️❣️❣️❣️ The ambitious Iranian theocrats who came to power are not yet widely understood.️❣️❣️❣️
https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2020/dec/29/islamic-revolution-101-ambitious-iranian-theocrats/
Islamic Revolution
101: Ambitious Iranian theocrats seizing power still widely misunderstood
By Clifford D.
May - - Tuesday, December 29, 2020
ANALYSIS/OPINION:
In early 1979,
I was sent to Iran to report on the rebellion then underway.
I was woefully
ignorant of Iranian history, politics and theology.
But older, more
experienced colleagues in the journalistic, diplomatic and intelligence
communities also misunderstood would become known as the Islamic Revolution.
So, it was with
both curiosity and pleasure that I’ve been reading “The Last Shah: America,
Iran and the Fall of the Pahlavi Dynasty,” an enlightening new history by Ray
Takeyh, the Hasib J. Sabbagh Senior Fellow for Middle East Studies at the
Council on Foreign Relations.
Among the
revelations: By the late 1970s, the U.S. intelligence community, and William
Sullivan, America’s last ambassador in Tehran, knew full well that Iran was
not, as President Carter curiously proclaimed on Dec. 31, 1977, “an island of
stability.”
On the
contrary, Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi’s government was riddled with corruption
and dissent.
His health was
in decline, along with his popularity.
He was “devious
and cynical,” writes Mr. Takeyh but, to his credit, he would not contemplate a
bloody crackdown against his opponents because “he sincerely believed that a
monarch should not kill his subjects.”
The opponents
that most concerned Ambassador Sullivan were Iran’s Communists even though, Mr.
Takeyh writes, the Tudeh had become a “dormant political party.”
Foreign
reporters like myself were inclined to focus on Western-educated reformers.
What few analysts perceived: It was the religious extremists who were at
history’s helm.
For years, they
had been mixing Islamic theology with Marxism, refashioning Shiism into what
Mr. Takeyh calls “a religion of dissent led by rebels seeking social justice.”
They regarded
modernization, the shah’s main pursuit, as “borrowing ideas from Europe and
America,” and they rejected it.
Among those
advancing such ideas was a dour cleric living in exile, first in Turkey and
Iraq, then in France, who “stood above everyone else in terms of courage and
charisma.”
A book
published by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini in 1970, “Islamic Government,” had
attracted little attention. It’s most audacious proposal, Mr. Takeyh writes,
was that “the clergy should assume political power.
This
contravened Shia thought” which had long emphasized that “the guardians of
faith should keep their distance from centers of power” until the return of the
“Hidden Imam,” a messianic figure.
Mr. Takeyh
notes too: “
Khomeini’s
contempt for democratic rule and his hatred of religious minorities are evident
throughout the text.”
In November
1978, Ambassador Sullivan sent a diplomatic cable to Washington suggesting that
Khomeini might be persuaded to compromise with moderate dissidents, and “return
to Iran in triumph and hold a Gandhi-like position in the political
constellation.”
“As an emissary
of a secular republic known for its pragmatism,” Mr. Takeyh explains,
“Sullivan
simply could not comprehend revolutionaries who meant what they said.”
The shah fled
Iran on Jan. 16, 1979. Khomeini returned to Iran on Feb. 1, proclaiming that he
was not leading “a nationalist rebellion” but rather a “Quranic rebellion,” an
“Islamic rebellion.”
A referendum
was held in March. Iranians were asked to vote yes or no to the founding of an
Islamic Republic. The “yes” ballot was colored green, the “no” was red. Voters
had to request one of the other.
Almost no one
asked for a red ballot. If a similar plebiscite were held today, would the
results be the same?
My guess
is yes, if — now as then — mullahs were supervising the not-secret balloting.
Over the months
that followed, “Liberals were cast aside and traditional clergy were forced to
comply with the new strictures. Women’s rights were curtailed and religious
minorities endured persecution.”
Islamic courts
were established and those who had served the shah were summarily tried,
convicted and executed for such crimes as “spreading corruption on earth.” When
one defendant asked what that meant, the judge replied: “What you are guilty
of.”
Mr. Takeyh
adds: “Scores of Arab and Kurdish separatist leaders, and then the leftists who
had cheered when the shah’s officials were put to death, also faced the
mullahs’ wrath.”
Thousands are
estimated to have been killed.
Nevertheless,
Supreme Leader Khomeini — the new title awarded him by the Islamic Republic’s
constitution — would later regret that he had not gone further, that he had
not, in his words, “set up gallows in the main squares and cut down all the
corrupt people. In the presence of God Almighty and the dear nation of Iran, I
apologize for our mistakes.”
Along with most
reporters, I left Iran before summer.
After
that, news from the Islamic Republic seldom made the front pages.
Then, on
Nov. 4, 1979, as crowds outside the U.S. embassy in Tehran chanted “Death to
America!” several hundred young followers of the supreme leader breached the
walls.
The
diplomats inside were held hostage for 444 days.
Khomeini died
in 1989. He was succeeded by Ali Khamenei, now 81, who has remained an ardent
Khomeinist, burning with hatred of America.
He and
Iran’s other theocrats, Mr. Takeyh writes, are in pursuit of “the most
ambitious imperial venture in Iran’s modern history.”
Too many in the
journalistic, diplomatic and intelligence communities still don’t understand
that. Nor, clearly, do the 150 House Democrats who last week signed a letter
urging Joe Biden to re-enter the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, a deal
that doesn’t curb the regime’s support for terrorism, its threats to Iran’s
neighbors or its suppression of the Iranian people.
Despite
repeated claims to the contrary, it also doesn’t stop Iran’s rulers from
acquiring nuclear weapons and missiles to deliver them to targets anywhere —
America included.
On the
contrary, it leads to that outcome with a promise of American and European
acquiescence. Ayatollah Khomeini would be pleased.
• Clifford D.
May is founder and president of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD)
and a columnist for The Washington Times
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