[lit-ideas] Re: Iran (1), The Revolutionary Imperative

  • From: "Andreas Ramos" <andreas@xxxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • Date: Fri, 3 Feb 2006 21:44:11 -0800

From: "Lawrence Helm" <lawrencehelm@xxxxxxxxxxxx>

No, Berman's book is not about what preceded the Ayatollah.  He documents
just those things he writes about.

Of course he avoids the past. It's simply too embarassing. But without explaining that, there's no way to understand the present.

Where did you get the document you refer to?

Certainly not in The Land of the Free, where there is no censorship. Oh, no! It couldn't happen here.

The book was widely available in Europe in the early 80s. It was fairly well known. I had a copy in German. Too bad I don't have it anymore; I'd scan it and post it to the web.

I have read that the Shah was the CIA's man.

Not merely the CIA's man. The Shah was installed by the CIA. Why? Because Iran had a democracy. The CIA couldn't tolerate such nonsense, so they overthrew the democratically elected prime minister, installed a playboy twit, and then ran the country for decades as a private property to get the oil. Opponents were hunted down by SAVAK, the secret police, and imprisoned, tortured, or just murdered.

That's why there was an Iranian Revolution: out of sheer hatred and disgust 
with the USA.

When Bush says that he wants to create democracies in the Middle East, the Arabs laugh. They know the USA's history with democracies in the Middle East. The USA destroyed democracies and installed brutal dictators.

The Ayatollah, as Sayyid Qutb, was a big fan of the USSR.  He patterned his
Islamic Revolution after the USSR's Marxist Revolution.

The Islamic fundamentalist Ayatollah was a big fan of the atheist Soviets? Oh, right. And he snorted cocaine and danced the hootchie-koochie with Playboy bunnies.

Ayatollah Khomeni rejected both the USA and the USSR because they were both atheist. He was a very devout, highly educated cleric. He installed an Islamic republic, where Islam is the central authority. Tudeh, which were the Marxist in Iran, came under severe repression after the Revolution.

The Ayatollah didn't pattern his revolution on the Soviet model. Hardly. After the collapse of Shah, Baktiar took over the government. Khomeini returned from several decades of exile. Five million (or more) people gathered at the airport for his return. The government collapsed (it had no support) and Khomeini simply declared an Islamic republic, with himself at the head. There was no revolution in the Russian or French sense; no battle against authority, no underground movement, etc. The interim government just collapsed and fled.

Lawrence, please. Read a balanced, fair history of Iran. You're reading only books by ultra-right NeoCons who are trying to create justifications for more invasions. They flat out ignore history. The stuff you're quoting is either so one-sided as to be false, or it's just plain wrong. Honestly, I'd guess some of these books are disinformation or propaganda by the CIA.

Don't you people remember all of this? We (okay, except Erin) lived through this. It was in all the papers.

The Iranian Revolution is important because like the French and Russian Revolutions, it's a turning point in world history. The Iranians were able to throw out the colonialists (the USA and the UK had controlled Iran). This was the first successful Middle Eastern change of power against the colonialists.

We are watching the second change today: Iraq will become a major Islamic country. Both the Shiite and the Sunni leadership have asked the USA to leave and they want the timetable. Both have said that it's justified to fight against an occupation force. Iraq doesn't want the USA. When the USA leaves (and it's a matter of time), there won't be a democracy. It'll be an Islamic republic. With both Iran and Iraq as Islamic countries, Saudi Arabia will fall. The Saudi royal house is utterly corrupt. With those three major countries as Islamic republics, the rest of the Islamic world will follow along. The implications for the West are very severe: 50-70% of the world's oil is in the Middle East. They will control the oil.

yrs,
andreas
www.andreas.com

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