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Rôle of US Former Pres. Carter Emerging in Illegal Financial Demands on Shah of Iran
Iranian Alert -- March 15, 2004 [EST]-- IRAN LIVE THREAD --Americans for Regime Change in Iran ^
| March 15, 2004
| Alan Peters
Posted on 03/15/2004 7:44:03 AM PST by Eala
Defense & Foreign Affairs Daily
Volume XXII, No. 46
Monday, March 15, 2004
© 2004, Global Information System, ISSA
Exclusive. Analysis. By Alan Peters, 1 GIS.
Strong intelligence has begun to emerge that US President Jimmy Carter attempted to demand financial favors for his political friends from the Shah of Iran. The rejection of this demand by the Shah could well have led to Pres. Carters resolve to remove the Iranian Emperor from office.
The linkage between the destruction of the Shahs Government directly attributable to Carters actions and the Iran-Iraq war which cost millions of dead and injured on both sides, and to the subsequent rise of radical Islamist terrorism makes the new information of considerable significance.
Pres. Carters anti-Shah feelings appeared to have ignited after he sent a group of several of his friends from his home state, Georgia, to Tehran with an audience arranged with His Majesty directly by the Oval Office and in Carters name. At this meeting, as reported by Prime Minister Amir Abbas Hoveyda to some confidantes, these businessmen told the Shah that Pres. Carter wanted a contract. previously awarded to Brown & Root to build a huge port complex at Bandar Mahshahr, to be cancelled and as a personal favor to him to be awarded to the visiting group at 10 percent above the cost quoted by Brown & Root.
The group would then charge the 10 percent as a management fee and supervise the project for Iran, passing the actual construction work back to Brown & Root for implementation, as previously awarded. They insisted that without their management the project would face untold difficulties at the US end and that Pres. Carter was trying to be helpful. They told the Shah that in these perilous political times, he should appreciate the favor which Pres. Carter was doing him.
According to Prime Minister Hoveyda, the Georgia visitors left a stunned monarch and his bewildered Prime Minister speechless, other than to later comment among close confidantes about the hypocrisy of the US President, who talked glibly of God and religion but practiced blackmail and extortion through his emissaries.
The multi-billion dollar Bandar Mahshahr project would have made 10 percent management fee a huge sum to give away to Pres. Carters friends as a favor for unnecessary services. The Shah politely declined the personal management request which had been passed on to him. The refusal appeared to earn the Shah the determination of Carter to remove him from office.
Carter subsequently refused to allow tear gas and rubber bullets to be exported to Iran when anti-Shah rioting broke out, nor to allow water cannon vehicles to reach Iran to control such outbreaks, generally instigated out of the Soviet Embassy in Tehran. There was speculation in some Iranian quarters as well as in some US minds at the time and later that Carters actions were the result of either close ties to, or empathy for, the Soviet Union, which was anxious to break out of the longstanding US-led strategic containment of the USSR, which had prevented the Soviets from reaching the warm waters of the Indian Ocean.
Sensing that Irans exports could be blocked by a couple of ships sunk in the Persian Gulf shipping lanes, the Shah planned a port which would have the capacity to handle virtually all of Irans sea exports unimpeded.
Contrary to accusations leveled at him about the huge, megalomaniac projects like Bandar Mahshahr, these served as a means to provide jobs for a million graduating high school students every year for whom there were no university slots available. Guest workers, mostly from Pakistan and Afghanistan were used to start and expand the projects and Iranians replaced the foreigners as job demand required, while essential infrastructure for Iran was built ahead of schedule.
In late February 2004, Islamic Irans Deputy Minister of Economy stated that the country needed $18-billion a year to create one-million jobs and achieve economic prosperity. And at the first job creation conference held in Tehrans Amir Kabir University, Irans Student News Agency estimated the jobless at some three-million. Or a budget figure of $54-billion to deal with the problem.
Thirty years earlier, the Shah had already taken steps to resolve the same challenges, which were lost in the revolution which had been so resolutely supported by Jimmy Carter.
A quarter-century after the toppling of the Shah and his Government by the widespread unrest which had been largely initiated by groups with Soviet funding but which was, ironically, to bring the mullahs rather than the radical-left to power Ayatollah Shariatmadaris warning that the clerics were not equipped to run the country was echoed by the Head of Islamic Irans Investment Organization, who said: We are hardly familiar with the required knowledge concerning the proper use of foreign resources both in State and private sectors, nor how to make the best use of domestic resources. Not even after 25 years.
Historians and observers still debate Carters reasons for his actions during his tenure at the White House, where almost everything, including shutting down satellite surveillance over Cuba at an inappropriate time for the US, seemed to benefit Soviet aims and policies. Some claim he was inept and ignorant, others that he was allowing his liberal leanings to overshadow US national interests.
The British Foreign & Commonwealth Office had enough doubts in this respect, even to the extent of questioning whether Carter was a Russian mole, that they sent around 200 observers to monitor Carters 1980 presidential campaign against Ronald Reagan to see if the Soviets would try to buy the presidency for Carter.
In the narrow aspect of Carter setting aside international common sense to remove the US most powerful ally in the Middle East, this focused change was definitely contrary to US interests and events over the next 25 years proved this.
According to Prime Minister Hoveyda, Jimmy Carters next attack on the Shah was a formal country to country demand that the Shah sign a 50-year oil agreement with the US to supply oil at a fixed price of $8 a barrel. No longer couched as a personal request, the Shah was told he should heed the contract proposal if he wished to enjoy continued support from the US. In these perilous, political times which, could become much worse.
Faced with this growing pressure and threat, the monarch still could not believe that Iran, the staunchest US ally in the region, other than Israel, would be discarded or maimed so readily by Carter, expecting he would be prevailed upon by more experienced minds to avoid destabilizing the regional power structure and tried to explain his position. Firstly, Iran did not have 50-years of proven oil reserves that could be covered by a contract. Secondly, when the petrochemical complex in Bandar Abbas, in the South, was completed a few years later, each barrel of oil would produce $1,000 worth of petrochemicals so it would be treasonous for the Shah to give oil away for only $8.
Apologists, while acknowledging that Carter had caused the destabilization of the monarchy in Iran, claim he was only trying to salvage what he could from a rapidly deteriorating political situation to obtain maximum benefits for the US. But, after the Shah was forced from the throne, Carters focused effort to get re-elected via the Iran hostage situation points to less high minded motives.
Rumor has always had it that Carter had tried to negotiate to have the US hostages, held for 444 days by the Islamic Republic which he had helped establish in Iran, released just before the November 1980 election date, but that opposition (Republican) candidate Ronald Reagan had subverted, taken over and blocked the plan. An eye-witness account of the seizure by students of the US Embassy on November 4, 1979, in Tehran confirms a different scenario.
The mostly rent-a-crowd group of students organized to climb the US Embassy walls was spearheaded by a mullah on top of a Volkswagen van, who with a two-way radio in one hand and a bullhorn in the other, controlled the speed of the march on the Embassy according to instructions he received over the radio. He would slow it down, hurry it up and slow it down again in spurts and starts, triggering the curiosity of an educated pro-Khomeini vigilante, who later told the story to a friend in London.
When asked by the vigilante for the reason of this irregular movement, the stressed cleric replied that he had instructions to provide the US Embassy staff with enough time to destroy their most sensitive documents and to give the three most senior US diplomats adequate opportunity to then take refuge at the Islamic Republic Foreign Ministry rather than be taken with the other hostages. Someone at the Embassy was informing the Foreign Ministry as to progress over the telephone and the cleric was being told what to do over his radio.
The vigilante then asked why the Islamic Government would bother to be so accommodating to the Great Satan and was told that the whole operation was planned in advance by Prime Minister Mehdi Bazargans revolutionary Government with Pres. Carter in return for Carter having helped depose the Shah and that this was being done to ensure Carter got re-elected. He helped us, now we help him was the matter-of-fact comment from the cleric.
In 1978 while the West was deciding to remove His Majesty Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi from the throne, Shariatmadari was telling anyone who would listen not to allow Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini and his velayat faghih (Islamic jurist) version of Islam to be allowed to govern Iran. Ayatollah Shariatmadari noted: We mullahs will behave like bickering whores in a brothel if we come to power ... and we have no experience on how to run a modern nation so we will destroy Iran and lose all that has been achieved at such great cost and effort.2
Pres. Carter reportedly responded that Khomeini was a religious man as he himself claimed to be and that he knew how to talk to a man of God, who would live in the holy city of Qom like an Iranian pope and act only as an advisor to the secular, popular revolutionary Government of Mehdi Bazargan and his group of anti-Shah executives, some of whom were US-educated and expected to show preferences for US interests.
Carters mistaken assessment of Khomeini was encouraged by advisors with a desire to form an Islamic green belt to contain atheist Soviet expansion with the religious fervor of Islam. Eventually all 30 of the scenarios on Iran presented to Carter by his intelligence agencies proved wrong, and totally misjudged Khomeini as a person and as a political entity.
Today, Iranian-born, Grand Ayatollah Ali Al-Sistani, the dominant Shia leader in Iraq faces Shariatmadaris dilemma and shares the same quietist Islamic philosophy of sharia (religious law) guidance rather than direct governing by the clerics themselves. Sistanis Khomeini equivalent, militant Ayatollah Mohammed Baqir al-Sadr, was gunned down in 1999 by then-Iraqi Pres. Saddam Husseins forces. Sadrs son, 30-year-old Muqtada al-Sadr, lacks enough followers or religious seniority/clout to immediately oppose Sistani but has a hard core of violent followers biding their time.
According to all estimates, the young Sadr waits for the June 2004 scheduled handover of power in Iraq, opening the way for serious, militant intervention on his side by Iranian clerics. The Iranian clerical leaders, the successors to Khomeini, see, far more clearly than US leaders and observers, the parallels between 1979-80 and 2004: as a result, they have put far more effort into activities designed to ensure that Reagans successor, US Pres. George W. Bush, does not win power.
Footnotes:
1. © 2004 Alan Peters. The name Alan Peters is a nom de plume for a writer who was for many years involved in intelligence and security matters in Iran. He had significant access inside Iran at the highest levels during the rule of the Shah, until early 1979.
2. See Defense & Foreign Affairs Daily, March 2, 2004: Credibility and Legitimacy of Ruling Iranian Clerics Unraveling as Pressures Mount Against Them; The Source of Clerical Ruling Authority Now Being Questioned. This report, also by Alan Peters, details the background of Ayatollah Khomeini, the fact that his qualifications for his religious title were not in place, and the fact that he was not of Iranian origin.
TOPICS: Crime/Corruption; Foreign Affairs; Government
KEYWORDS: carter; ccrm; extortion; iran; jimmy; jimmycarter; opec; saudiarabia; shah; shakedown
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No source link for this was posted and I can't speak for the veracity of the report (YMMV, OTOH NYT & Debka material appears on FR), but this seemed an item that shouldn't remain "buried" on the Iran Daily Thread.
1
posted on
03/15/2004 7:44:04 AM PST
by
Eala
To: <1/1,000,000th%; 11B3; 2111USMC; 2Jedismom; 68-69TonkinGulfYatchClub; A Ruckus of Dogs; AdA$tra; ...
2
posted on
03/15/2004 7:54:18 AM PST
by
Diogenesis
(If you mess with one of us, you mess with all of us)
To: Eala
As much as I dislike Carter as a Pesident and an ex-President, I simply cannot see him doing this.
3
posted on
03/15/2004 7:54:27 AM PST
by
Andyman
To: Diogenesis
Excellent characterizations. History will not be kind to Carter.
4
posted on
03/15/2004 7:56:06 AM PST
by
Pan_Yans Wife
(The soul unfolds itself, like a lotus of countless petals. --- Kahlil Gibran)
To: Diogenesis
And he, like Clinton keeps running around trying to define his "legacy".
To: Diogenesis
6
posted on
03/15/2004 7:58:53 AM PST
by
Fiddlstix
(This Space Available for Rent or Lease by the Day, Week, or Month. Reasonable Rates. Inquire within.)
To: Andyman
I don't necessarily believe that Carter himself allowed it...but he was one of the worst presidents in 100 years when it came executive management and capable people under him. There were dozens of Carter appointees who were simply out of their league and allowed various special companies and special interest groups to walk all over the US government. This was Bill Clinton's problem too. There is something to be said about men who have managed large companies and realize that the people you bring in...often have agendas in mind. And you have to set these people in the right frame of mind on day one....and if they can't perform right....you have to be able to terminate them. Carter could not accomplish that...and simply ran a very-poor government.
To: Eala; Andyman
I once had a much higher opinion of Carter, I always said that he was a lousy president but a good man. But I've had 20 years since he left office to observe him and I have come to the conclusion that he is a vicious man, he has never hesitated to align himself with dictators against his own country, against all logic.
And the betrayal of the Shah goes down in history as one of the worst errors in a century filled with disastrous errors. He brought down a pro-west, pro-US modernizer and replaced him with Islamists determined to confront the US and destroy Israel, who took their country into a time-warp from which it has not yet emerged.
I remember the Shah, dying of cancer, going country to country and Carter using his influence to see that he was refused refuge in every one. It disgusted me then, but I continued to give him the benefit of the doubt. I don't now. I now see his treatment of the deposed and dying Shah as a window into a diseased soul.
8
posted on
03/15/2004 8:10:42 AM PST
by
marron
To: Eala
Overthrow was a Soviet KGB operation; the pace was set by the Russians; the radio communications were all intercepted and read by the U.S. The Russians were intercepting our embassy communications, and we in turn were monitoring the Russians' subsequent communications with the Islamic fascists.
9
posted on
03/15/2004 8:12:00 AM PST
by
First_Salute
(May God save our democratic-republican government, from a government by judiciary.)
To: marron; Andyman
I have to say that the decline of my opinion of Carter tracks that of marron rather closely.
10
posted on
03/15/2004 8:14:05 AM PST
by
Eala
(Sacrificing tagline fame for... TRAD ANGLICAN RESOURCE PAGE: http://eala.freeservers.com/anglican)
To: Eala
"IF" This is true it explains much about the Panama Canal.
AND further still, explains why JFKerry is sending emails to Iran.
Talk about a WOLF in SHEEP's clothing!
To: Andyman
I can buy some of his Georgia buddies trying to strong-arm the Shaw. Old Mr. Peanut played some rough politics and contrary to popular wisdom, he was never a "nice person." He was always and remains, and egocentric prick.
But I lost it with the embassy takeover. There was absolutely no upside for him that I can imagine to support that. As to allowing the Shaw to fall, I agree he allowed it to happen and probably was glad. Not out of any geopolitical interests, but he simply hated the Shaw because of his own moral smugness which prevented him from seeing the greater national interest in supporting the Shaw.
Jimmy Carter is above all, a self-rightous jerk.
12
posted on
03/15/2004 8:32:57 AM PST
by
Ditto
( No trees were killed in sending this message, but billions of electrons were inconvenienced.)
To: Eala
History is not being kind to Carter's totally inept legacy.
With the speed of modern electronics, let's hope that it doesn't take two decades to get the real info on the flawed Willard legacy.
I'd kind'a like Clinton exposed during this election cycle!
13
posted on
03/15/2004 8:33:29 AM PST
by
aShepard
To: aShepard
I'd kind'a like Clinton exposed during this election cycle!
He just lives for people to say that sort of thing...
14
posted on
03/15/2004 8:47:26 AM PST
by
kenth
(Us, hell, handbasket - it's not looking good.)
To: marron
I thought he was a good man but a lousy president for a long time too. Every time any president tries to do something good, there is Carter to knock him down. If he really was a good man, he wouldn't act like that. Going to another country to oversee elections and approving election fraud, going to Korea and doing that stupid giveaway with no proof the Koreans would do what they promised. Carter is just plain evil, the posturing of being a good man is a lie. He defends every Castro who comes down the road, every evil murdering Communist.
15
posted on
03/15/2004 8:48:32 AM PST
by
hoosierpearl
(One nation under God.)
To: Eala
Great post!
To: pepsionice
It will be the same if Kerry is elected -- worse maybe. He doesn't have a clue as to what it takes to be the leader of this country.
17
posted on
03/15/2004 8:58:25 AM PST
by
Polyxene
To: marron
I once had a much higher opinion of Carter, I always said that he was a lousy president but a good man. But I've had 20 years since he left office to observe him and I have come to the conclusion that he is a vicious man, he has never hesitated to align himself with dictators against his own country, against all logic. I voted two times for Carter.
And I agree with your assessment of his nastiness. He likes to cause trouble.
18
posted on
03/15/2004 9:13:29 AM PST
by
syriacus
(Perpetual rebel Kerry, doesn't know what he wants, but knows he doesn't like the adults in charge.)
To: Andyman; Diogenesis
Jimmy Carter Unmasked--Finally! - From KGB Ties To His Rigged Nobel Peace Prize Book: Carter, Democrats Asked Soviets to Stop Reagan, Sway U.S. Elections.
James Earl Carter Jr. (1977-1981) |
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39th President of the United States
Vice President: Walter Mondale (1977-1981)
Born: October 1, 1924, Plains, Georgia
Nickname: "Jimmy"
Education: Georgia Southwestern College, 1941-1942;
Georgia Institute of Technology, 1942-1943;
United States Naval Academy, 1943-1946 (class of 1947);
Union College, 1952-1953
Religion: Baptist
Marriage: Eleanor Rosalynn Smith (b. August 18, 1927), July 7, 1946
Children: John William (Jack) (1947-); James Earl III (Chip) (1950-); Donnel Jeffrey (Jeff) (1952-); and Amy Lynn (1967-)
Career: Soldier; Farmer, Warehouseman, Public Official, Professor
Writings: Why Not the Best? (1975); A Government as Good as Its People (1977); The Wit and Wisdom of Jimmy Carter (1977); Keeping Faith (1982); Everything to Gain (1987); An Outdoor Journal (1988); Turning Point (1992); The Blood of Abraham (1993); Always a Reckoning (1995); Living Faith (1996); The Virtues of Aging (1998); An Hour Before Daylight (2001).
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Biography: A Life in Brief |
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James Earl ("Jimmy") Carters one-term presidency is remembered for the events that overwhelmed itinflation, energy crisis, war in Afghanistan, and hostages in Iran. After one term in office, voters strongly rejected Jimmy Carters honest but gloomy outlook in favor of Ronald Reagans telegenic optimism. {The morning in America theme is from the 1984 presidential campaign, not from 1980. Does it belong here?} In the past two decades, however, there has been wider recognition that Carter, despite a lack of experience, confronted several huge problems with steadiness, courage, and idealism. Along with his predecessor Gerald Ford, Carter must be given credit for restoring the balance to the constitutional system after the excesses of the Johnson and Nixon "imperial presidency." Carter was the first American president born in a hospital, and was raised on his familys farm outside the small town of Plains, Georgia, where the family home lacked electricity and indoor plumbing. Jimmy was named after his father, a businessman who kept a farm and store in Plains. Carters mother, "Miz" Lillian, a nurse by training, set a moral example for her son by crossing the strict lines of segregation in 1920s Georgia to counsel poor African American women on matters of health care. Jimmy graduated valedictorian of the class at Plains High School. Captivated by the stories of exotic lands that his uncle visited in the U.S. Navy, Carter enrolled in the U.S. Naval Academy. He graduated in 1946 in the top tenth of his class, and signed on as an officer under the tough but inspirational Captain Hyman Rickover in the Navys first experimental nuclear submarine. (Rickover was later to become an admiral, and build Americas nuclear submarine force.)
Sowing Seeds of Change In 1953, Carter and his new wife Rosalynn faced a difficult decision. His father, Earl, had died of cancer, and the family peanut farm and his mothers livelihood were in danger. Resigning from the Navy, Carter and his wife returned to Georgia to save the farm. After a difficult first few years, the farm began to prosper. He became a deacon and Sunday school teacher in the Plains Baptist Church and began serving on local civic boards before being elected to two terms in the Georgia state senate. There he earned a reputation as a tough, independent operator who attacked wasteful government practices and helped repeal laws designed to discourage African Americans from voting. Though he had always stood up for civil rights and inclusion, and was able to win reelection to the state senate against a segregationist opponent, Carter was stung by a humiliating defeat in a run for governor of Georgia in 1966. He attributed this loss to a lack of support from segregationist whites, who had turned out in large numbers to vote for his opponent, a nationally known segregationist named Lester Maddox. In a bid to win their vote in the 1970 governors race, Carter minimized appearances before African American groups, and even sought the endorsements of avowed segregationists, a move that some critics call deeply hypocritical. Yet after he became governor of Georgia in 1971, he surprised many Georgians by declaring that the era of segregation was over!
Presidential Politics: Scandal, Conflict and Crisis As Carter watched the defeat of Democratic presidential candidate George McGovern in 1972, he knew he would have to market himself as a different type of Democrat to have a shot at the White House in 1976. He was completely unknown on the national stage. In the aftermath of Nixons Watergate scandal, however, this became an advantage. It also helped Carter that the disgraced Nixon and Vice President Spiro Agnew were replaced on the republican ticket by Gerald Ford, a political insider with no charisma and an uncanny knack for falling down stairs on camera. Despite an ill-advised interview in Playboy magazine, which plummeted his rating in the polls, Carter squeaked out a narrow victory. Carters newcomer status soon showed itself in his inability to make deals with Congress. Sensing his shallow public support, Congress shot down key portions of his consumer protection bill. Carter was determined to free the nation from dependency on foreign oil by encouraging alternate energy sources and deregulating domestic oil pricing. But the creation of a pricing cartel by OPEC, the oil producing countries organization, sent oil prices soaring, caused rampant inflation, and a serious recession. Carter was also deeply troubled by public scandals involving his family, including a mysterious $250,000 payment by the government of Libya to Carters brother Billy. Foreign affairs during the Carter administration were equally troublesome. Critics thrashed both Carters plans to relinquish control of the Panama Canal and his response to Soviet aggression in Afghanistan by pulling out of the Olympics and ending the sale of wheat to the Russians. His recognition of communist China, which expanded on Nixons China policy, and his negotiation of new arms control agreements with the Soviets, were both criticized by conservatives in the Republican Party. But the most serious crisis of Carters presidency involved Iran. When the Ayatollah Khomeini seized power there, the U.S. offered sanctuary to the ailing Shah, angering the new Iranian government, which then encouraged student militants to storm the American embassy and take over fifty Americans hostage. Carters ineffectual handling of the much-televised hostage crisis, and the disastrous failed attempt to rescue them in 1980, doomed his presidency, even though he negotiated their release shortly before leaving office. Carter is positively remembered, however, for the historic 1978 Camp David Accords, where he mediated a historic peace agreement between Israels Menachem Begin and Egypts Anwar Sadat. This vital summit revived a long-dormant practice of presidential peacemaking, something every succeeding chief executive has emulated to varying degrees. Nevertheless, because of perceived weaknesses as a domestic and foreign policy leader, and because of the poor performance of the economy, Carter was easily defeated by Republican Ronald Reagan in 1980. Since leaving office, Carter has remained active, serving as a freelance ambassador for a variety of international missions and advising presidents on Middle East and human rights issues. |
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19
posted on
03/15/2004 9:31:25 AM PST
by
Southack
(Media bias means that Castro won't be punished for Cuban war crimes against Black Angolans in Africa)
To: kenth
LMAO!
20
posted on
03/15/2004 10:30:59 AM PST
by
P8riot
(A friend will help you move. A good friend will help you move a body.)
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