Although Iran, also called Persia, was the world’s oldest empire, dating back 2,500 years, by 1900 it was floundering. Bandits dominated the land; literacy was one percent; and women, under archaic Islamic dictates, had no rights.

The Shah changed all this. Primarily by using oil-generated wealth, he modernized the nation. He built rural roads, postal services, libraries, and electrical installations. He constructed dams to irrigate Iran’s arid land, making the country 90-percent self-sufficient in food production. He established colleges and universities, and at his own expense, set up an educational foundation to train students for Iran’s future.

To encourage independent cultivation, the Shah donated 500,000 Crown acres to 25,000 farmers. In 1978, his last full year in power, the average Iranian earned $2,540, compared to $160 25 years earlier. Iran had full employment, requiring foreign workers. The national currency was stable for 15 years, inspiring French economist André Piettre to call Iran a country of “growth without inflation.” Although Iran was the world’s second largest oil exporter, the Shah planned construction of 18 nuclear power plants. He built an Olympic sports complex and applied to host the 1988 Olympics (an honor eventually assigned Seoul), an achievement unthinkable for other Middle East nations.

Long regarded as a U.S. ally, the Shah was pro-Western and anti-communist, and he was aware that he posed the main barrier to Soviet ambitions in the Middle East. As distinguished foreign-affairs analyst Hilaire du Berrier noted: “He determined to make Iran … capable of blocking a Russian advance until the West should realize to what extent her own interests were threatened and come to his aid…. It necessitated an army of 250,000 men.” The Shah’s air force ranked among the world’s five best. A voice for stability within the Middle East itself, he favored peace with Israel and supplied the beleaguered state with oil.

On the home front, the Shah protected minorities and permitted non-Muslims to practice their faiths. “All faith,” he wrote, “imposes respect upon the beholder.” The Shah also brought Iran into the 20th century by granting women equal rights. This was not to accommodate feminism, but to end archaic brutalization.

Yet, at the height of Iran’s prosperity, the Shah suddenly became the target of an ignoble campaign led by U.S. and British foreign policy makers. Bolstered by slander in the Western press, these forces, along with Soviet-inspired communist insurgents, and mullahs opposing the Shah’s progressiveness, combined to face him with overwhelming opposition. In three years he went from vibrant monarch to exile (on January 16, 1979), and ultimately death, while Iran fell to Ayatollah Khomeini’s terror.

Houchang Nahavandi, one of the Shah’s ministers and closest advisers, reveals in his book The Last Shah of Iran: “We now know that the idea of deposing the Shah was broached continually, from the mid-seventies on, in the National Security Council in Washington, by Henry Kissinger, whom the Shah thought of as a firm friend.”

Kissinger virtually epitomized the American establishment: before acting as Secretary of State under Republicans Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford, he had been chief foreign-affairs adviser to Nelson Rockefeller, whom he called “the single most influential person in my life.” Jimmy Carter defeated Ford in the 1976 presidential election, but the switch to a Democratic administration did not change the new foreign policy tilt against the Shah. Every presidential administration since Franklin D. Roosevelt’s has been dominated by members of the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), the most visible manifestation of the establishment that dictates U.S. foreign policy along internationalist lines. The Carter administration was no exception.

Nahavandi writes:

The alternation of parties does not change the diplomatic orientation of the United States that much. The process of toppling the Shah had been envisaged and initiated in 1974, under a certain Republican administration…. Numerous, published documents and studies bear witness to the fact, even if it was not until the beginning of the Carter administration that the decision was made to take concerted action by evoking problems related to human rights.

The Shah’s destruction required assembling a team of diplomatic “hit men.” Du Berrier commented:

When the situation was deemed ripe, U.S. Ambassador William Sullivan — the man reputed to have toppled the pro-American government of General Phoumi Nosavan in Laos — was sent to urge the Shah to get out. In December Mr. George Ball, an instant “authority on Iran,” was sent as a follow-up with the same message.

Sullivan (CFR), a career diplomat with no Middle East experience, became our ambassador to Iran in 1977. The Shah recalled:

Whenever I met Sullivan and asked him to confirm these official statements [of American support], he promised he would. But a day or two later he would return, gravely shake his head, and say that he had received “no instructions” and therefore could not comment…. His answer was always the same: I have received no instructions…. This rote answer had been given me since early September [1978] and I would continue to hear it until the day I left the country.

The other key player du Berrier named, George Ball, was a quintessential establishment man: CFR member, Bilderberger, and banker with Lehman Brothers Kuhn Loeb. The Shah commented: “What was I to make, for example, of the Administration’s sudden decision to call former Under Secretary of State George Ball to the White House as an advisor on Iran? I knew that Ball was no friend.”

Writes Nahavandi:

George Ball — that guru of American diplomacy and prominento of certain think-tanks and pressure groups — once paid a long visit to Teheran, where, interestingly, the National Broadcasting Authority placed an office at his disposal. Once installed there, he played host to all the best-known dissidents and gave them encouragement. After he returned to Washington, he made public statements, hostile and insulting to the Sovereign.

Joining the smear was U.S. Senator Ted Kennedy, whose role Nahavandi recalled in a 1981 interview:

But we must not forget the venom with which Teddy Kennedy ranted against the Shah, nor that on December 7, 1977, the Kennedy family financed a so-called committee for the defense of liberties and rights of man in Teheran, which was nothing but a headquarters for revolution.

Suddenly, the Shah noted, the U.S. media found him “a despot, an oppressor, a tyrant.” Kennedy denounced him for running “one of the most violent regimes in the history of mankind.”

At the center of the “human rights” complaints was the Shah’s security force, SAVAK. Comparable in its mission to America’s FBI, SAVAK was engaged in a deadly struggle against terrorism, most of which was fueled by the bordering USSR, which linked to Iran’s internal communist party, the Tudeh. SAVAK, which had only 4,000 employees in 1978, saved many lives by averting several bombing attempts. Its prisons were open for Red Cross inspections, and though unsuccessful attempts were made on the Shah’s life, he always pardoned the would-be assassins. Nevertheless, a massive campaign was deployed against him. Within Iran, Islamic fundamentalists, who resented the Shah’s progressive pro-Western views, combined with Soviet-sponsored communists to overthrow the Shah. This tandem was “odd” because communism is committed to destroying all religion, which Marx called “the opiate of the masses.” The Shah understood that “Islamic Marxism” was an oxymoron, commenting: “Of course the two concepts are irreconcilable — unless those who profess Islam do not understand their own religion or pervert it for their own political ends.”

For Western TV cameras, protestors in Teheran carried empty coffins, or coffins seized from genuine funerals, proclaiming these were “victims of SAVAK.” This deception — later admitted by the revolutionaries — was necessary because they had no actual martyrs to parade. Another tactic: demonstrators splashed themselves with mercurochrome, claiming SAVAK had bloodied them.

The Western media cooperated. When Carter visited Iran at the end of 1977, the press reported that his departure to Teheran International Airport had been through empty streets, because the city was “all locked up and emptied of people, by order of the SAVAK.” What the media didn’t mention: Carter chose to depart at 6 a.m., when the streets were naturally empty.

An equally vicious campaign occurred when the Shah and his wife, Empress Farah, came for a state visit to America in November 1977. While touring Williamsburg, Virginia, about 500 Iranian students showed up, enthusiastically applauding. However, about 50 protestors waved hammer-and-sickle red flags. These unlikely Iranians were masked, unable to speak Persian, and some were blonde. The U.S. media focused exclusively on the protesters. Wrote the Shah: “Imagine my amazement the next day when I saw the press had reversed the numbers and wrote that the fifty Shah supporters were lost in a hostile crowd.”

On November 16, the Shah and Empress were due to visit Carter. Several thousand Iranian patriots surrounded the White House bearing a huge banner saying “Welcome Shah.” However, as Nahavandi reports:

The police kept them as far away as possible, but allowed a small number of opponents [again, masked] to approach the railings … close to where the Sovereign’s helicopter was going to land for the official welcome. At the exact moment, when courtesies were being exchanged on the White House lawn, these people produced sticks and bicycle chains and set upon the others…. Thus, the whole world was allowed to see riotous scenes, on television, as an accompaniment to the arrival of the Imperial Couple.

Terror at Home

Two major events propelled the revolution in Iran. On the afternoon of August 19, 1978, a deliberate fire gutted the Rex Cinema in Abadan, killing 477 people, including many children with their mothers. Blocked exits prevented escape. The police learned that the fire was caused by Ruhollah Khomeini supporters, who fled to Iraq, where the ayatollah was in exile. But the international press blamed the fire on the Shah and his “dreaded SAVAK.” Furthermore, the mass murder had been timed to coincide with the Shah’s planned celebration of his mother’s birthday; it could thus be reported that the royal family danced while Iran wept. Communist-inspired rioting swept Iran.

Foreigners, including Palestinians, appeared in the crowds. Although the media depicted demonstrations as “spontaneous uprisings,” professional revolutionaries organized them. Some Iranian students were caught up in it. Here the Shah’s generosity backfired. As du Berrier pointed out:

In his desperate need of men capable of handling the sophisticated equipment he was bringing in, the Shah had sent over a hundred thousand students abroad…. Those educated in France and America return indoctrinated by leftist professors and eager to serve as links between comrades abroad and the Communist Party at home.

When the demonstrations turned violent, the government reluctantly invoked martial law. The second dark day was September 8. Thousands of demonstrators gathered in Teheran were ordered to disperse by an army unit. Gunmen — many on rooftops — fired on the soldiers. The Shah’s army fired back. The rooftop snipers then sprayed the crowd. When the tragedy was over, 121 demonstrators and 70 soldiers and police lay dead. Autopsies revealed that most in the crowd had been killed by ammo non-regulation for the army. Nevertheless, the Western press claimed the Shah had massacred his own people.

The Shah, extremely grieved by this incident, and wanting no further bloodshed, gave orders tightly restricting the military. This proved a mistake. Until now, the sight of his elite troops had quieted mobs. The new restraints emboldened revolutionaries, who brazenly insulted soldiers, knowing they could fire only as a last resort.

Khomeini and the Media Cabal

Meanwhile, internationalist forces rallied around a new figure they had chosen to lead Iran: Ruhollah Khomeini. A minor cleric of Indian extraction, Khomeini had denounced the Shah’s reforms during the 1960s — especially women’s rights and land reform for Muslim clerics, many of whom were large landholders. Because his incendiary remarks had contributed to violence and rioting then, he was exiled, living mostly in Iraq, where Iranians largely forgot him until 1978.

A shadowy past followed Khomeini. The 1960s rioting linked to him was financed, in part, by Eastern Bloc intelligence services. He was in the circle of the cleric Kachani Sayed Abolghassem, who had ties to East German intelligence. Furthermore, in 1960, Colonel Michael Goliniewski, second-in-command of Soviet counter-intelligence in Poland, defected to the West. His debriefings exposed so many communist agents that he was honored by a resolution of the U.S. House of Representatives. One report, declassified in 2000, revealed, “Ayatollah Khomeini was one of Moscow’s five sources of intelligence at the heart of the Shiite hierarchy.”

Nevertheless, as French journalist Dominique Lorenz reported, the Americans, “having picked Khomeini to overthrow the Shah, had to get him out of Iraq, clothe him with respectability and set him up in Paris, a succession of events, which could not have occurred, if the leadership in France had been against it.”

In 1978, Khomeini, in Iraq since 1965, was permitted to reside at Neauphle-le-Château in France. Two French police squads, along with Algerians and Palestinians, protected him. Nahavandi notes:

Around the small villa occupied by Khomeini, the agents of many of the world’s secret services were gathered as thickly as the autumn leaves. The CIA, the MI6, the KGB and the SDECE were all there. The CIA had even rented the house next door. According to most of the published witness-statements, the East Germans were in charge of most of the radio-transmissions; and, on at least one occasion, eight thousand cassettes of the Ayatollah’s speeches were sent, directly to Teheran, by diplomatic bag.

Foreign-affairs analyst du Berrier reported:

French services quickly verified that Libya, Iraq and Russia were providing money. Young Iranians, members of the Tudeh (communist) Party, made up Khomeini’s secretariat in France. Working in cooperation with the French Communist Party they provided couriers to pass his orders and tapes into Iran. Their sympathizers in Britain turned the BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation) into a propaganda organ.

Journalists descended in droves on Neauphle-le-Château; Khomeini gave 132 interviews in 112 days, receiving easy questions as their media organs became his sounding board. Nahavandi affirms that, within Iran “the Voice of America, the Voice of Israel and, especially, the BBC virtually became the voice of the revolution, moving from criticism, to overt incitement of revolt, and from biased reporting, to outright disinformation.”

Khomeini’s inflammatory speeches were broadcast; revolutionary songs aired on Iranian radio. One journalist, however, stunned Khomeini by bucking the trend: intelligence expert Pierre de Villemarest, hero of the French Resistance in World War II, anti-communist, and critic of the CFR. Interviewing Khomeini, de Villemarest asked:

How are you going to solve the economic crisis into which you have plunged the country through your agitation of these past few weeks?… And aren’t you afraid that when the present regime is destroyed you will be outpaced by a party as tightly-knit and well organized as the [communist] Tudeh?

Khomeini didn’t reply. The interpreter stood, saying, “The Ayatollah is tired.” De Villemarest registered his concern with the French Ministry of the Interior, but reported, “They told me to occupy myself with something else.”

Ending the Shah’s Rule

Iran’s situation deteriorated. As Western media spurred revolutionaries, riots and strikes paralyzed Iran. The Shah wrote:

At about this time, a new CIA chief was stationed in Teheran. He had been transferred to Iran from a post in Tokyo with no previous experience in Iranian affairs. Why did the U.S. install a man totally ignorant of my country in the midst of such a crisis? I was astonished by the insignificance of the reports he gave me. At one point we spoke of liberalization and I saw a smile spread across his face.

The Carter administration’s continuous demand upon the Shah: liberalize. On October 26, 1978, he freed 1,500 prisoners, but increased rioting followed. The Shah commented that “the more I liberalized, the worse the situation in Iran became. Every initiative I took was seen as proof of my own weakness and that of my government.” Revolutionaries equated liberalization with appeasement. “My greatest mistake,” the Shah recalled, “was in listening to the Americans on matters concerning the internal affairs of my kingdom.”

Iran’s last hope: its well-trained military could still restore order. The Carter administration realized this. Du Berrier noted: “Air Force General Robert Huyser, deputy commander of U.S. forces in Europe, was sent to pressure Iran’s generals into giving in without a fight.” “Huyser directly threatened the military with a break in diplomatic relations and a cutoff of arms if they moved to support their monarch.”

“It was therefore necessary,” the Shah wrote, “to neutralize the Iranian army. It was clearly for this reason that General Huyser had come to Teheran.”

Huyser only paid the Shah a cursory visit, but had three meetings with Iran’s revolutionary leaders — one lasting 10 hours. Huyser, of course, had no authority to interfere with a foreign nation’s sovereign affairs.

Prior to execution later by Khomeini, General Amir Hossein Rabbi, commander-in-chief of the Iranian Air Force, stated: “General Huyser threw the Shah out of the country like a dead mouse.”

U.S. officials pressed the Shah to leave Iran. He reflected:

You cannot imagine the pressure the Americans were putting on me, and in the end it became an order…. How could I stay when the Americans had sent a general, Huyser, to force me out? How could I stand alone against Henry Precht [the State Department Director for Iran] and the entire State Department?

He finally accepted exile, clinging to the belief that America was still Iran’s ally, and that leaving would avert greater bloodshed. These hopes proved illusions.

A factor in the Shah’s decision to depart was that — unknown to most people — he had cancer. U.S. Ambassador William Sullivan (CFR) assured the Shah that, if he exited Iran, America would welcome him. Despite the pleadings of myriad Iranians to stay, he reluctantly left. However, shortly after reaching Cairo, the U.S. ambassador to Egypt effectively informed him that “the government of the United States regrets that it cannot welcome the Shah to American territory.”

The betrayed ruler now became “a man without a country.”

Iran’s Chaotic Descent

On February 1, 1979, with U.S. officials joining the welcoming committee, Ayatollah Khomeini arrived in Iran amid media fanfare. Although counter-demonstrations, some numbering up to 300,000 people, erupted in Iran, the Western press barely mentioned them.

Khomeini had taken power, not by a constitutional process, but violent revolution that ultimately claimed hundreds of thousands of lives. Numerous of his opponents were executed, usually without due process, and often after brutal torture. Teheran’s police officers — loyal to the Shah — were slaughtered. At least 1,200 Imperial Army officers, who had been instructed by General Huyser not to resist the revolution, were put to death. Before dying, many exclaimed, “God save the King!” “On February 17,” reported du Berrier, “General Huyser faced the first photos of the murdered leaders whose hands he had tied and read the descriptions of their mutilations.” At the year’s end, the military emasculated and no longer a threat, the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan. More Iranians were killed during Khomeini’s first month in power than in the Shah’s 37-year reign. Yet Carter, Ted Kennedy, and the Western media, who had brayed so long about the Shah’s alleged “human rights” violations, said nothing. Mass executions and torture elicited no protests. Seeing his country thus destroyed, the exiled Shah raged to an adviser: “Where are the defenders of human rights and democracy now?” Later, the Shah wrote that there was

not a word of protest from American human rights advocates who had been so vocal in denouncing my “tyrannical” regime! It was a sad commentary, I reflected, that the United States, and indeed most Western countries, had adopted a double standard for international morality: anything Marxist, no matter how bloody and base, is acceptable.

Exile

The Shah’s personal tragedy wasn’t over. He stayed briefly in Egypt and Morocco, but did not wish to impose risks on his hosts from Muslim extremists. Eventually he welcomed Mexican President Lopes Portillo’s hospitality.

However, in Mexico the Shah received an invitation from CFR Chairman David Rockefeller, who used influence to secure permission for the Shah to come to America for medical treatment. Rockefeller sent a trendy Park Avenue MD to examine the Shah, who agreed — against his better judgment — to abandon his personal physicians and fly to New York for treatment. In October 1979, he was received at the Rockefeller-founded Sloan-Kettering Memorial Hospital for cancer treatment. Here the Shah experienced a fateful delay in spleen surgery that some believe accelerated his death.

The Shah’s admission to the United States had another outcome. Partly in retribution, on November 4, 1979, Iranians took 52 hostages from the U.S. embassy in Teheran. (According to Nahavandi, Soviet special services assisted them.) This embarrassed Jimmy Carter, who had done so much to destroy the Shah and support Khomeini. The seizure made the Shah a pawn.

While in New York, Mexico inexplicably reversed its welcome, informing the Shah that his return would contravene Mexico’s “vital interests.” One can only guess at the hidden hands possibly influencing this decision.

Carter faced a dilemma. Iran wanted the Shah’s return — for a degrading execution — in exchange for the American hostages. However, a direct trade might humiliate the United States.

Therefore, Panama was selected as intermediary. Following treatment in New York, the Shah was informed he could no longer remain in America, but Panama would welcome him. In Panama, however, the Shah and Empress were under virtual house arrest; it was apparent that it would only be a matter of time before the Shah would be sent to Iran in exchange for the hostages. A special cage was erected in Teheran. Khomeini’s followers envisioned parading him in the streets before final torture and bloody execution.

However, Anwar Sadat, the Egyptian president and the Shah’s friend, discerned the scheme, and sent a jet to Panama, which escorted the Shah and Empress safely to Egypt.

Mohammad Reza Pahlavi died on July 27, 1980. His last words: “I wait upon Fate, never ceasing to pray for Iran, and for my people. I think only of their suffering.” In Cairo, a grand funeral honored him. Three million Egyptians followed the procession.

Anwar Sadat who, like the Shah, advocated a peaceful Middle East, and defied the American establishment by saving the Shah from infamous death, did not survive much longer himself. The following year, Muslim extremists assassinated him under circumstances remaining controversial.

The Issues

Why did the American establishment, defying logic and morality, betray our ally the Shah? Only the perpetrators can answer the question, but a few possibilities should be considered.

Iran ranks second in the world in oil and natural-gas reserves. Energy is critical to world domination, and major oil companies, such as Exxon and British Petroleum, have long exerted behind-the-scenes influence on national policies.

The major oil companies had for years dictated Iranian oil commerce, but the Shah explained:

In 1973 we succeeded in putting a stop, irrevocably, to sixty years of foreign exploitation of Iranian oil-resources…. In 1974, Iran at last took over the management of the entire oil-industry, including the refineries at Abadan and so on…. I am quite convinced that it was from this moment that some very powerful, international interests identified, within Iran, the collusive elements, which they could use to encompass my downfall.

Does this explain the sudden attitude change toward Iran expressed by Henry Kissinger, beginning in the mid-seventies? Kissinger’s links to the Rockefellers, whose fortune derived primarily from oil, bolsters the Shah’s view on the situation. However, other factors should be considered.

Although the Shah maintained a neutral stance toward Israel, during the 1973 Yom Kippur War, he allowed critical supplies to reach Egypt, enabling it to achieve a balance of success, and earning Sadat’s undying gratitude, but wrath from influential Zionists. Did this impact the West’s attitude change in the mid-seventies?

We should not overlook that the Shah opposed the powerful opium trade, now flourishing in the Middle East.

Finally, the Shah was a nationalist who brought his country to the brink of greatness and encouraged Middle East peace. These qualities are anathema to those seeking global governance, for strong nations resist membership in world bodies, and war has long been a destabilizing catalyst essential to what globalists call “the new world order.”

What is the solution to modern Iran? Before listening to war drums, let us remember:

It was the CFR clique — the same establishment entrenched in the Bush and Obama administrations — that ousted the Shah, resulting in today’s Iran. That establishment also chanted for the six-year-old Iraq War over alleged weapons of mass destruction never found. Therefore, instead of contemplating war with Iran, a nation four times Iraq’s size, let us demand that America shed its CFR hierarchy and their interventionist policy that has wrought decades of misery, and adopt a policy of avoiding foreign entanglements, and of minding our own business in international affairs.

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Sunday, March 16, 2008

http://alanpetersworld.blogspot.com:80/2008/03/jimmah-idiot-carter-architect-of-our.html

Jimmy Carter Under Fire for Recruiting Soviets Against Reagan

Wes Vernon, NewsMax.com
Wednesday, Oct. 30, 2002

WASHINGTON Former President Jimmy Carter owes an explanation to the American people for his behavior during the Cold War, says the author of a new book.

“Reagans War reveals new information that Carter, as president and later as a private citizen, sought the help of an avowed foreign enemy of this country to undermine Reagans candidacy in 1980 and, even more shocking, tried to cripple President Reagans foreign policy in 1984.

The former Democrat president, who had been ousted by voters four years earlier, wanted the Soviets to help him put a Democrat back in the White House.

Speaking Tuesday at a seminar at the Institute of World Politics, the books author, Peter Schweizer, said Jimmy Carter owes a full explanation, and then depending on his answer, a decision could be made as to whether the former president “stepped over the line from pure dissent to giving aid and comfort to the enemy.

NewsMax.com CEO Christopher Ruddy has written that Carter “may well have committed treason by enlisting the help of the Soviet Union in the 1980 and 1984 presidential elections.

“Its a fair question for him [Carter] to give his account of what happened, and a response, which he has not done, the author told NewsMax.com. “Then, you know, depending on his reaction and response, there needs to be further discussion. The other thing potentially that perhaps ought to be asked [is] that Moscow release any files it has on the meetings.

“All we have right now, Schweizer added, “is based on these accounts by [former Soviet Ambassador] Dobrynin. And it begs the question: Is there any more material based on his [Carters] dealings with Moscow?

‘Carter Won’t Forget’ Soviet Assistance

Schweizers book, which is going straight to the top of the best-seller list, reveals that during the 1980 campaign when Reagan was gaining in the polls, Carter “dispatched [pro-Soviet industrialist] Armand Hammer to the Soviet Embassy for a secret meeting with Ambassador Dobrynin to ask for Soviet help with Jewish emigration and other potential vote-getting issues for a sitting president. The Soviets were promised that “Carter wont forget that service if he is re-elected.

Schweizer reports that when Reagan was running for re-election in 1984, Carter himself visited Ambassador Dobrynin warning there “would not be a single agreement on arms control, especially on nuclear arms, as long as Reagan was in power.

Carter wanted the Soviet Union to help the Democrats regain the presidency. History shows his prophecy about no hope for a nuclear arms agreement to be wrong. It was a part of Reagan’s success in ending the Cold War on Americas terms.

Asking Carter to explain to Americans this part of his stewardship is most “reasonable, in Schweizers view. When he asked the former president about this, all the author got was “No comment.

location: http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2002/10/29/201145.shtml

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Peter Schweizer, a Hoover Institution research fellow, has just written a new book, “Reagan’s War: The Epic Story of His Forty-Year Struggle and Final Triumph Over Communism.”

This book may well force historians to revise the history of the Cold War.

Schweizer, after scouring once-classified KGB, East German Stasi and Soviet Communist Party files, discovered incontrovertible evidence that the Soviets not only played footsie with high-ranking Democrats, they also worked behind the scenes to influence American elections.

In “Reagan’s War,” Schweizer shows how the Democrats worked with Moscow to try to undermine Reagan before and after he became president.

Jimmy Carter’s Dirty Tricks

Soviet diplomatic accounts and material from the archives show that in January 1984, former President Jimmy Carter dropped by Soviet Ambassador Anatoly Dobrynin’s residence for a private meeting.

Carter expressed his concern about and opposition to Reagan’s defense buildup. He boldly told Dobrynin that Moscow would be better off with someone else in the White House. If Reagan won, he warned, “There would not be a single agreement on arms control, especially on nuclear arms, as long as Reagan remained in power.”

Using the Russians to influence the presidential election was nothing new for Carter.

Schweizer reveals Russian documents that show that in the waning days of the 1980 campaign, the Carter White House dispatched businessman Armand Hammer to the Soviet Embassy.

Hammer was a longtime Soviet-phile, and he explained to the Soviet ambassador that Carter was “clearly alarmed” at the prospect of losing to Reagan.

Hammer pleaded with the Russians for help. He asked if the Kremlin could expand Jewish emigration to bolster Carter’s standing in the polls.

‘Carter Won’t Forget That Service’

“Carter won’t forget that service if he is elected,” Hammer told Dobrynin.

Carter was not the only Democrat to make clear to the Russians where their loyalty lay. As the election neared in 1984, Dobrynin recalls meetings with Speaker of the House Thomas P. “Tip” O’Neill.

O’Neill told Dobrynin that no effort should be spared to prevent “that demagogue Reagan” from being re-elected.

 

location:

http://www.newsmax.com/showinside.shtml?a=2002/10/16/214040

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Jimmy Carter and the 40 Ayatollahs

Diane Alden
Wednesday, Oct. 30, 2002

By Middle East standards the Shah of Iran was a progressive democrat. In the eyes of President Jimmy Carter and certain foreign policy factions in the State Department and various think tanks, the Shah represented the heart of darkness.

In an article in May 2002, NewsMax’s Chris Ruddy pointed out:

“Remember Carter’s human rights program, where he demanded the Shah of Iran step down and turn over power to the Ayatollah Khomeini? “No matter that Khomeini was a madman. Carter had the U.S. Pentagon tell the Shah’s top military commanders – about 150 of them – to acquiesce to the Ayatollah and not fight him.

“The Shah’s military listened to Carter. All of them were murdered in one of the Ayatollah’s first acts.

“By allowing the Shah to fall, Carter created one of the most militant anti-American dictatorships ever.”

These days, Jimmy Carter has selective blindness toward the Middle East and Israel. He emphasizes the evils of Israel when it takes self-protective actions against Palestinians, while turning a blind eye to what the Palestinians and Yasser Arafat are doing.

The fact that Yasser Arafat won the Nobel Peace Prize because he signed one of Carter’s paper peace agreements with Israel is one reason Carter hangs on to his illusions about Arafat and the Palestinians. He and the foreign policy elite of his era have too much invested in that failure to admit it IS a failure.

Even while Hamas, Hezbollah, and Islamic Jihad target any and every Israeli who lives in the Middle East, Carter remains the typical one-world-fits-all leftist – in extreme denial. No one wants to admit that their good intentions and efforts created hell on earth for millions of people. No one wants to admit that the fruit of their utopian dreams for a peaceful world will NOT be accomplished through accommodations with terrorists, utopian leftists, madmen with nukes, or those who are fanatically anti-U.S.

Iranian writer Farhad Mafie offers a telling picture of the international terrorist connection between Iran and the rest of the bomb-throwing Islamist world and Yasser Arafat.

In a 2002 essay Mafie reports: “The first and only time that Ayatollah Khomeini smiled was when he sat next to Mr. Arafat in Tehran in 1979. Mr. Arafat was the first foreign dignitary – actually the first official terrorist – who came to Iran after Iranian generals were summarily executed by order of criminals such as Dr. Ibrahim Yazdi [now a ‘reformist’ in Iran’s current system]. After Naji, Rahimi, Khosrowdad, and Nasiri were brutally executed [Feb. 15, 1979], Arafat and Khomeini hugged each other and smiled.”

The mullahs welcomed Yasser Arafat warmly indeed. Not surprising considering the fact that the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) helped the Shah’s opponents by training terrorists, supplying weapons to the mullahs and their leftist supporters, and participating in killing Iranian demonstrators in Tehran. The PLO provided aid and comfort to the mullahs and forces to bring down the Shah, thus destabilizing the entire Middle East.

It is not a stretch to insist that if Jimmy Carter and the policy wonks in his administration had formulated foreign policy according to American self-interest, the world would be a better place. When the ayatollahs came to power in Iran, that circumstance gave immense encouragement to the Islamist fundamentalist madmen in Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan and everywhere else.

These same Islamist militarists eventually murdered Egyptian President Anwar Sadat, another Nobel Peace Prize recipient, because he signed Carter’s first Camp David Peace Treaty with Israel. Carter does not have the ability to connect the dots, and that makes him a dangerous man rather than a peacemaker.

Carter’s vision remains myopic, to say the least. These days he blames Israel for the failure of peace in the Middle East. He continues to refuse to take responsibility for his part in promoting the rise of militant Islam.

Carter fails to recognize that the greater evil was the Shah’s replacement. For that reason, Islamist militancy received a colossal push up the geopolitical ladder.

Carter and the Democrats, along with the policy wonks in the D.C.-New York corridor, harbor the misguided notion that there is no evil in the world. They never get it through their dreamy heads that the root cause of many wars and calamities is, in fact, evil.

They prefer to believe that every international problem has a diplomatic answer. They believe that anyone can be talked into being peaceful if they just push the right buttons long enough. History, unfortunately, indicates that is not how things work. As a matter of fact, dialogue with evil legitimizes evil.

Evil is murderous, resentful, envious, hostile, bitter and unforgiving, creating conflict for no legitimate reason. Mostly it is fatal to one and all.

Dialogue only works when countries or people have decided that their agenda, or at the very least a peaceful compromise, cannot be accomplished through terror or intimidation. The other alternative is that they must be totally and completely defeated in battle, as Germany and Japan were defeated.

Carter never understood that some mindsets or systems can’t be accommodated, regardless of good intentions or how much talking and fine tuning and compromise take place. Yasser Arafat and those like him, as well as his evil brand of politics, are a case in point. So are North Korea, Cuba, Saddam Hussein and the government of the Iranian Islamist militant clerics.

Evil is evil, and George Bush was correct when he called Iran and North Korea and Iraq the “axis of evil.”

The victorious mullahs and their leader, Ayatollah Khomeini, greeted Mr. Arafat as a hero – as well he should have been greeted, given the valuable assistance that the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) had provided. The PLO helped the Shah’s opponents by training terrorists, supplying weapons to the mullahs and their leftist supporters, and participating in killing Iranian demonstrators in the streets of Tehran. By doing so, the PLO further inflamed anti-Shah sentiments and helped further destroy the Shah’s political image.

Ayatollah Khomeini, as a sign of appreciation, closed the Israeli Embassy in Tehran and turned it into the PLO’s official headquarters and embassy, complete with Palestinian flag.

Later, Fahdie relates, Arafat “allowed the PLO to have a branch office in Iran’s most important and richest province, Khozestan. … Since 1979, the Islamic Republic of Iran [IRI] has been working directly with all the terrorist elements within the PLO. It has even created several new terrorist organizations, such as Hezbollah [‘Party of God’], which was designed and developed by Mr. Mohtashami [also an IRI reformist] to further enhance the IRI’s terrorist bases in the region. These organizations are supported both militarily with Iranian Revolutionary Guards and financially with millions of dollars [of the Iranian people’s money, of course].”

For some reason Islamist religious clerics have a fascination with dogs, killing them or their owners. Not so long ago in Afghanistan, videos of experiments on a puppy being gassed were conducted by al-Qaeda and the Taliban. It was certainly big news on CNN. Before the U.S. incursion into Afghanistan, videos of another pitiful pooch appeared. The dog had a sign painted on its head that read “Bush.” The Taliban and Islamists torched the dog in their usual sick kind of statement against the civilized world.

In his most recent column, historian, scholar and writer Michael Ledeen affirms that on Oct. 13 of this year, religious leader Ali Khamenei’s followers “demanded that all dogs and their owners be arrested. This follows a June decree banning the sale of dogs, along with public dog walking, which was branded an immoral act and an offense to the sensitivities of all good Muslims. …”

Ledeen asserts: “As it turns out, Iran’s officials made the mistake of reporting the results of an official survey which showed that three quarters of the Iranian people ‘want good relations with the United (“Great Satan”) States, and that Khamenei is the most unpopular public figure in the country.’ So the head of the polling institution was accused of disseminating false information and thrown into the nearest torture chamber, and the editor of the newspaper that published the story was hauled before some beturbaned and bearded fanatics practicing ‘Islamic justice,’ and similarly locked away. …”

Unfortunately, for the Iranians there is no great leader on the horizon. Most opposition leadership has been murdered or tortured into silence or live in exile. Public hangings and stoning are rampant in Iran. Street fighting has led to the deaths of hundreds of people.

Reports that I saw indicated that after the Sept. 11, 2001, attack on the United States, Iranian students and citizens held candlelight vigils in various Iranian towns to show solidarity with the American people. You would be hard pressed to find any of this related extensively in the Western or U.S. press or State Department press releases.

In his essay Ledeen also discusses the monster demonstrations in Tehran last year – demonstrations that the dim bulb mainstream Western press deemed to be “soccer riots.”

Recent intelligence reports indicate that al-Qaeda operatives in northern Italy have been in regular contact with Iran. Ledeen adds that German officials say that al-Qaeda operatives are in northern Italy “[and] that leading terrorists may be found in Iran.”

Furthermore, he continues: “Just in case you were wondering about Bali, my information is that the bombs were delivered by Hezbollah operatives, having been trained by experts from the Iranian Revolutionary Guards. The people who gave me this information, the day after the event, also predicted, spot on, that the next assault would be in the Philippines.”

(The entire article may be found at http://www.nationalreview.com.)

President Bush understands what is going on in Iran. His State of the Union speech gave heart to many people in Iran’s struggling opposition parties. That opposition hungered to hear a strong statement about the “axis of evil.” Iran’s present government, led by clerical bully-boys, is part of that axis.

Contrary to what the snotty policy analysts at the New York Times OR what Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton have to say, the Iranian people are on the verge of throwing the bastards out. They need hope. Where are Carter and Clinton in giving them any? At least Bush gave the Iranian opposition hope by calling evil by its right name. Nevertheless, it is also unfortunate that the Bush house is divided. Secretary of State Colin Powell either has no clue, or he is so enamored of the usual Foggy Bottom follies he can’t see the forest for the trees. According to Ledeen, Powell and his deputy Richard Armitage oppose any assistance to the Iranian opposition.

It is possible George Bush realizes that the “reformist movement” and the “third force movement” in Iran are aliases created by the IRI to keep itself in power. One can hope.

Then there is Europe. It is futile to believe it will offer encouragement in an effort to bring freedom and democracy to Iran or anywhere in the Middle East. European oil companies Royal Dutch/Shell, TotalFinaElf and ENI have signed deals with the ayatollahs that are worth billions of dollars. Thus they have ignored the Iran-Libya Sanctions Act. That act seeks to bar foreign firms from making major financial commitments in Iran.

Iranian supporters of the overthrow of the ayatollahs suggest that the “U.S. should funnel all IRI funds now available in the U.S. to the Iranian opposition forces.”

Furthermore, “the U.S. should stop all the IRI propaganda activities in the U.S. by banning any organizations and individuals receiving IRI funds, whether directly from Iran or from IRI sources of income in the U.S.”

The opposition also suggests that the U.S. support the Iranian opposition forces by “providing them with sufficient radio and TV capabilities to broadcast to the Iranian people inside Iran.” (Perhaps from stations maintained in Afghanistan.)

The U.S. should publicly and actively “support a national referendum in Iran under international observation so that the Iranian people [inside and outside Iran] can freely vote for their desired form of government.”

But if the Bush administration is as divided as Ledeen thinks it is, then Iran may go on killing its own people, suppressing their desire for greater freedom, while offering aid and comfort to terrorists worldwide. The end game is the creation of Islamist states worldwide.

Just recently, former President Clinton gave speeches in Australia and Britain that in effect supported turning over U.S. sovereignty to some hodgepodge unaccountable international cabal. Jimmy Carter is of the same mind.

Sadly, Carter and Bill Clinton promoted foreign policy with a ferocious mindlessness that seeks the praise and empty glory of the world. They excused cruelty and allowed truly murderous regimes to have a pass. The despotic and murderous rulers in Iran, as well as the rise of Islamic terrorists, are among the fruits of the good intentions of people like Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton.

Another case in point of good intentions run amok: Clinton’s Secretary of State Madeleine Albright vetoed a U.N. effort to intervene in the bloodbath in Africa between the Hutus and Tutsis. Millions were butchered in that horror. Meanwhile, Team Clinton jumped in all the way into a far less devastating war between Christian Serbs and Muslims in the former Yugoslavia.

Since LBJ, Democratic administrations have had trouble with priorities. With the best of intentions, they go about wreaking havoc on the world while ignoring the worst of it.

Carter counsels against any strong U.S. or unilateral policy in the Middle East. Since he came on the political scene, good son Jimmy has given the nod to any geopolitical group who either works against U.S. interests or is left of Lenin, like the Sandinistas. That kind of philosophy might make the Nobel Peace Prize Committee happy, but it does nothing for peace in the world or for America’s best interests. One member of the Nobel Committee openly admitted that Carter received the prize because he strongly opposed Bush’s efforts in the Middle and Far East.

George Bush would be foolish to give Carter, Clinton, the foreign policy and academic left, and the pundits on CNN and MSNBC the time of day. He would be foolish to have his head turned by the European elite or the sorry bunch at the Nobel Committee. They have been wrong in the past and nothing has changed. That is dangerous for the U.S. and for world peace. Carter’s record alone indicates how wrong and how dangerous they have been.

For instance, in the Far East in 1994, Carter helped negotiate a useless treaty-accord with North Korea. Reports point out that while visiting the dying despot Kim Il Sung, Carter proclaimed him to be “vigorous, alert, intelligent and surprisingly well informed about the technical issues.” Carter actually believed that Sung also was “very friendly toward Christianity.”

Later, Clinton’s secretary of state, Madeleine Albright, also went to North Korea. While there, she acted and spoke as if she had been selected prom queen by the brutal regime. This regime has been responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of North Koreans from starvation.

This is another case where a Democratic administration never sees evil when it comes from some approved homicidal political system with its accompanying madman. Clinton and Carter both believe, incorrectly, that they can manipulate people and states through treaties, accords or expensive parties for visiting dignitaries.

It is a safe bet that had Jimmy Carter won a second term, the downfall of communism in the Soviet Union would have been delayed by decades.

Jimmy Carter has done good things in his life. None of them, however, have to do with foreign policy. His efforts in that regard have merely led to more chaos in just about every place he has offered his help.

Carter is the quintessential kindergarten teacher who wants the kiddies to make nice. He is not a discerning realistic maker of peace, but rather a guy who wanted to be a “peacemaker” no matter how empty that peace was.

Carter never figured out that sometimes being a maker of peace means smacking the schoolyard bully till he quits beating up on everyone. He still thinks you can talk people to death with accords and compromises. For some reason he never realized that evil people exist and their hearts are far from peace. They lie, cheat, steal and murder to accomplish their ends.

I suspect Jimmy thinks being a Christian is always about “turning the other cheek.” Well, there are times one must do that, often in fact. However, it is one thing to turn the other cheek when it is your own, it is a much different thing when the lives of others in your charge are at stake.

Carter’s recent Nobel Prize should have been a prize for the person with the best intentions. Unfortunately, Iran, the United States and the world have paid the price in blood and heartache in order for Jimmy Carter to obtain that prize.

[See: Jimmy Carter’s Trail of Disaster.]

As has been reported in NewsMax previously, Carter still receives a great deal of money from the Arab world for his Carter Center in Atlanta.

https://www.newsmax.com/pre-2008/jimmy-carter-and-the/2002/10/29/id/668099/

http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2002/10/29/170201.shtml

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Carter Sold out Iran 1977-1978

 As if a light were switched off, the Shah of Iran, Mohammad Reza Pahlevi, portrayed for 20 years as a progressive modern ruler by Islamic standards, was suddenly, in 1977-1978, turned into this foaming at the mouth monster by the international left media. Soon after becoming President in 1977, Jimmy Carter launched a deliberate campaign to undermine the Shah. The Soviets and their left-wing apparatchiks would coordinate with Carter by smearing the Shah in a campaign of lies meant to topple his throne. The result would be the establishment of a Marxist/Islamic state in Iran headed by the tyrannical Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. The Iranian revolution, besides enthroning one of the worlds most oppressive regimes, would greatly contribute to the creation of the Marxist/Islamic terror network challenging the free world today.

 At the time, a senior Iranian diplomat in Washington observed, President Carter betrayed the Shah and helped create the vacuum that will soon be filled by Soviet-trained agents and religious fanatics who hate America. Under the guise of promoting human rights, Carter made demands on the Shah while blackmailing him with the threat that if the demands werent fulfilled, vital military aid and training would be withheld. This strange policy, carried out against a staunch, 20 year Middle East ally, was a repeat of similar policies applied in the past by US governments to other allies such as pre Mao China and pre Castro Cuba.

 Carter started by pressuring the Shah to release political prisoners including known terrorists and to put an end to military tribunals. The newly released terrorists would be tried under civil jurisdiction with the Marxist/Islamists using these trials as a platform for agitation and propaganda. This is a standard tactic of the left then and now. The free world operates at a distinct dis-advantage to Marxist and Islamic nations in this regard as in those countries, trials are staged to show the political faith of the ruling elite. Fair trials, an independent judiciary, and a search for justice is considered to be a western bourgeois prejudice.

 Carter pressured Iran to allow for free assembly which meant that groups would be able to meet and agitate for the overthrow of the government. It goes without saying that such rights didnt exist in any Marxist or Islamic nation. The planned and predictable result of these policies was an escalation of opposition to the Shah, which would be viewed by his enemies as a weakness. A well-situated internal apparatus in Iran receiving its marching orders from the Kremlin egged on this growing opposition.

 By the fall of 1977, university students, working in tandem with a Shiite clergy that had long opposed the Shahs modernizing policies, began a well coordinated and financed series of street demonstrations supported by a media campaign reminiscent of the 1947-1948 campaign against Chinas Chiang Ki Shek in favor of the agrarian reformer Mao tse Tung. At this point the Shah was unable to check the demonstrators, who were instigating violence as a means of inflaming the situation and providing their media stooges with atrocity propaganda. Rumors were circulating amongst Iranians that the CIA under the orders of President Carter organized these demonstrations.

 In November 1977, the Shah and his Empress, Farah Diba, visited the White House where they were met with hostility. They were greeted by nearly 4,000 Marxist-led Iranian students, many wearing masks, waving clubs, and carrying banners festooned with the names of Iranian terrorist organizations. The rioters were allowed within 100 feet of the White House where they attacked other Iranians and Americans gathered to welcome the Shah. Only 15 were arrested and quickly released. Inside the White House, Carter pressured the Shah to implement even more radical changes. Meanwhile, the Soviets were mobilizing a campaign of propaganda, espionage, sabotage, and terror in Iran. The Shah was being squeezed on two sides.

 In April 1978, Moscow would instigate a bloody coup in Afghanistan and install the communist puppet Nur Mohammad Taraki. Taraki would proceed to call for a jihad against the Ikhwanu Shayateen which translates into brothers of devils, a label applied to opponents of the new red regime in Kabul and to the Iranian government. Subversives and Soviet-trained agents swarmed across the long Afghanistan/Iran border to infiltrate Shiite mosques and other Iranian institutions. By November 1978, there was an estimated 500,000 Soviet backed Afghanis in Iran where, among other activities, they set up training camps for terrorists.

 Khomeini, a 78-year-old Shiite cleric whose brother had been imprisoned as a result of activities relating to his Iranian Communist party affiliations, and who had spent 15 years in exile in Bath Socialist Iraq, was poised to return. In exile, Khomeini spoke of the creation of a revolutionary Islamic republic, which would be anti-Western, socialist, and with total power in the hands of an ayatollah. In his efforts to violently overthrow the government of Iran, Khomeini received the full support of the Soviets.

 Nureddin Klanuri, head of the Iranian Communist Tudeh Party, in exile in East Berlin, stated, The Tudeh Party approves Ayatollah Khomeinis initiative in creating the Islamic Revolutionary Council. The ayatollahs program coincides with that of the Tudeh Party.  Khomeinis closest advisor, Sadegh Ghothzadeh, was well known as a revolutionary with close links to communist intelligence. In January 1998, Pravda, the official Soviet organ, officially endorsed the Khomeini revolution.

 American leaders were also supporting Khomeini. After the Pravda endorsement, Ramsey Clark, who served as Attorney General under President Lyndon B. Johnson, held a press conference where he reported on a trip to Iran and a Paris visit with Khomeini. He urged the US government to take no action to help the Shah so that Iran could determine its own fate. Clark played a behind the scenes role influencing members of Congress to not get involved in the crisis. Perhaps UN Ambassador Andrew Young best expressed the thinking of the left at the time when he stated that, if successful, Khomeini would eventually be hailed as a saint.

 Khomeini was allowed to seize power in Iran and, as a result, we are now reaping the harvest of anti-American fanaticism and extremism. Khomeini unleashed the hybrid of Islam and Marxism that has spawned suicide bombers and hijackers. President Jimmy Carter, and the extremists in his administration are to blame and should be held accountable.
Chuck Morse
Is the author of
Why Im a Right-Wing Extremist
www.chuckmorse.com

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