Father of the Iranian Revolution - (Updated)

The United States of America, as a superpower and for decades, has played a central role in influencing and shaping the process and outcome of politics throughout the world. Consequently, the policies of her Presidents, their respective administration and advisors have always had a tremendous impact, not only on the future of the U.S. and the American People, but also worldwide.

Prior to and during 1979 ill-conceived “Khomeinist revolution” in Iran, a small percentage of Iranians, particularly in Iran, were mobilized against the Shah. Several Iranians I have privately spoken to, who were at the time in Iran and were not all monarchists either, have mostly summarized the contributing reasons for the events as:

(1) the zeitgeist, in general in the 70’s, leaning significantly towards “liberalism” or “socialism” i.e. left of the center. (2) the vital role which various Iranian marxists and communists played inside Iran i.e. brainwashing many Iranians (particularly students & intellectuals) into believing that Khomeini was to offer “Democracy” as opposed to the Shah’s “dictatorship”. (3) Arafat’s and PLO’s role inside Iran in helping to sell mass propaganda to the world through fake and doctored pictures of “Shah’s army killing innocent Iranians” in Iran. (4) the role of “Bazaaris” (merchants) in Iran who are traditionally very religious, and are considered as movers and shakers in the lower classes of the society. They were mostly focusing on “religious groups” within Iran and through the mosques by disseminating propaganda in a form of cassette recordings of Khomeini’s speeches.

These cassette recordings, among other propaganda, not only accused the Shah’s government of being “America’s servant” but also of corruption.  The mood in Iran at the time, especially in the lower classes and “students/intellectuals” was against the U.S. and the American government’s intervention both politically and economically in Iran - that was the main Perception; the perception that Americans were taking advantage of Iran, and the Americans (those who lived in Iran, approx. 50,000) were far better treated than the average Iranian.

Actually, a significant point of contention by the clergy and Khomeini, in particular, against the late Shah of Iran dates back to the White Revolution in 1963 and the 19 elements of reform introduced over 15 years by the Shah. To read more about the details, achievements and key constraints of the White Revolution, which was overwhelmingly approved of by the general public through a referendum in 1963, CLICK HERE

Khomeini, and his PR machine based at the time mainly in France, repeatedly promised Democracy, the eradication of corruption, free electricity, gender equality and so on… Khomeini, himself, also used a vehicle with which the U.S. and the West could not identify. That vehicle or ideology was Islam, which symbolically, only the Iranians could understand.

Needless to say that Khomeini’s promises, apart from implementing an institutionalized form of political Islam, were utter lies, were never fulfilled, and the Mullahs and their cohorts are the most corrupt individuals and regime ever ruling Iran. I do not believe that the average Iranian, at the time, knew what Khomeini actually had in mind. They trusted the devil in order to rid them of the so-called “external and foreign” influences.

To clarify matters, Iran’s total population in 1979 was approximately 35 million. Do we believe that some 17 million, for example, poured to the streets and welcomed Khomeini? I am told the numbers were closer 2 to 3 million. Secondly, as far as “revolutions” go, 1979 revolution in Iran was a relatively bloodless event. The Shah’s army was ordered to mainly shoot in the air and not at people, unless it was in direct defence. But, we do know how much blood was shed after Khomeini’s arrival, when mass executions began under Khomeini’s direct orders. The executions continue to this date and of course we do not wish to overlook the Iran-Iraq war in the 80’s and those innocent children who were sent as “mine detectors” to the minefields by the Islamic Republic Regime. Khomeini actually encouraged the young teenagers to sacrifice their lives for his terrorist regime. 

Some 36,000 Iranian students between the ages of 10-17 were sent to clear the minefields, blow up Iraqi tanks by strapping explosives to them, and used as human shields to protect the IRGC and the regular army.

James Earl Carter Jr. – 39th President of the U.S. – is known to have been a key facilitator of Khomeini’s rise to power. As a liberal/leftist President, Carter claimed that Khomeini was a “holy man”. A ridiculous comment by a leftist individual. However, it does not surprise me since, as mentioned previously, most of the groundwork for preparing Iranians for the return of Khomeini was carried out by Iranian communists and their extensions inside Iran too.

Finally, it must be mentioned that after Khomeini established the Islamic Republic regime in Iran, his then Prime Minister, Bazargan, actually met with Carter’s national security advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski at an event in Algiers on November 1, 1979. The subsequent American Embassy Hostage Crisis which took place on November 4, 1979 was not due to deteriorating relations with the U.S. but was for the fear, by the Militant Islamists in Iran, that relations with America were about to improve, and that could not be permitted. This is precisely the reason why the U.S. will never be able to successfully & diplomatically negotiate with any supporter, representative or official of the Islamic Republic Regime.  See The Mullahs and the Talk to America Curse

My previous post - Iran: Carter’s Habitat For Inhumanity - was apparently linked on this site  — http://iraqwar.mirror-world.ru/article/132002  – which only very recently was brought to my attention. There are some interesting comments on the mentioned website.

In this post, however, I want to republish an article by The Jerusalem Post, June 20, 2007 - Father of the Iranian Revolution

We just don’t get it. The Left in America is screaming to high heaven that the mess we are in in Iraq and the war on terrorism has been caused by the right-wing and that George W. Bush, the so-called “dim-witted cowboy,” has created the entire mess.

The truth is the entire nightmare can be traced back to the liberal democratic policies of the leftist Jimmy Carter, who created a firestorm that destabilized our greatest ally in the Muslim world, the shah of Iran, in favor of a religious fanatic, the ayatollah Khomeini.

Carter viewed Khomeini as more of a religious holy man in a grassroots revolution than a founding father of modern terrorism. Carter’s ambassador to the UN, Andrew Young, said “Khomeini will eventually be hailed as a saint.” Carter’s Iranian ambassador, William Sullivan, said, “Khomeini is a Gandhi-like figure.” Carter adviser James Bill proclaimed in a Newsweek interview on February 12, 1979 that Khomeini was not a mad mujahid, but a man of “impeccable integrity and honesty.”

The shah was terrified of Carter. He told his personal confidant, “Who knows what sort of calamity he [Carter] may unleash on the world?”

JPost BlogCentral: A personal note from Carter

Let’s look at the results of Carter’s misguided liberal policies: the Islamic Revolution in Iran; the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan (Carter’s response was to boycott the 1980 Moscow Olympics); the birth of Osama bin Laden’s terrorist organization; the Iran-Iraq War, which cost the lives of millions dead and wounded; and yes, the present war on terrorism and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

WHEN CARTER entered the political fray in 1976, America was still riding the liberal wave of anti-Vietnam War emotion. Carter asked for an in-depth report on Iran even before he assumed the reins of government and was persuaded that the shah was not fit to rule Iran. 1976 was a banner year for pacifism: Carter was elected president, Bill Clinton became attorney-general of Arkansas, and Albert Gore won a place in the Tennessee House of Representatives

In his anti-war pacifism, Carter never got it that Khomeini, a cleric exiled to Najaf in Iraq from 1965-1978, was preparing Iran for revolution. Proclaiming “the West killed God and wants us to bury him,” Khomeini’s weapon of choice was not the sword but the media. Using tape cassettes smuggled by Iranian pilgrims returning from the holy city of Najaf, he fueled disdain for what he called gharbzadegi (”the plague of Western culture”).

Carter pressured the shah to make what he termed human rights concessions by releasing political prisoners and relaxing press censorship. Khomeini could never have succeeded without Carter. The Islamic Revolution would have been stillborn.

Gen. Robert Huyser, Carter’s military liaison to Iran, once told me in tears: “The president could have publicly condemned Khomeini and even kidnapped him and then bartered for an exchange with the [American Embassy] hostages, but the president was indignant. ‘One cannot do that to a holy man,’ he said.”

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has donned the mantle of Ayatollah Khomeini, taken up bin Laden’s call, and is fostering an Islamic apocalyptic revolution in Iraq with the intent of taking over the Middle East and the world.

Jimmy Carter became the poster boy for the ideological revolution of the 1960s in the West, hell bent on killing the soul of America. The bottom line: Carter believed then and still does now is that evil really does not exist; people are basically good; America should embrace the perpetrators and castigate the victims.

IN THE ‘60S it was mass rebellion after the assassinations of Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King. When humanity confronts eternity, the response is always rebellion or repentance. The same ideologues who fought to destroy the soul of America with the “God is dead” movement in the 1960s are now running the arts, the universities, the media, the State Department, Congress, and Senate, determined more then ever to kill the soul of America while the East attempts to kill the body. Carter’s world view defines the core ideology of the Democratic Party.

What is going on in Iraq is no mystery to those of us who have had our fingers on the pulse of both Iran and Iraq for decades. The Iran-Iraq war was a war of ideologies. Saddam Hussein saw himself as an Arab leader who would defeat the non-Arab Persians. Khomeini saw it as an opportunity to export his Islamic Revolution across the borders to the Shi’ites in Iraq and then beyond to the Arab countries.

Throughout the war both leaders did everything possible to incite the inhabitants of each country to rebel - precisely what Iran is doing in Iraq today. Khomeini encouraged the Shi’ites across the border to remove Saddam from power and establish an Islamic republic like in Iran.

Carter’s belief that every crisis can be resolved with diplomacy - and nothing but diplomacy - now permeates the Democratic Party. Unfortunately, Carter is wrong.

There are times when evil must be openly confronted and defeated.

KHOMEINI HAD the help of the PLO in Iran. They supplied weapons and terrorists to murder Iranians and incite mobs in the streets. No wonder Yasser Arafat was hailed as a friend of Khomeini after he seized control of Iran and was given the Israeli Embassy in Teheran with the PLO flag flying overhead.

The Carter administration scrambled to assure the new regime that the United States would maintain diplomatic ties with Iran. But on April 1, 1979 the greatest April Fools’ joke of all time was played, as Khomeini proclaimed it the first day of the government of God.

In February 1979 Khomeini had boarded an Air France flight to return to Teheran with the blessing of Jimmy Carter. The moment he arrived, he proclaimed: “I will kick his teeth in” - referring to then prime minister Shapour Bakhtiar, who was left in power with a US pledge of support. He was assassinated in Paris by Iranian agents in 1991.

I sat in the home of Gen. Huyser, who told me the shah feared he would lose the country if he implemented Carter’s polices. Carter had no desire to see the shah remain in power. He really believed that a cleric - whose Islamist fanaticism he did not understand in the least - would be better for human rights and Iran.

He could have changed history by condemning Khomeini and getting the support of our allies to keep him out of Iran.

The writer is a New York Times best-selling author. His newest book is The Final Move Beyond Iraq. www.beyondiraq.com

I also would like to link this article - The Ted Kennedy-Jimmy Carter KGB connections