Jimmy Carter and the 40 Ayatollahs

Jimmy Carter and the 40 Ayatollahs

 

Diane Alden
Wednesday, Oct. 30, 2002

 

This article in PDF-file

 

By Middle East standards the Shah of Iran was a progressive democrat. In the eyes of President Jimmy Carter and certain foreign policy factions in the State Department and various think tanks, the Shah represented the heart of darkness.

 

In an article in May 2002, NewsMax's Chris Ruddy pointed out:

 

"Remember Carter's human rights program, where he demanded the Shah of Iran step down and turn over power to the Ayatollah Khomeini? "No matter that Khomeini was a madman. Carter had the U.S. Pentagon tell the Shah's top military commanders – about 150 of them – to acquiesce to the Ayatollah and not fight him.

 

"The Shah's military listened to Carter. All of them were murdered in one of the Ayatollah's first acts.

 

"By allowing the Shah to fall, Carter created one of the most militant anti-American dictatorships ever."

 

[See: Jimmy Carter's Trail of Disaster.]

 

As has been reported in NewsMax previously, Carter still receives a great deal of money from the Arab world for his Carter Center in Atlanta.

 

These days, Jimmy Carter has selective blindness toward the Middle East and Israel. He emphasizes the evils of Israel when it takes self-protective actions against Palestinians, while turning a blind eye to what the Palestinians and Yasser Arafat are doing.

 

The fact that Yasser Arafat won the Nobel Peace Prize because he signed one of Carter's paper peace agreements with Israel is one reason Carter hangs on to his illusions about Arafat and the Palestinians. He and the foreign policy elite of his era have too much invested in that failure to admit it IS a failure. Even while Hamas, Hezbollah, and Islamic Jihad target any and every Israeli who lives in the Middle East, Carter remains the typical one-world-fits-all leftist – in extreme denial. No one wants to admit that their good intentions and efforts created hell on earth for millions of people. No one wants to admit that the fruit of their utopian dreams for a peaceful world will NOT be accomplished through accommodations with terrorists, utopian leftists, madmen with nukes, or those who are fanatically anti-U.S.

 

The Only Time Ayatollah Khomeini Ever Smiled

 

Iranian writer Farhad Mafie offers a telling picture of the international terrorist connection between Iran and the rest of the bomb-throwing Islamist world and Yasser Arafat.

 

In a 2002 essay Mafie reports: "The first and only time that Ayatollah Khomeini smiled was when he sat next to Mr. Arafat in Tehran in 1979. Mr. Arafat was the first foreign dignitary – actually the first official terrorist – who came to Iran after Iranian generals were summarily executed by order of criminals such as Dr. Ibrahim Yazdi [now a 'reformist' in Iran's current system]. After Naji, Rahimi, Khosrowdad, and Nasiri were brutally executed [Feb. 15, 1979], Arafat and Khomeini hugged each other and smiled."

 

The mullahs welcomed Yasser Arafat warmly indeed. Not surprising considering the fact that the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) helped the Shah's opponents by training terrorists, supplying weapons to the mullahs and their leftist supporters, and participating in killing Iranian demonstrators in Tehran. The PLO provided aid and comfort to the mullahs and forces to bring down the Shah, thus destabilizing the entire Middle East.

 

It is not a stretch to insist that if Jimmy Carter and the policy wonks in his administration had formulated foreign policy according to American self-interest, the world would be a better place. When the ayatollahs came to power in Iran, that circumstance gave immense encouragement to the Islamist fundamentalist madmen in Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan and everywhere else.

 

These same Islamist militarists eventually murdered Egyptian President Anwar Sadat, another Nobel Peace Prize recipient, because he signed Carter's first Camp David Peace Treaty with Israel. Carter does not have the ability to connect the dots, and that makes him a dangerous man rather than a peacemaker.

 

Carter's vision remains myopic, to say the least. These days he blames Israel for the failure of peace in the Middle East. He continues to refuse to take responsibility for his part in promoting the rise of militant Islam.

 

Carter fails to recognize that the greater evil was the Shah's replacement. For that reason, Islamist militancy received a colossal push up the geopolitical ladder.

Carter and the Democrats, along with the policy wonks in the D.C.-New York corridor, harbor the misguided notion that there is no evil in the world. They never get it through their dreamy heads that the root cause of many wars and calamities is, in fact, evil. They prefer to believe that every international problem has a diplomatic answer. They believe that anyone can be talked into being peaceful if they just push the right buttons long enough. History, unfortunately, indicates that is not how things work. As a matter of fact, dialogue with evil legitimizes evil. Evil is murderous, resentful, envious, hostile, bitter and unforgiving, creating conflict for no legitimate reason. Mostly it is fatal to one and all.

 

Dialogue only works when countries or people have decided that their agenda, or at the very least a peaceful compromise, cannot be accomplished through terror or intimidation. The other alternative is that they must be totally and completely defeated in battle, as Germany and Japan were defeated.

 

Carter never understood that some mindsets or systems can't be accommodated, regardless of good intentions or how much talking and fine tuning and compromise take place. Yasser Arafat and those like him, as well as his evil brand of politics, are a case in point. So are North Korea, Cuba, Saddam Hussein and the government of the Iranian Islamist militant clerics.

 

Evil is evil, and George Bush was correct when he called Iran and North Korea and Iraq the "axis of evil."

 

The Iranian-Arafat Connection

 

The victorious mullahs and their leader, Ayatollah Khomeini, greeted Mr. Arafat as a hero – as well he should have been greeted, given the valuable assistance that the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) had provided. The PLO helped the Shah's opponents by training terrorists, supplying weapons to the mullahs and their leftist supporters, and participating in killing Iranian demonstrators in the streets of Tehran. By doing so, the PLO further inflamed anti-Shah sentiments and helped further destroy the Shah's political image.

 

Ayatollah Khomeini, as a sign of appreciation, closed the Israeli Embassy in Tehran and turned it into the PLO's official headquarters and embassy, complete with Palestinian flag.

 

Later, Fahdie relates, Arafat "allowed the PLO to have a branch office in Iran's most important and richest province, Khozestan. … Since 1979, the Islamic Republic of Iran [IRI] has been working directly with all the terrorist elements within the PLO. It has even created several new terrorist organizations, such as Hezbollah ['Party of God'], which was designed and developed by Mr. Mohtashami [also an IRI reformist] to further enhance the IRI's terrorist bases in the region. These organizations are supported both militarily with Iranian Revolutionary Guards and financially with millions of dollars [of the Iranian people's money, of course]."

 

Fun and Games With the Ayatollahs

 

For some reason Islamist religious clerics have a fascination with dogs, killing them or their owners. Not so long ago in Afghanistan, videos of experiments on a puppy being gassed were conducted by al-Qaeda and the Taliban. It was certainly big news on CNN. Before the U.S. incursion into Afghanistan, videos of another pitiful pooch appeared. The dog had a sign painted on its head that read "Bush." The Taliban and Islamists torched the dog in their usual sick kind of statement against the civilized world.

 

In his most recent column, historian, scholar and writer Michael Ledeen affirms that on Oct. 13 of this year, religious leader Ali Khamenei's followers "demanded that all dogs and their owners be arrested. This follows a June decree banning the sale of dogs, along with public dog walking, which was branded an immoral act and an offense to the sensitivities of all good Muslims. ..."

 

Ledeen asserts: "As it turns out, Iran's officials made the mistake of reporting the results of an official survey which showed that three quarters of the Iranian people 'want good relations with the United ("Great Satan") States, and that Khamenei is the most unpopular public figure in the country.' So the head of the polling institution was accused of disseminating false information and thrown into the nearest torture chamber, and the editor of the newspaper that published the story was hauled before some beturbaned and bearded fanatics practicing 'Islamic justice,' and similarly locked away. ..."

 

Unfortunately, for the Iranians there is no great leader on the horizon. Most opposition leadership has been murdered or tortured into silence or live in exile. Public hangings and stoning are rampant in Iran. Street fighting has led to the deaths of hundreds of people.

 

Reports that I saw indicated that after the Sept. 11, 2001, attack on the United States, Iranian students and citizens held candlelight vigils in various Iranian towns to show solidarity with the American people. You would be hard pressed to find any of this related extensively in the Western or U.S. press or State Department press releases.

 

In his essay Ledeen also discusses the monster demonstrations in Tehran last year – demonstrations that the dim bulb mainstream Western press deemed to be "soccer riots."

 

Recent intelligence reports indicate that al-Qaeda operatives in northern Italy have been in regular contact with Iran. Ledeen adds that German officials say that al-Qaeda operatives are in northern Italy "[and] that leading terrorists may be found in Iran."

 

Furthermore, he continues: "Just in case you were wondering about Bali, my information is that the bombs were delivered by Hezbollah operatives, having been trained by experts from the Iranian Revolutionary Guards. The people who gave me this information, the day after the event, also predicted, spot on, that the next assault would be in the Philippines."

 

(The entire article may be found at www.nationalreview.com)

 

What Does President Bush Know About Iran?

 

President Bush understands what is going on in Iran. His State of the Union speech gave heart to many people in Iran's struggling opposition parties. That opposition hungered to hear a strong statement about the "axis of evil." Iran's present government, led by clerical bully-boys, is part of that axis.

 

Contrary to what the snotty policy analysts at the New York Times OR what Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton have to say, the Iranian people are on the verge of throwing the bastards out. They need hope. Where are Carter and Clinton in giving them any? At least Bush gave the Iranian opposition hope by calling evil by its right name. Nevertheless, it is also unfortunate that the Bush house is divided. Secretary of State Colin Powell either has no clue, or he is so enamored of the usual Foggy Bottom follies he can't see the forest for the trees. According to Ledeen, Powell and his deputy Richard Armitage oppose any assistance to the Iranian opposition.

 

It is possible George Bush realizes that the "reformist movement" and the "third force movement" in Iran are aliases created by the IRI to keep itself in power. One can hope. Then there is Europe. It is futile to believe it will offer encouragement in an effort to bring freedom and democracy to Iran or anywhere in the Middle East. European oil companies Royal Dutch/Shell, TotalFinaElf and ENI have signed deals with the ayatollahs that are worth billions of dollars. Thus they have ignored the Iran-Libya Sanctions Act. That act seeks to bar foreign firms from making major financial commitments in Iran.

 

What Does the Iranian Opposition Say?

 

Iranian supporters of the overthrow of the ayatollahs suggest that the "U.S. should funnel all IRI funds now available in the U.S. to the Iranian opposition forces."

Furthermore, "the U.S. should stop all the IRI propaganda activities in the U.S. by banning any organizations and individuals receiving IRI funds, whether directly from Iran or from IRI sources of income in the U.S."

 

The opposition also suggests that the U.S. support the Iranian opposition forces by "providing them with sufficient radio and TV capabilities to broadcast to the Iranian people inside Iran." (Perhaps from stations maintained in Afghanistan.)

 

The U.S. should publicly and actively "support a national referendum in Iran under international observation so that the Iranian people [inside and outside Iran] can freely vote for their desired form of government."

 

But if the Bush administration is as divided as Ledeen thinks it is, then Iran may go on killing its own people, suppressing their desire for greater freedom, while offering aid and comfort to terrorists worldwide. The end game is the creation of Islamist states worldwide.

 

An Empty Glory

 

Just recently, former President Clinton gave speeches in Australia and Britain that in effect supported turning over U.S. sovereignty to some hodgepodge unaccountable international cabal. Jimmy Carter is of the same mind.

 

Sadly, Carter and Bill Clinton promoted foreign policy with a ferocious mindlessness that seeks the praise and empty glory of the world. They excused cruelty and allowed truly murderous regimes to have a pass. The despotic and murderous rulers in Iran, as well as the rise of Islamic terrorists, are among the fruits of the good intentions of people like Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton.

 

Another case in point of good intentions run amok: Clinton's Secretary of State Madeleine Albright vetoed a U.N. effort to intervene in the bloodbath in Africa between the Hutus and Tutsis. Millions were butchered in that horror. Meanwhile, Team Clinton jumped in all the way into a far less devastating war between Christian Serbs and Muslims in the former Yugoslavia.

 

Since LBJ, Democratic administrations have had trouble with priorities. With the best of intentions, they go about wreaking havoc on the world while ignoring the worst of it.

 

Carter counsels against any strong U.S. or unilateral policy in the Middle East. Since he came on the political scene, good son Jimmy has given the nod to any geopolitical group who either works against U.S. interests or is left of Lenin, like the Sandinistas. That kind of philosophy might make the Nobel Peace Prize Committee happy, but it does nothing for peace in the world or for America's best interests. One member of the Nobel Committee openly admitted that Carter received the prize because he strongly opposed Bush's efforts in the Middle and Far East.

 

George Bush would be foolish to give Carter, Clinton, the foreign policy and academic left, and the pundits on CNN and MSNBC the time of day. He would be foolish to have his head turned by the European elite or the sorry bunch at the Nobel Committee. They have been wrong in the past and nothing has changed. That is dangerous for the U.S. and for world peace. Carter's record alone indicates how wrong and how dangerous they have been. For instance, in the Far East in 1994, Carter helped negotiate a useless treaty-accord with North Korea. Reports point out that while visiting the dying despot Kim Il Sung, Carter proclaimed him to be "vigorous, alert, intelligent and surprisingly well informed about the technical issues." Carter actually believed that Sung also was "very friendly toward Christianity."

 

Later, Clinton's secretary of state, Madeleine Albright, also went to North Korea. While there, she acted and spoke as if she had been selected prom queen by the brutal regime. This regime has been responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of North Koreans from starvation.

 

This is another case where a Democratic administration never sees evil when it comes from some approved homicidal political system with its accompanying madman. Clinton and Carter both believe, incorrectly, that they can manipulate people and states through treaties, accords or expensive parties for visiting dignitaries.

 

It is a safe bet that had Jimmy Carter won a second term, the downfall of communism in the Soviet Union would have been delayed by decades.

 

Jimmy and His Good Intentions

 

Jimmy Carter has done good things in his life. None of them, however, have to do with foreign policy. His efforts in that regard have merely led to more chaos in just about every place he has offered his help.

 

Carter is the quintessential kindergarten teacher who wants the kiddies to make nice. He is not a discerning realistic maker of peace, but rather a guy who wanted to be a "peacemaker" no matter how empty that peace was.

 

Carter never figured out that sometimes being a maker of peace means smacking the schoolyard bully till he quits beating up on everyone. He still thinks you can talk people to death with accords and compromises. For some reason he never realized that evil people exist and their hearts are far from peace. They lie, cheat, steal and murder to accomplish their ends.

 

I suspect Jimmy thinks being a Christian is always about "turning the other cheek." Well, there are times one must do that, often in fact. However, it is one thing to turn the other cheek when it is your own, it is a much different thing when the lives of others in your charge are at stake.

 

Carter's recent Nobel Prize should have been a prize for the person with the best intentions. Unfortunately, Iran, the United States and the world have paid the price in blood and heartache in order for Jimmy Carter to obtain that prize.

 

Read related articles:
Jimmy Carter's Trail of Disaster

Carter’s Arab Funding May Color Israel Stance