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Iran and the Shah: What Really Happened
Written by James Perloff Tuesday, 12 May 2009 18:56 |
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Americans have been hearing for several years about potential war with In
September 2007, US News & World Report stated: “Amid deepening
frustration with However, suppose a progressive,
pro-Western regime ruled Meet
the Shah From 1941 until 1979, Although 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 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. Long
regarded as a 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 Yet, at the height of 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 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 Nahavandi writes: The alternation of parties does not change the
diplomatic orientation of the 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 Sullivan (CFR), a career
diplomat with no Middle East experience, became our ambassador to 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 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 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 At the center of the “human
rights” complaints was the Shah’s security force, SAVAK. Comparable in its
mission to 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 An equally
vicious campaign occurred when the Shah and his wife, Empress Farah, came for
a state visit to 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 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 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 Nevertheless, as French
journalist Dominique Lorenz reported, the Americans, “having picked Khomeini
to overthrow the Shah, had to get him out of In 1978, Khomeini, in 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 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 At about this time, a new CIA chief was stationed in
Teheran. He had been transferred to 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 “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 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.” 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 He finally accepted exile,
clinging to the belief that 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 The betrayed ruler now became “a
man without a country.” Iran’s Chaotic Descent On February 1, 1979, with 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 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 However, in The Shah’s admission to the
United States had another outcome. Partly in retribution, on November 4,
1979, Iranians took 52 hostages from the While in Carter faced a dilemma. Therefore, However, Anwar Sadat, the
Egyptian president and the Shah’s friend, discerned the scheme, and
sent a jet to Mohammad Reza Pahlavi died on
July 27, 1980. His last words: “I wait upon Fate, never ceasing to pray for Anwar Sadat who, like the Shah,
advocated a peaceful 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. 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, Does this explain the sudden
attitude change toward Although the Shah maintained a
neutral stance toward We should not overlook that the
Shah opposed the powerful opium trade, now flourishing in the Finally, the Shah was a
nationalist who brought his country to the brink of greatness and encouraged What is the solution to modern It was the
CFR clique — the same establishment entrenched in the Bush and Obama
administrations — that ousted the Shah, resulting in today’s Source: http://www.thenewamerican.com/index.php/history/world/1111 |
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