Father of the Iranian Revolution
June 20, 2007
The Jerusalem Post
Michael D. Evans
We just don't get it. The Left in America is screaming to high heaven that the
mess we are in in
Iraq and the war on terrorism has been caused by the right-wing and that
George W. Bush, the so-called "dim-witted cowboy," has created the entire
mess.
The truth is the entire nightmare can be traced back to the liberal democratic
policies of the leftist
Jimmy Carter, who created a firestorm that destabilized our greatest ally
in the Muslim world, the shah of Iran , in favor of a religious fanatic, the
ayatollah Khomeini.
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."
The shah was terrified of Carter. He told his personal confidant, "Who knows
what sort of calamity he [Carter] may unleash on the world?"
Let's look at the results of Carter's misguided liberal policies: the Islamic
Revolution in
Iran; the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan (Carter's response was to
boycott the 1980 Moscow Olympics); the birth of
Osama bin Laden's terrorist organization; the
Iran-Iraq War, which cost the lives of millions dead and wounded; and
yes, the present war on terrorism and the wars in
Afghanistan and
Iraq.
WHEN CARTER entered the political fray in 1976, America was still riding the
liberal wave of anti-Vietnam War emotion. Carter asked for an in-depth report on
Iran even before he assumed the reins of government and was persuaded
that the shah was not fit to rule
Iran . 1976 was a banner year for pacifism: Carter was elected president,
Bill Clinton became attorney-general of
Arkansas , and Albert Gore won a place in the
Tennessee House of Representatives.
In his anti-war pacifism, Carter never got it that Khomeini, a cleric exiled to
Najaf in
Iraq from 1965-1978, was preparing
Iran for revolution. Proclaiming "the West killed God and wants us to
bury him," Khomeini's weapon of choice was not the sword but the media. Using
tape cassettes smuggled by Iranian pilgrims returning from the holy city of
Najaf , he fueled disdain for what he called gharbzadegi ("the plague of
Western culture").
Carter pressured the shah to make what he termed human rights concessions by
releasing political prisoners and relaxing press censorship. Khomeini could
never have succeeded without Carter. The Islamic Revolution would have been
stillborn.
Gen. Robert Huyser, Carter's military liaison to
Iran , once told me in tears: "The president could have publicly
condemned Khomeini and even kidnapped him and then bartered for an exchange with
the [American Embassy] hostages, but the president was indignant. 'One cannot do
that to a holy man,' he said."
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has donned the mantle of Ayatollah
Khomeini, taken up bin Laden's call, and is fostering an Islamic apocalyptic
revolution in
Iraq with the intent of taking over the
Middle East and the world.
Jimmy Carter became the poster boy for the ideological revolution of the
1960s in the West, hell bent on killing the soul of America . The bottom line:
Carter believed then and still does now is that evil really does not exist;
people are basically good; America should embrace the perpetrators and castigate
the victims.
IN THE '60S it was mass rebellion after the assassinations of Robert Kennedy and
Martin Luther King. When humanity confronts eternity, the response is
always rebellion or repentance. The same ideologues who fought to destroy the
soul of America with the "God is dead" movement in the 1960s are now running the
arts, the universities, the media, the State Department, Congress, and Senate,
determined more then ever to kill the soul of America while the East attempts to
kill the body. Carter's world view defines the core ideology of the Democratic
Party.
What is going on in
Iraq is no mystery to those of us who have had our fingers on the pulse
of both
Iran and
Iraq for decades. The Iran-Iraq war was a war of ideologies.
Saddam Hussein saw himself as an Arab leader who would defeat the
non-Arab Persians. Khomeini saw it as an opportunity to export his Islamic
Revolution across the borders to the Shi'ites in
Iraq and then beyond to the Arab countries.
Throughout the war both leaders did everything possible to incite the
inhabitants of each country to rebel - precisely what
Iran is doing in Iraq today. Khomeini encouraged the Shi'ites across the
border to remove Saddam from power and establish an Islamic republic like in
Iran .
Carter's belief that every crisis can be resolved with diplomacy - and nothing
but diplomacy - now permeates the Democratic Party. Unfortunately, Carter is
wrong.
There are times when evil must be openly confronted and defeated.
KHOMEINI HAD the help of the
PLO in
Iran . They supplied weapons and terrorists to murder Iranians and incite
mobs in the streets. No wonder
Yasser Arafat was hailed as a friend of Khomeini after he seized control
of
Iran and was given the Israeli Embassy in Teheran with the
PLO flag flying overhead.
The Carter administration scrambled to assure the new regime that the
United States would maintain diplomatic ties with
Iran . But on April 1, 1979 the greatest April Fools' joke of all time
was played, as Khomeini proclaimed it the first day of the government of God.
In February 1979 Khomeini had boarded an Air France flight to return to Teheran
with the blessing of
Jimmy Carter. The moment he arrived, he proclaimed: "I will kick his
teeth in" - referring to then prime minister Shapour Bakhtiar, who was left in
power with a US pledge of support. He was assassinated in
Paris by Iranian agents in 1991.
I sat in the home of Gen. Huyser, who told me the shah feared he would lose the
country if he implemented Carter's polices. Carter had no desire to see the shah
remain in power. He really believed that a cleric - whose Islamist fanaticism he
did not understand in the least - would be better for human rights and
Iran .
He could have changed history by condemning Khomeini and getting the support of
our allies to keep him out of
Iran .
The writer is a
New York Times best-selling author. His newest book is The Final Move
Beyond
Iraq.
www.beyondiraq.com
PLEASE CIRCULATE
THANK YOU! THE NUMBERS ARE GOING UP!
CARTER'S LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT IS MAYBE HABITAT FOR HUMANITY
We have to point out no amount of homes he will ever build, will replace the home and families he has destroyed in Iran .
28 years and going strong. Over 500,000 (conservative estimate) Iran-Iraq war.
Over 2,000,000 in self imposed exile.
Hundreds of thousands of executions, confiscations, torture and prison terms.
Several Major cities destroyed, never build to this date.
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