Father of the Iranian revolution

[Culpeper]

Note: This op/ed is very opinionated.


michael d. evans, THE JERUSALEM POST - Opinion.jpost.com

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."

I was in basic training when the hostages were taken in Iran. I was stationed at Hurlburt Field, FL attending AGOS when the failed mission to rescue them occurred. The C130 gunships were stationed at Hurlburt Field and I was present to observe my instructors "call-in" the C130 gunship missing plane formation over the field during the subsequent memorial and there wasn't a dry eye as far as the horizon. After I read the op/ed it occurred to me that Jimmy Carter wasn't there. The Secretary of State attended the memorial. I later voted for Ronald Reagan and one of the first impact on a personal level for that was being placed on the Rapid Reaction Force he created. For the rest of my enlistment I always had a bag packed. Nevertheless, on the day Reagan was sworn in the hostages were released. We never discussed Carter. The subject was off limits. And as Forrest Gump would state, "That's all I have to say about that."

[goesh]

"Allah did not create man so that he could have fun. The aim of creation was for mankind to be put to the test through hardship and prayer. An Islamic regime must be serious in every field. There are no jokes in Islam. There is no humor in Islam. There is no fun in Islam. There can be no fun and joy in whatever is serious. Islam does not allow swimming in the sea and is opposed to radio and television serials. Islam, however, allows marksmanship, horseback riding and competition in [such sports].[24G]"

"And I am confident that the Iranian people, particularly our youth, will keep alive in their hearts anger and hatred for the criminal Soviet Union and the warmongering United States. This must be until the banner of Islam flies over every house in the world."


"We shall export our revolution to the whole world. Until the cry `There is no God but God` resounds over the whole world, there will be struggle"

The good news is that a massive portion of Iran's population was born after Khomeini's rule.

[Tom Odom]

I agree that Carter did not get it and since leaving office he has often created problems wherever and whenever he visited. He did so in Egypt in the late 80s when he announced standing beside the US Ambassador and the Egyptian Foreign Minister that the US "had not lived up to its side of Camp David" because we had not given Egypt enough money. He showed up in Rwanda in 1995 offering simple Carterisms as peanuts of wisdom. I declined my Ambassador's offer to eat with him, saying "in 1978, he essentially told me that I could not wear a uniform in our nation's capitol and that as a serving officer I should not expect a decent salary." One of my classmates in DLI Arabic was on the Desert One mission and simply mentioning Carter's name was enough to get him going.

But the collapse of American influence in Iran cannot simply be laid at his feet. It started well before Carter assumed the office of President. And the Shah himself--with his extravagant life style and excess along with the SAVAK did much to set the ground for Khomeini.

Khomeini is the father of the modern era of Iranian Shia radical fundamentalism. He is not the first. There has been a historical cycle of conflict between secular and non-secular forces in Iran and around it. Translating all of what has happened in Iraq into a Carter blunder in dealing or not dealing with Khomeini in 1978 makes interesting opinion columns that deserve a bird cage.

Best

Tom

[Ken White]

was that about half the folks agreed with the westernization efforts of the Shah and the other half or so, fundamentalists, did not. Had the Shah not become ill, there likely would have been no Khomeini return. Had the Shah had an heir of age when he became ill, a lot of turmoil might have been precluded. If a frog had wings...

So the Shah left, Khomeini arrived and he and the Ayatollahs killed more people in two years than the Shah and SAVAK had in twenty.

Carter's abysmal handling of the hostage situation allowed Khomeini to cement his power and almost certainly encouraged others to attack the Great Satan. Still, as you say, Carter is not responsible for all of what has happened in the ME since then.

That ball starts rolling with Nixon's post Munich anti-terror panel being ignored due to domestic politics; is followed by Carters gross malfeasance in Iraq and elsewhere -- he was a foreign policy disaster world wide and still is -- and that was followed by Reagan and DoD mishandling of the Beirut bombings and kidnappings which led to Bush 41's failure at the end of DS/DS. Clinton's foolish fly swats and wishy-washiness just exacerbated the problem all around.

Thus you have not Carter but five administrations from both parties you can blame for the ME debacles (plural). Could go back even further but, essentially, those five inherited a salvageable situation and proceeded to create a larger problem than would have otherwise existed. While there are certainly other factors (and other international players at fault), those failures are the biggest drivers of our involvement.

Most of those failures are attributable to domestic politics receiving more consideration than might have been merited IMO. Bush 43 may not have handled it a whole lot better but at least he figured that out and did something.

I think the problem is that those failures were consigned by some to a bird cage rather than being heeded and acted upon...

[goesh]

JPost.com » International » Article

Jun. 21, 2007 17:38 | Updated Jun. 21, 2007 17:46
House urges UN to charge Ahmadinejad
By BY HILARY LEILA KRIEGER AND JTA

"The US House of Representatives urged the UN Security Council Wednesday to charge Iran's president under genocide conventions.

The non-binding resolution, initiated by Reps. Mark Kirk (R-Ill.) and Steve Rothman (D-N.J.), passed by 411-2. It cites an October 27 speech in which Mahmoud Ahmadinejad allegedly called for Israel to be "wiped off the map" and calls for the Security Council to charge him under its 1948 convention for the prevention of genocide.

Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) attempted to read into the record alternate translations of Ahmadinejad s remarks that suggest the Iranian leader was calling Israel to come to an end through democratic means, and not through violence. "

Carter and Kucinich, Khomeini and Ahmadinejad

[Tom Odom]

I think the problem is that those failures were consigned by some to a bird cage rather than being heeded and acted upon...

Roger that!

[zenpundit]

Tom Odom wrote:

"But the collapse of American influence in Iran cannot simply be laid at his feet. It started well before Carter assumed the office of President. And the Shah himself--with his extravagant life style and excess along with the SAVAK did much to set the ground for Khomeini."

Agreed. CIA operations in Iran were crippled under Nixon and Kissinger at the Shah's behest, a policy the Carter administration continued and compounded by refusing to listen to what little information that could be gleaned by the IC regarding Khomeini's actual intentions. The State Department bears responsibility here for encouraging and reinforcing Carter's naive delusions in regard to the 1979 revolution.

[AdmiralAdama]

The collapse of American influence in Iran cannot simply be laid at his feet. It started well before Carter assumed the office of President. And the Shah himself--with his extravagant life style and excess along with the SAVAK did much to set the ground for Khomeini.

Khomeini is the father of the modern era of Iranian Shia radical fundamentalism. He is not the first. There has been a historical cycle of conflict between secular and non-secular forces in Iran and around it.

Absolutely. Although Jimmy Carter was a terrible president and an even worse ex-President, the forces of Shi'ite radical fundamentalism were operating as history sometimes does, as a grand, almost inevitable wave.

[Stu-6]

I think there is a lot of false nostalgia for the Shaw here. While the Shaw was pro-west and the current Iranian regime is hardly going to win any prizes, the fact is if the Shaw had been doing so well he never would have been overthrown. To lay the blame for Iran at the feet of Carter not only ignores the actions of other US Presidents starting with Eisenhower but also overlooks the abuses and incompetents of the Shaw. The author is equal short in his annalist of the Iran-Iraq war describing it as a war of ideology, essentially accepting Hussein’s propaganda and ignoring the internal situation in Iraq prior to the war.

To me this looks like a political hatchet job trying to masquerade as history.

[Ken White]

I think there is a lot of false nostalgia for the Shaw here. While the Shaw was pro-west and the current Iranian regime is hardly going to win any prizes, the fact is if the Shaw had been doing so well he never would have been overthrown. To lay the blame for Iran at the feet of Carter not only ignores the actions of other US Presidents starting with Eisenhower but also overlooks the abuses and incompetents of the Shaw. The author is equal short in his annalist of the Iran-Iraq war describing it as a war of ideology, essentially accepting Hussein’s propaganda and ignoring the internal situation in Iraq prior to the war.

To me this looks like a political hatchet job trying to masquerade as history.

My perception was that blame was laid at the feet of Carter for only those actions which he instituted. Most of us are fully aware of the actions of other Presidents -- and that list, by the way, goes beyond Eisenhower to FDR and includes Truman.

As I mentioned elsewhere; the new crew was guilty of more abuses in two years than the Shah had been in 20.

History is history, political hatchet jobs abound...

[Tom Odom]

Absolutely. Although Jimmy Carter was a terrible president and an even worse ex-President, the forces of Shi'ite radical fundamentalism were operating as history sometimes does, as a grand, almost inevitable wave.

Not quite what I was saying, Admiral. Iran/Persia as a pendulum history of the secular versus the non-secular, state versus clergy. That is not the same as a grand inevitable wave as in tsunami.

Tom