Posted on 12/24/2005 2:49:36 AM PST by F14 Pilot
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 world's 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 weren't 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 didn't 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 Shi'ite clergy that had long opposed the Shah's modernizing policies, began a well coordinated and financed series of street demonstrations supported by a media campaign reminiscent of the 1947-1948 campaign against China's 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 Shi'ite 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 Shi'ite 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 Ba'th 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 Khomeini's initiative in creating the Islamic Revolutionary Council. The ayatollah's program coincides with that of the Tudeh Party." Khomeini's 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 it's 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.
bttt
the king of Iran was a secular person running a constitutional monarchy!
Carter sold out Iran, the middle east, Israel, Europe and America with his aid in deposing of the Shah.
Carter is the gift from the Russian Communists and Opecker Princes and Thugs that has enabled Islamic Terrorist to become a danger to civilization.
Thanks, nuc. This is such a painful memory. From whom, then, did Carter take advice vis-a-vis the Shah?
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That is the question these shahista propogandists cannot answer so they devolve to name-calling. The iranians threw the shah and his SAVAK Gestapo out. More than a few died doing so.
When they've had enough of the mullahs they will do the same....unless of course they can't act until Jimmy Carter tells them what to do.
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You and your shahista exiles do.
dont be a troll
You said it brother. But you had to love him sitting next to Michael Moore at the Demo cratic Pres convention last year!!!
i wonder if this DU member (troll911) can back up his nonesense ideas on the unpopularity of our king
No, he/she can not back up his trollish ideas!
Actually he never did so!
No, I am Non-Sequitur. The one. The only. Accept no substitutes.
Worked for Saddam all those years.
then don't act like one!
He not only sold out Iran, he set us on the path that culminated in 9/11. The Shah (and other experts on fundamentalist islam) told Carter that if Iran fell to the Fundamentalist it would cause serious and long term problems for the Middle East. Imagine Iraq today if Iran were an American ally. There would never have been an Iraq/Iran war, and invading Iraq might not have been necessary. We are still paying the price for Carters incredible inability to govern or think beyond the moment. How we survived this monumentaly stupid man is beyond comprehension. He is without a doubt the worst president we will ever have.
He is without a doubt the worst president we will ever have!
Hillary Clinton is following his path
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I think the fact that the true iranians (not those who ran) threw him out on his ass is a pretty good indication that your people might not have shared your moonie-like fanaticism. Unless of course you and the other shahistas want us to believe that they dumped him as a way of expressing their love.
He sold out the US too. Carter's a moron. I'm sure it was his idea of success. I've never seen anyone get so many accolades for such fleeting and superficial "peace" efforts/results than Carter has for the ME.
Honestly, the media has a perpetual hard-on for him.
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Exactly, NS, please don't ask any hard questions or you risk the wrath of these kids....they might call you a (gasp!) troll....
Commie Carter continues to live off the American people. One of my Christmas wishes is that's just fine....but behind bars. He's a criminal to everything American.
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