Posted on 04/11/2005 7:28:21 AM PDT by Interesting Times
Carter vs Shah, pong
"Carter was also involved with the French gov't in arranging for Khomeini to be flown from Paris to Tehran."
You are mistaken. It was Ramsey Clark who was involved in this.
"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."
"The Shah asked for help. He asked for equipment"
Do you realize that many pieces of military hardware we had provided the shah, was stolen by mutineering airforce technicians and distributed to the mullahs supporters?\
How would more equipment have helped the matter, when military officers were part of the revolution?
"On February 9, air force technicians at the Doshan Tappeh Air Base outside Tehran mutinied. Units of the Imperial Guard failed to put down the insurrection. The next day, the arsenal was opened, and weapons were distributed to crowds outside the air base"
"The information is out there from many sources. Do some research on your own, or continue to live in ignorance on this subject."
I have provided many quotes from many different sources and yet when I ask you to do the same, you simply tell me I am living in ignorance and to do my own research. Well I have been doing quite a bit of research and have failed to find some a factual basis for some of the claims being made.
"On February 11, twenty-two senior military commanders (iranian) met and announced that the armed forces would observe neutrality in the confrontation between the government and the people. The army's withdrawal from the streets was tantamount to a withdrawal of support for the Bakhtiar government and acted as a trigger for a general uprising."
Source: U.S. Library of Congress
Given that even the military leadership, who supposedly would be the defenders of the Shah, withdrew their support must tell you something about the internal politics in Iran at the time.
I still haven't seen a single response about the Shah's rise to power, his policies while in power, and whether he had support of the Iranian people.
Carter may be to blame for the removal of the Shah from Iran, but I still do not see that as the primary reason the Shah lost control of his country. If the shah had support from his military and from the people themselves he never would have had to leave the country (The shah, by 1979 was very sick and ended up dying a year later in Egypt). The fact is the Shah was on the way out either from internal dissillusionment or from his overall health problems. The question was who is going to replace him, not whether he was going to be replaced.
TRUE!
Don't forget that US Army General Huyser was sent to Iran to neutralize the Imperial Armed Services in the conflict and prevent them from acting against the revolution.
Read this book please
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/140135209X/102-0008267-8488152?v=glance
Carter should be tried for acting against Humanity. He is the killer of our Shah.
You can think that Ramsey Clarke went to Paris to meet with Khomeini without Carter's knowledge.
"How would more equipment have helped the matter, when military officers were part of the revolution? "
This mutineering you're talking about happened in Feb. of '79, right after Khomeini returned. Help was requested way before that.(unfortunately, those mutineers thought they were going to be rewarded somehow by Khomeini, for their actions. Instead, they were killed or inprisoned.
"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."
http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2002/10/29/170201.shtml
"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."
Solid evidence?...not quite sure what you expect. Like something Berger might slip into his pants next time he's at the Nat'l Archives? These were 2 articles I had bookmarked. I've read many more.
One more I had bookmarked..........
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1111926/posts
"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."
And still not one person here has discussed how the Shah gained power in the first place, how Carter was supposed to keep this dying monarch in power, and how much internal support the shah had from his people, etc.
You really think tear gas and rubber bullets were going to stop the revolution? Talk about naive. If the Shah's military were unable/unwilling to fight on his behalf I seriously cannot see how any amount of equipment would have helped the dying shah.
Quite a few people here have claimed that Carter directly supported the Ayatollah, and yet none have mentioned that another administration (Reagen) sold weapons to the same ayatollah. I think our (both democrat and republican)policies in Iran have been a failure since 1953 when Kermit Roosevelt and Norman Schwarzkopf Sr. helped Britain and British Petroleum overthrow Mosadegh, thus reinstituting the Iranian monarchy.
Because they need the trace elements in their diet. /sarcasm
Would " tear gas and rubber bullets.... stop the revolution?" That and SUPPORT from the U.S. (not undermining) could have stopped it. Do you think we couldn't have stopped it if we really wanted to? If in doubt, ask Kissinger and Brzezinski.
"If the Shah's military were unable/unwilling to fight on his behalf ..."
Just because some of the military personnel defected, doesn't mean they all did. Many stayed loyal to the Shah until their deaths. Those still alive, are loyal to him to this day. A coup of Khomeini was planned by Shah loyalists less than a yr later (I believe), but foiled and those involved killed.
Keep a dying monarch in power? His son would have taken over. That's usually how a monarchy works.
Now, you want to know how the Shah gained power in the first place? Look to the Brits and CIA. Though this has nothing to do with Carter.
We supported both sides in the Iran/Iraq war. Yes, our policies have been a failure. And the jury's still out on our policy now.
However, if the 1979 revolution had been quashed, and Carter supported the monarchy of our ally Iran, Saddam never would have invaded Iran and a million (or more) lives wouldn't have been lost in that 8 yr war, 100's of thousands wouldn't have killed over the yrs, nor millions threatened and tortured, and I seriously doubt anyone would now be referring to Iran as a hotbed of terrorist activity or part of the Axis of Evil.
That is the legacy of Carter's policy in Iran.
"Keep a dying monarch in power? His son would have taken over. That's usually how a monarchy works."
And did his son have any public support? Did he have support of the military? Trying to keep an unpopular leader afloat is not as easy as some would like to believe. And why are we supporting monarchies in the first place? Shouldnt the US be supporting democratic institutions such as the Mosadegh government and not overthrowing them and replacing them with monarchies? If you ask me the troubles began long before carter ever got involved. To blame him for the all problems of Iran is like blaming GWB for the instability in Iraq.
"However, if the 1979 revolution had been quashed, and Carter supported the monarchy of our ally Iran, Saddam never would have invaded Iran and a million (or more) lives wouldn't have been lost in that 8 yr war, 100's of thousands wouldn't have killed over the yrs, nor millions threatened and tortured, and I seriously doubt anyone would now be referring to Iran as a hotbed of terrorist activity or part of the Axis of Evil.
That is the legacy of Carter's policy in Iran."
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