We Pulled the Plug
on the Shah
When I first wrote on this subject seven
years ago, the title was in the form of a question, “Did We Pull the Plug on the
Shah?” With the help of a fairly recent but very
obscure book by the American expatriate living in England, Arlene Lois Johnson,
The Shah of Iran: Mohammad Reza Pahlavi: Victim of His Times, I
have accumulated enough additional information to write the title of this brief
essay as a declarative statement. The
book was published in the United Kingdom by News Source, Incorporated. No date is provided, but Johnson tells me
that it came out in 2018. The book is
apparently not available on Amazon, and I couldn’t get it to come up with an
online search.
The book’s obscurity is consonant with its
topic. It’s common knowledge that the
United States and Britain conspired to overthrow the elected
government of Iran’s prime minister Mohammad Mosaddegh in 1953 and elevate
the Shah to the position of absolute monarch.
That action has long been considered one of the black marks on the U.S.
Central Intelligence Agency. Consistent
with #1 in the Seventeen
Techniques for Truth Suppression, it is not known that a quarter of a
century later the same two governments were responsible for doing the same
thing with the man they had chosen to replace Mosaddegh, because it has not
been reported by the news media.
A good summary of what took place can be
found at http://www.aryamehr.org/eng/carter/sold/cart.htm. Here’s a sample of that article by Boston
radio talk show host, Chuck Morse:
As if a light were switched off, the Shah of Iran,
Mohammad Reza Pahlevi, portrayed for 20 years as a
progressive modern ruler by Islamic standards, was suddenly, in 1977-1978,
turned into this foaming at the mouth monster by the international left media.
Soon after becoming President in 1977, Jimmy Carter launched a deliberate
campaign to undermine the Shah. The Soviets and their left-wing apparatchiks
would coordinate with Carter by smearing the Shah in a campaign of lies meant
to topple his throne. The result would be the establishment of a
Marxist/Islamic state in Iran headed by the tyrannical Ayatollah Ruhollah
Khomeini. The Iranian revolution, besides enthroning one of the world’s most
oppressive regimes, would greatly contribute to the creation of the
Marxist/Islamic terror network challenging the free world today.
And if that weren’t bad enough, the rise of the Ayatollah Ruhollah
Khomeini was hardly a natural, organic thing.
American leaders were also supporting Khomeini. After the Pravda
endorsement, Ramsey Clark, who served as Attorney General under President
Lyndon B. Johnson, held a press conference where he reported on a trip to Iran
and a Paris visit with Khomeini. He urged the US government to take no action
to help the Shah so that Iran could determine its own fate. Clark played a
behind the scenes role influencing members of Congress to not get involved in
the crisis. Perhaps UN Ambassador Andrew Young best expressed the thinking of
the left at the time when he stated that, if successful, Khomeini would
eventually be hailed as a saint.
Khomeini was allowed to seize power in Iran and, as a result, we are now
reaping the harvest of anti-American fanaticism and extremism. Khomeini
unleashed the hybrid of Islam and Marxism that has spawned suicide bombers and
hijackers. President Jimmy Carter, and the extremists in his administration are
to blame and should be held accountable.
It's not clear when that article was
written, but it might have been included in Morse’s book published in 2001, Why
I’m a Right Wing Extremist: Collected Columns of Chuck
Morse, Vol. II. That book is listed
on Amazon, but consistent
with the obscurity of the subject matter, it is reported to be out of print and
with only “limited availability.”
Why should we believe it? First, it is consistent with what we
discovered back in 2015. Second, the
book author Johnson has a second readily available reference in the form of a
much more comprehensive May 2009 article by James Perloff entitled “Iran and the Shah: What
Really Happened?” Here’s a sample of that article:
On the home front, the Shah
protected minorities and permitted non-Muslims to practice their faiths. “All
faith,” [Hilaire du Berrier] 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.
He sounds quite a bit like Syria’s Bashar al-Assad, doesn’t he? But we turned on Assad, too, didn’t we? But in this instance the Russians under
Vladimir Putin weren’t with us, and Assad is still in power.
Joining the smear was U.S. Senator Ted Kennedy, whose role [Houshang] 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.
Does that not sound like the rotten U.S. news media as we have come to
know them?
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.”
And doesn’t that sound like American academia as we have seen them at
work in recent years?
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.
Now we are reminded of the overthrow of the elected president of
Ukraine, Viktor Yanukovych, in 2014.
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 [U.S.
Air Force] General [Robert] 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 [President Jimmy] 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.
It was the CFR
clique — the same establishment entrenched in the Bush and Obama
administrations — that ousted the Shah, resulting in today’s Iran. That
establishment also chanted for the six-year-old Iraq War over alleged weapons
of mass destruction never found. Therefore, instead of contemplating war with
Iran, a nation four times Iraq’s size, let us demand that America shed its CFR
hierarchy and their interventionist policy that has wrought decades of misery,
and adopt a policy of avoiding foreign entanglements, and of minding our own
business in international affairs.
If we concede that
the Americans and the British took down the Shah and, essentially, replaced him
with the Ayatollah, the big question that remains is why it was done. It certainly seems counter-intuitive. For the answer to that question, what we
wrote in that article seven years ago still seems to hold good and needn’t be repeated
here. Check out the last two sections in
particular. It’s all about the ancient
rule of divide-and-conquer and the more modern one of what is considered best
for Israel. An Israel seen as a
constantly beleaguered island of democracy and Western values in a sea of
violent, anti-Western fanaticism is more worthy of sympathy and support by
Western populations. In a word, even
semi-enlightened secular despots are bad for Israel and must be taken
down. More recently, Saddam Hussein and
Muammar Qaddafi were leaders fitting that mold who
had to go, followed by the continuing unsuccessful attempt to overthrow Assad in
Syria.
The policy could
hardly be more cynical because the welfare of the people living in the
countries ruled over by those despots is the last consideration. Adding the massive bloodshed of the Iran-Iraq War as one of the results of the Shah’s overthrow and further Western
meddling in the region shows the true heinousness of our activities. It is something to bear in mind as we are
being urged to help Ukrainians fight the Russians, right down to the last
Ukrainian, it would appear.
As a final note,
the fact that we have not been told by our NOMA (national opinion-molding apparatus) about our role in the take-down of the
Shah might be considered a further indicator of who was ultimately behind
it. They haven’t told us about the truth
about the deaths of American Secretary of Defense James
Forrestal or Lawrence of Arabia either, have they?
David Martin
July 15, 2022
See also “YouTube: Truth about Jewish Power is
‘Hate Speech’.”
To comment, go to Heresy
Central.