The Late Shah of Iran: A leader betrayed by his people, friends and the free world
By Arash Irandoost
President Reagan explained why Carter’s policy and action toward the Shah and Iran was in error in the following terms during, during a pre-election debate.
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| PDMI Arash Irandoost |
“…the Shah did our bidding and carried our load in Middle East for quite some time. And I do think that it was a blot on our [America’s] record that we let him down. Had things gotten better, the Shah… what he might have done… was building low cost housing, he had taken the land from the mullahs and distributed it to the peasants so that they could be landowners …. But we [Carter Administration] turned it over to a maniacal fanatic [Khomeini] who has slaughtered thousands and thousands of people, calling it executions. President Reagan-Presidential Debate, 1980
President Reagan won the election and after his first term asked the American people if they were better off today than they were 4 years since his took office. Then he reminded his fellow Americans of the economic crises American were due to Carter’s ineptitude. It has been 31 years since the Mullahs came to power in Iran. Perhaps it is time for us as Iranians and Americans ask ourselves the same question.
Are we better off today, than they were 32 years ago?
About 3 years ago, I made a slide movie on Mullahs greatest accomplishments. Here are some of the highlights of the slides:
Occupation of the US Embassy Mass killing of political prisoners Assassination of political dissidents War with Iraq Promotion of international and domestic terrorism Support for terrorist groups Executions, flogging, stoning Torture and rape of peaceful demonstrators Public hangings of sexual offenders and gays Violation of human rights in every category Killing and imprisonment of journalists Violation of women’s rights Censorship and closing of publication opposed to regime Oppression of religious minorities Widespread poverty throughout Iran Severe inflation (30% annually) Deflation of Rial ( Iranian unit of currency) Media and Internet filtering Promotion of regional conflict in the Middle East Over 40,000 refugees in Turkey and Iraq
| Persistent 25% unemployment Promotion of corruption, prostitution and drug addiction Rape of peaceful demonstrators by Basij and Hamas Intent to wipe Israel off the map Fraudulent educational credentials of various Islamic Republic officials including Mr. Mousavi’s fake degree Brutal murder of Neda Agha Soltan Over 40,000 Iranian asylums seekers in Turkey and Iraq Purchase and Control of telecommunications by IRGC Demolishing, destruction of Iran national monuments Tracking down and spying on Internet and Telecommunication user in cooperation with Nokia, Siemens Interfering in Iraq and Afghanistan and Lebanon’s internal affairs Transforming universities to Islamic Centers Rewriting historical event and tempering with Iran’s ancient history Brain drain and 150,000 Iranians leaving Iran for better opportunities outside Over 4000,000 self-exiled Iranians
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| PDMI Arash Irandoost |
From 1941 until 1979, Iran was ruled by a constitutional monarchy under Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, Iran’s Shah (king). The late Shah of Iran ruled Iran for 38 years. As the constitutional monarch, almost 15 years after he took office, he implemented reform policies, culminating in the 1963 to a program known at the White Revolution. It consisted of 19 elements that were introduced over a period of 15 years. The White Revolution was far reaching series of reforms which included land reform, the extension of voting rights to women, allowing them to run for elected office and to serve as lawyers and later judges and the elimination of illiteracy.
The Shah’s reforms aimed at transforming Iranian society through economic and social reforms, into a global economic and industrial power. The Shah introduced novel economic concepts such as profit-sharing for workers and initiated massive government-financed heavy industry projects. Most important, however, was the land reform program. Nearly 90% of Iranian share-croppers became landowners as a result. Socially, the platform granted women more rights and increased funding for education, especially in the rural areas. The Literacy Corps was also established, which allowed young men to fulfill their compulsory military service by working as rural literacy teachers.
During the Shah 38 year in power, Iran was put on a fast track toward modernization. Port facilities were improved, the Trans-Iranian Railway was expanded, and the main roads connecting Tehran and provincial capitals were constructed. Airports were constructed in most provincial capitals. Many factories opened up specializing in clothing, food processing, cement, tiles, paper, and home appliances. Factories for textiles, machine tools, and car assembly were also opened. Educational institutions grew after the launching of the White Revolution. Enrollment in kindergarten increased from 13,300 to 221,990, elementary schools from 1,640,000 to 4,080,000, secondary schools from 370,000 to 741,000 and colleges from 24,885 to 145,210. The Literacy Corps also helped raise the literacy rate from 26 to 42 percent.
Compared to 31 years of mullahs rule and statistically and comparatively speaking, Iranians and for that matter were much better off during 38 years of the Shah rule than 31 years of the Mullahs. Then exactly what were the factors that contributed to his downfall after all that he done for his country? The Shah, at the height of his success, suddenly became the target of an ignoble friends and policy makers. The late shah attributes primary reasons for his downfall was listening to Americans, his attempt and success at increasing the price of oil and his desire to put a fair value on a barrel of oil compared to products and technologies Iran was purchasing from the West. This angered many American and big oil corporations. Empress Farah Pahlavi blames it in part for his shyness and not taking the best advantage of the media to share his message and ideas with his people. Princess Ashraf Pahlavi, blames it on his unwillingness to aggressively confront the Mullahs. She predicted that after the Shah, Iran will be run by religious zealots promoters of terrorism and chaos. The answer might include all of the above and perhaps many other complex factors. .
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I am not a history expert by profession nor do I consider myself a politician. I, much like Ardavan Bahrami, am simply a curious Iranian-American to whom the world’s deafening silence, seems perplexing.
Looking back at the events of the past 50 plus years, mine is an attempt to explore certain aspects of my country’s last monarch’s ambitions and his global forethoughts. Aspirations that though may have appeared - as some Europeans claimed at the time as “Folly de Grandeur”, but the passing of years have given their seal of approval to his hopes and fears.
The shah was criticized for mistreatment of Iranian opposition groups in the hands of SAVAK (Secret Service) and large number of political prisoners by the West and his opponents. But as our noble writer Sadegh Hedayat once said, “No where in the world, do they burn wet and dry wood together, but Iran.” Frustrated with some of our cultural habits, he was primarily referring to lack of objectivity and fairness among the Iranians. Facts are stubborn things. There were 2,400 prisoners of all stripes in our notorious Evin prison, only 720 of belonging to political category. Rape, hanging, public flogging or stoning was unheard of during his 38 year rule as it is common today under the Islamic Republic. As you will discover, these were orchestrations of various countries and political interest groups and oil companies conspiring to bring him down for their own self-interest.
A note to my Iranian colleagues, it is not the intent of this paper to discuss the pros and cons different forms of governance or political parties or endorse a certain leader or a system. But if we collectively agree that “Those who are ignorant of history are doomed to repeat it.” Case in point, allowing ourselves to be manipulated by propagandists, ignorant of the facts, the anti-Shah sentiment reached such a climax, by masterful orchestrators and their deceptive propaganda, that the entire Cinema Rex was blamed on the late Shah and his secret service. There is preponderance of evidence that clearly show the regime, particularly Khomeini and Khomeini masterminded the event at a great loss of human life and cost to our nation. The lesson being that we should never act on gossip, propaganda, innuendo, but the facts. 1400 years after Arab invasion, 105 years after the Constitutional Revolution, 57 years after the 1953 Coup, Yet, we talk so passionately about those events as if they took place yesterday. That is a social illness our country suffers from. Nuno Nabais sates that the irrevocability of the already done can de distinguished in two distinct ways: as nostalgia, or as remorse. In nostalgia the will discovers the obstacle of temporal distance because it wants to recuperate the past in order to relive it in its uniqueness and desire for its repeat. In remorse, it is the impossibility of destroying the past, in its irrevocability, lingers on as a wounded memory which refuses to heal. Both are unproductive.
Iranians are some of the smartest people I know. Yet we continue to be manipulated by various interest groups trying to use us as a tool to achieve their hidden agendas. In the age of information and Internet, access to information is easier than ever. Armed with truth, we can begin to heal the wounds, know the facts and move our country forward. It is time for Iranians of all stripes to move on. If we refuse to heal our wounds, we are doing a disservice to Iran. Blinded by anger and distrust, we are going to make similar mistakes in the future, regardless of who is in charge and what form of government Iran has.
I also have institutionally refrained from mentioning Dr. Mossadegh in this article. In our fight toward a freed, secular and democratic Iran our struggle should not be with the monarchists or nationalists, rather we should focus on the clear and present danger, the plaque that has befallen on our nation, the cancer that is paralyzing our society, in short the Islamic non-Republic government of Iran. As you would see from PDMI’s mission on our blog, we have posted Iran’s past and present leaders that had the best intentions and served our country well.
Discussions about Dr. Mossadegh and the late Shah are futile at best designed to derail us and distract us from the eminent danger. In our view, Cyrus the Great, the late Shah, Dr. Mossadegh, Dr. Bakhtiar and even despicable characters like Khomenei, Khamenei and their little big man Ahmadinejad were all Iran’s leaders. Lets judge them by their actions and accomplishments. Using profanity and having a shouting match at our public events and media will only harm our credibility, hurt our leaders and weaken the country and the leader we aim to support. Rather than raising our voice, let’s reinforce our argument with evidence and reason.
It has been said that: Happy is the country which has no history. Since history tends to record only violent, unfortunate, or tumultuous events, a country with no history would be a country lucky enough to have no such unhappy events to record. Iran has history! The history of Iran is so full of greed, violence, and dishonesty. However, Iran is lucky to have had leaders such as Cyrus the Great, Ferdowsi our great Iranian poet, Amir Kabir and the late Shah who envisioned and pursued a better future for Iran and Iranians.
The following is observations and research conducted by James Perloff as to what really happened, how and by whom and I have directly and completely provided his article below. I have taken the liberty of borrowing it at this important juncture in our nation’s history. He writes: Although Iran, also called Persia, was the world’s oldest empire, dating back 2,500 years, by 1900 it was floundering. Bandits dominated the land; literacy was one percent; and women, under archaic Islamic dictates, had no rights.
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 Iran’s arid land, making the country 90-percent self-sufficient in food production. He established colleges and universities, and at his own expense, set up an educational foundation to train students for Iran’s future.
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. Iran had full employment, requiring foreign workers. The national currency was stable for 15 years, inspiring French economist André Piettre to call Iran a country of “growth without inflation.” Although Iran was the world’s second largest oil exporter, the Shah planned construction of 18 nuclear power plants. He built an Olympic sports complex and applied to host the 1988 Olympics (an honor eventually assigned Seoul), an achievement unthinkable for other Middle East nations.
Long regarded as a U.S. ally, the Shah was pro-Western and anti-communist, and he was aware that he posed the main barrier to Soviet ambitions in the Middle East. As distinguished foreign-affairs analyst Hilaire du Berrier noted:
“He determined to make Iran … capable of blocking a Russian advance until the West should realize to what extent her own interests were threatened and come to his aid.... It necessitated an army of 250,000 men.” The Shah’s air force ranked among the world’s five best. A voice for stability within the Middle East itself, he favored peace with Israel and supplied the beleaguered state with oil.
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 Iran into the 20th century by granting women equal rights. This was not to accommodate feminism, but to end archaic brutalization.
Yet, at the height of Iran’s prosperity, the Shah suddenly became the target of an ignoble campaign led by U.S. and British foreign policy makers. Bolstered by slander in the Western press, these forces, along with Soviet-inspired communist insurgents, and mullahs opposing the Shah’s progressiveness, combined to face him with overwhelming opposition. In three years he went from vibrant monarch to exile (on January 16, 1979), and ultimately death, while Iran fell to Ayatollah Khomeini’s terror.
Houshang 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 Washington, by Henry Kissinger, whom the Shah thought of as a firm friend.”
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 U.S. foreign policy along internationalist lines. The Carter administration was no exception.
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 Laos — was sent to urge the Shah to get out. In December Mr. George Ball, an instant “authority on Iran,” was sent as a follow-up with the same message.
Sullivan (CFR), a career diplomat with no Middle East experience, became our ambassador to Iran in 1977. The Shah recalled:
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.
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 Washington, he made public statements, hostile and insulting to the Sovereign.
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 U.S. media found him “a despot, an oppressor, a tyrant.” Kennedy denounced him for running “one of the most violent regimes in the history of mankind.”
At the center of the “human rights” complaints was the Shah’s security force, SAVAK. Comparable in its mission to America’s FBI, SAVAK was engaged in a deadly struggle against terrorism, most of which was fueled by the bordering USSR, which linked to Iran’s internal communist party, the Tudeh. SAVAK, which had only 4,000 employees in 1978, saved many lives by averting several bombing attempts. Its prisons were open for Red Cross inspections, and though unsuccessful attempts were made on the Shah’s life, he always pardoned the would-be assassins. Nevertheless, a massive campaign was deployed against him. Within Iran, Islamic fundamentalists, who resented the Shah’s progressive pro-Western views, combined with Soviet-sponsored communists to overthrow the Shah. This tandem was “odd” because communism is committed to destroying all religion, which Marx called “the opiate of the masses.” The Shah understood that “Islamic Marxism” was an oxymoron, commenting: “Of course the two concepts are irreconcilable — unless those who profess Islam do not understand their own religion or pervert it for their own political ends.”
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 Iran at the end of 1977, the press reported that his departure to Teheran International Airport had been through empty streets, because the city was “all locked up and emptied of people, by order of the SAVAK.” What the media didn’t mention: Carter chose to depart at 6 a.m., when the streets were naturally empty.
An equally vicious campaign occurred when the Shah and his wife, Empress Farah, came for a state visit to America in November 1977. While touring Williamsburg, Virginia, about 500 Iranian students showed up, enthusiastically applauding. However, about 50 protestors waved hammer-and-sickle red flags. These unlikely Iranians were masked, unable to speak Persian, and some were blonde. The U.S. media focused exclusively on the protesters. Wrote the Shah:
“Imagine my amazement the next day when I saw the press had reversed the numbers and wrote that the fifty Shah supporters were lost in a hostile crowd.”
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 Iran. On the afternoon of August 19, 1978, a deliberate fire gutted the Rex Cinema in Abadan, killing 477 people, including many children with their mothers. Blocked exits prevented escape. The police learned that the fire was caused by Ruhollah Khomeini supporters, who fled to Iraq, where the ayatollah was in exile. But the international press blamed the fire on the Shah and his “dreaded SAVAK.” Furthermore, the mass murder had been timed to coincide with the Shah’s planned celebration of his mother’s birthday; it could thus be reported that the royal family danced while Iran wept. Communist-inspired rioting swept Iran.
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 Iran: Ruhollah Khomeini. A minor cleric of Indian extraction, Khomeini had denounced the Shah’s reforms during the 1960s — especially women’s rights and land reform for Muslim clerics, many of whom were large landholders. Because his incendiary remarks had contributed to violence and rioting then, he was exiled, living mostly in Iraq, where Iranians largely forgot him until 1978.
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 Seyyed Abolghassem Kashani, who had ties to East German intelligence. Furthermore, in 1960, Colonel Michael Goliniewski, second-in-command of Soviet counter-intelligence in Poland, defected to the West. His debriefings exposed so many communist agents that he was honored by a resolution of the U.S. House of Representatives. One report, declassified in 2000, revealed, “Ayatollah Khomeini was one of Moscow’s five sources of intelligence at the heart of the Shiite hierarchy.”
Nevertheless, as French journalist Dominique Lorenz reported, the Americans, “having picked Khomeini to overthrow the Shah, had to get him out of Iraq, clothe him with respectability and set him up in Paris, a succession of events, which could not have occurred, if the leadership in France had been against it.”
In 1978, Khomeini, in Iraq since 1965, was permitted to reside at Neauphle-le-Château in France. Two French police squads, along with Algerians and Palestinians, protected him. Nahavandi notes:
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 Tehran by diplomatic bag.
Foreign-affairs analyst du Berrier reported:
French services quickly verified that Libya, Iraq and Russia were providing money. [Mike Evans has written about Americ’s cash assistance to Khomeini as well]. Young Iranians, members of the Tudeh (communist) Party, made up Khomeini’s secretariat in France. Working in cooperation with the French Communist Party they provided couriers to pass his orders and tapes into Iran. Their sympathizers in Britain turned the BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation) into a propaganda organ.
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
Iran’s situation deteriorated. As Western media spurred revolutionaries, riots and strikes paralyzed Iran. The Shah wrote:
At about this time, a new CIA chief was stationed in Teheran. He had been transferred to Iran from a post in Tokyo with no previous experience in Iranian affairs. Why did the U.S. install a man totally ignorant of my country in the midst of such a crisis? I was astonished by the insignificance of the reports he gave me. At one point we spoke of liberalization and I saw a smile spread across his face.
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 Iran became. Every initiative I took was seen as proof of my own weakness and that of my government.” Revolutionaries equated liberalization with appeasement. “My greatest mistake,” the Shah recalled, “was in listening to the Americans on matters concerning the internal affairs of my kingdom.”
Iran’s last hope: its well-trained military could still restore order. The Carter administration realized this. Du Berrier noted: “Air Force General Robert Huyser, deputy commander of U.S. forces in Europe, was sent to pressure Iran’s generals into giving in without a fight.” “Huyser directly threatened the military with a break in diplomatic relations and a cutoff of arms if they moved to support their monarch.”
“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 Iran’s revolutionary leaders — one lasting 10 hours. Huyser, of course, had no authority to interfere with a foreign nation’s sovereign affairs.
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.”
U.S. officials pressed the Shah to leave Iran. He reflected:
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 Iran] and the entire State Department?
He finally accepted exile, clinging to the belief that America was still Iran’s ally, and that leaving would avert greater bloodshed. These hopes proved illusions.
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 Iran, America would welcome him. Despite the pleadings of myriad Iranians to stay, he reluctantly left. However, shortly after reaching Cairo, the U.S. ambassador to Egypt effectively informed him that “the government of the United States regrets that it cannot welcome the Shah to American territory.”
The betrayed ruler now became “a man without a country.”
Iran’s Chaotic Descent
On February 1, 1979, with U.S. officials joining the welcoming committee, Ayatollah Khomeini arrived in Iran amid media fanfare. Although counter-demonstrations, some numbering up to 300,000 people, erupted in Iran, the Western press barely mentioned them.
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 Afghanistan. More Iranians were killed during Khomeini’s first month in power than in the Shah’s 37-year reign. Yet Carter, Ted Kennedy, and the Western media, who had brayed so long about the Shah’s alleged “human rights” violations, said nothing. Mass executions and torture elicited no protests. Seeing his country thus destroyed, the exiled Shah raged to an adviser: “Where are the defenders of human rights and democracy now?” Later, the Shah wrote that there was 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 Egypt and Morocco, but did not wish to impose risks on his hosts from Muslim extremists. Eventually he welcomed Mexican President Lopes Portillo’s hospitality.
However, in Mexico the Shah received an invitation from CFR Chairman David Rockefeller, who used influence to secure permission for the Shah to come to America for medical treatment. Rockefeller sent a trendy Park Avenue MD to examine the Shah, who agreed — against his better judgment — to abandon his personal physicians and fly to New York for treatment. In October 1979, he was received at the Rockefeller-founded Sloan-Kettering Memorial Hospital for cancer treatment. Here the Shah experienced a fateful delay in spleen surgery that some believe accelerated his death.
The Shah’s admission to the United States had another outcome. Partly in retribution, on November 4, 1979, Iranians took 52 hostages from the U.S. embassy in Teheran. (According to Nahavandi, Soviet special services assisted them.) This embarrassed Jimmy Carter, who had done so much to destroy the Shah and support Khomeini. The seizure made the Shah a pawn.
While in New York, Mexico inexplicably reversed its welcome, informing the Shah that his return would contravene Mexico’s “vital interests.” One can only guess at the hidden hands possibly influencing this decision.
Carter faced a dilemma. Iran wanted the Shah’s return — for a degrading execution — in exchange for the American hostages. However, a direct trade might humiliate the United States.
Therefore, Panama was selected as intermediary. Following treatment in New York, the Shah was informed he could no longer remain in America, but Panama would welcome him. In Panama, however, the Shah and Empress were under virtual house arrest; it was apparent that it would only be a matter of time before the Shah would be sent to Iran in exchange for the hostages. A special cage was erected in Teheran. Khomeini’s followers envisioned parading him in the streets before final torture and bloody execution.
However, Anwar Sadat, the Egyptian president and the Shah’s friend, discerned the scheme, and sent a jet to Panama, which escorted the Shah and Empress safely to Egypt.
Mohammad Reza Pahlavi died on July 27, 1980. His last words: “I wait upon Fate, never ceasing to pray for Iran, and for my people. I think only of their suffering.” In Cairo, a grand funeral honored him. Three million Egyptians followed the procession.
Anwar Sadat who, like the Shah, advocated a peaceful Middle East, and defied the American establishment by saving the Shah from infamous death, did not survive much longer himself. The following year, Muslim extremists assassinated him under circumstances remaining controversial.
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.
Iran ranks second in the world in oil and natural-gas reserves. Energy is critical to world domination, and major oil companies, such as Exxon and British Petroleum, have long exerted behind-the-scenes influence on national policies.
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, Iran at last took over the management of the entire oil-industry, including the refineries at Abadan and so on.... I am quite convinced that it was from this moment that some very powerful, international interests identified, within Iran, the collusive elements, which they could use to encompass my downfall.
Does this explain the sudden attitude change toward Iran expressed by Henry Kissinger, beginning in the mid-seventies? Kissinger’s links to the Rockefellers, whose fortune derived primarily from oil, bolsters the Shah’s view on the situation. However, other factors should be considered.
Although the Shah maintained a neutral stance toward Israel, during the 1973 Yom Kippur War, he allowed critical supplies to reach Egypt, enabling it to achieve a balance of success, and earning Sadat’s undying gratitude, but wrath from influential Zionists. Did this impact the West’s attitude change in the mid-seventies?
We should not overlook that the Shah opposed the powerful opium trade, now flourishing in the Middle East.
Finally, the Shah was a nationalist who brought his country to the brink of greatness and encouraged Middle East peace. These qualities are anathema to those seeking global governance, for strong nations resist membership in world bodies, and war has long been a destabilizing catalyst essential to what globalists call “the new world order.”
