We are driven

USA

V

Tip of the spear–Delta without the base.

credits: The one-way at a time box, in and out by one door in each of the four rooms. General to specific. Must start at the beginning: The lobby. MIT and Georgetown professors of the digital age. U.C. San Diego and specifically Cal Newport’s Deep Work and #digitalminimalism.

HAPPY EASTER [TO AMERICA].

compilation by John Rubens

Easter Sunday, 2024

WOMAN: Bone of my bone, flesh of my flesh.

MAN: That’s my line.

WOMAN: It’s mine now. It’s a woman’s world. It is written, “Thou shalt not deny thy wife”. Now break out thy boning tools.

MAN: Sweetheart, I did you last night. See to the Cherubims then lioness and like St. Paul said, we will go ‘from strength to strength’.

WOMAN: You did me last night? Toi!

MAN: You offered, and I took you, like a mermaid in the Sea of Eden… . I didn’t have to work much for it. Marital bliss. Thanks.

WOMAN: My yoke is easy; my burden light.

MAN: Oh, boy. Female priests.

WOMAN: There’s no time like the present.

MAN: But…The Vatican councils!

WOMAN: Don’t you ever learn!

JAMES CARVILLE: Preachy female.

LEE ATWATER: Treat her well. I can’t stand violent femmes.

MAN: [whispers the Scorpions’] “Give her inches and feed her well.”

DONALD TRUMP: Beware the snake.

John Rubens compilation, March 30, 2024

ME: Who’s “They’ve”?

PUNK SLOGAN: SOWING THE SEEDS OF DYSFUNCTION

See also, the Cage and the Black Seeds.

Steve Jones has a lot of love in his heart, but he’s all business, really, although I wonder about his sex life.

GLASGOW/AC/DC: Sown the seeds of destruction they have.

ME: Are Scots Brits?

IAN [HELLSANGEL]: ?

Me: Scots are disgruntled Brits.

IAN: YOU could say that.

ME: The long arm of the Crown?

PIRATE: Arrr. Be aware matey. There here as sure as the Ukrainians and the Russians.

CIA: We don’t need no jurisdiction…we are self-contained, a roving jurisdiction. UAS Interpol

FICTIONAL KING CHARLES III: Watch your P’s & Q’s derogatory of the Crown and you’ll be fine John.

SAM NEMIROVSKY: Life goes on Jhon.

ME: But you still can’t spell my name right in English.

SAM: Right? It’s too late. Game over, I WIN.

The Wanderer.

The King of the Road is poor.

Credit: Dion, John Rubens, Roger Miller, Steve Jones

11-27-2023

The Iranian Revolution, 1978-1980

An Account of M, as told to John Rubens, San Diego, California, 1980-1981

Textbook Events of the Iranian Revolution of 1978

We begin by recalling some of the major political events that took place prior to the insurgent Iranian Revolution of 1978. The popular government of the Iranian People in 1953 was led by a man named Dr. Mohammad Mossadeq. His administration’s policy was directed toward supporting the masses of Iran, commonly referred to as a “Populist“. However, the populist stance of the Iranian leader became increasingly unpopular in the eyes of Mossadeq’s opposition: the huge oil companies of the West. To upbraid the troublesome politician, a coup was organized to topple the Mossadeq government.

The United States supported the coup because a new leader would allow them greater voice in Iranian foreign policy and greater control of their vast oil assets under the jurisdiction of Iran. Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, hereinafter referred to as “Shah” or “the Shah” was re-installed as the leader in the so-called “renewal of relations” between Iran and the “West” [for purposes of this book, the “West” refers primarily to the United Kingdom of Great Britain and the United States, and secondarily western industrialized democracies (see
Wikipedia under the search “define: western industrialized democracies 20^th Century”)].

Shah Out, Shah In, Shah Out Again

The 1953 coup d’etat was spear-headed by the Central Intelligence Agency of the United States, hereinafter referred to as “CIA” or “the CIA”, in conjunction with an angry Iranian mob. The CIA paid commissions to the instigators of a riot in the streets of Tehran who used taunts, degrading the name of Mossadeq, and giving praises to the Shah. The mob was successful in kidnapping Dr. Mossadeq during the demonstration, a pre-requisite to the toppling of his democratically-elected Office and the collapse of his Administration. The resultant coup was the return of Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi from his hiding place in Italy to the Imperial Throne of Iran. The Shah is back in.

Let’s Flashback: the Problem’s Inception

The Mossadeq government gave people a sense of freedom and liberty that they had been denied for many years under previous leaders of Iran. The Mossadeq Administration was modeled after North American and West European democratized nation-states. Citizens were allowed certain inalienable rights that allowed them to think and act on their own initiative and to speak out for what they believed in. These freedoms were upheld as rights protected the Iranian Constitution in force during his Administration which ended in 1953.

The Communist Toudeh (a/k/a Tudeh) Party

The numerous political parties which existed in Iran during Mossadeq’s rule were not interfered with or suppressed by his Administration. This laissez-faire attitude of democratic government created an opportunity for the Communist Party, hereinafter referred to as the Toudeh Party, to gain a powerful foothold as members of the Constitutional Government of Iran. The CIA as one might expect, did not like Mossadeq’s tolerance of Toudeh Party members since they distributed pro-Soviet propaganda with bravado aimed primarily against the United States. The literature lambasted American foreign policy and the “imperialistic” motivation of its vital interests not only in the Middle East, but throughout the developing world. The populace was paying attention.

The Toudeh Party continued to gain popularity under Mossadeq until the United States took action to counteract their propaganda drive. The US plan for dissolution of Toudeh was two-fold: 1) to diminish Soviet influence in Iran and 2) once Soviet influence waned, the United States would be able to regain access to Iranian oilfields without public unrest [the West was shut out of the Iranian oil industry at the time by the Mossadeq Administration].

Many Iranians were very sensitive to oil-interested politics in the early 1950’s. Between 1951 and 1953 for instance, oil production in Iran was at a standstill because the service contracts between Great Britain and Iran to extract and distribute petroleum were seen by most Iranians as unconscionable. For instance, it was widely publicized that the British only paid royalties of 16% of the profits it made on Iranian Oil and that American interests were driving inflation higher.

In response to Iran’s oil embargo of the early 1950’s, Great Britain gave the Mossadeq Administration an ultimatum: either relent and end the embargo or suffer naval occupation of the Persian Gulf (with implications of a “blockade”). The Iranian populace responded tout de suite: oil businessmen and technicians that had been exploiting Iran’s natural petroleum resources since the turn of the 20^th Century were expelled. After the mass expulsion of the Western oil interests, Mossadeq set out to nationalize oil.

Once the oil sector in Iran had stabilized, foreigners could come to work in Iran, but solely for the nationalized program, not for oil companies under British jurisdiction. [Compare, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez’ attempts to nationalize oil in his country during the Administration of George W. Bush in the United States 2007-2008]. Subsequently, British workers, primarily engineers, did not like working for the Iranian oil company and came disgruntled. Persuaded by the British government, they abandoned their positions in the Iranian petroleum industry and left the country. Iranian engineers and technicians did not have the expertise to run the petroleum industry in their country without outside help and the industry fell into disarray. If that was not enough, no one was buying Iranian oil due to political pressure from Great Britain. Furthermore, England made a spectacle of the breach of Iran’s “breach” of its contract with them and sued them in an International Court in The Hague, Netherlands. It was perceived by the author that the British relied too much on their outspoken political persuasiveness and economic clout than by contract law enforceable by the Court (according to the author, a United Nations (hereinafter U.N.) Court in those days) sat The Hague. As it was, the International Court ruled in favor of the Iranian Government. The ruling was based on the fact that Britain began exploiting Iran’s petroleum resources under alleged contracts that were not produced at trial by the British, and the Iranians allegedly did not have copies to enter into evidence either. The Court went on to point out that Iran was currently a sovereign nation and no longer a colony of the British Empire. As such, a sovereign nation not only has the right of self-determination, but the means to ensure that right. The decision of the Court was that Iran had the sole right to all mineral resources located beneath the ground of its territories. [The wording of the World (or as the author recounts, the U.N.) Court’s precepts have certainly evolved since the early 1950’s, as has the Court(s) corporate structure, membership and jurisdiction]. Although the Iranian government asked for restitution, it could not prove theft of its sovereign natural resources over the preceding sixty years and since neither Iran nor Great Britain produced copies or originals of any “agreements” the two sovereigns may have been working under since Iran separated from the British Empire in the late 19^th Century, the Court did not retroactively nullify the contracts but did nullify any supposed “agreements” either of the two countries may have thought they were working under going forward.

As Great Britain Recedes from the Iranian Oil Picture in the mid-1950’s, U.S. Oil Companies Step Up Their Efforts to Negotiate With Iran and Win Contracts in Petroleum Interests

Achilles Heel

Initially, U.S. Oil Companies supported the Mossadeq regime. Former President Harry S. Truman was sent as an Ambassador to Iran to discuss possible oil trade with Mossadeq in 1953. Then President Eisenhower knew it was important to send a diplomat of high regard to meet with the Iranian Prime Minister in order to show the enthusiasm the United States had to do business with them.

Mossadeq wanted to aggravate America, but at the same time continue to export oil to them. Meanwhile, England urged their allies in Europe and the Americas not to buy oil from Iran in order to suffocate their economy. Iran suffered severely from the embargo. They were not receiving income from oil as almost all of their production was barely enough to support their own domestic consumption. This inability to produce a surplus of oil production for export was a key cause of their rising inflation and huge trade deficit.

The Toudeh Party relished the fact that Mossadeq was in a bind, after all, they wanted to rule Iran in his place. On the issue of oil exports, the Toudeh Party actively opposed Mossadeq’s suspension of oil exports to the West and provoked a public outcry. Soon, Mossadeq’s adoring public was demonstrating in the streets of Tehran. In 1953 Iran, Mossadeq needed money more that the “West” needed oil (the Korean War was winding down as well). Mossadeq, determined to sell more oil to American oil companies, set about to quell Toudeh inspired rumors and retain his composure, after all, the plurality of Iranians still admired his steadfast political objectivity, honesty and manner.

The United States and Great Britain had and continue to have radically intertwined economies, and therefore, both countries had and continue to have almost identically vital interests in Iran. Mossadeq “blinked”. He was forced to sell oil to American companies because some of his major domestic political antagonists were impatient with the rising inflation and lack of revenue from oil, Iran’s primary natural resource. If that was not enough, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (hereinafter referred to as USSR) did not approve of the Mossadeq regime. Along with the US and Great Britain, theformer WWII allies devised a plan to boycott Iranian oil even if it was offered to them for sale. The three-way solidarity was enough to ensure an economic depression in Iran at the time.

The Toudeh Party stepped up their efforts and began ad hominem misinformation campaigns against Prime Minister Mossadeq, including rumors he was a “puppet of America”. Like bees buzzing around his head, Mossadeq’s adversaries began to overwhelm him. Divisive domestic and Western factions attacked him for a crippled Iranian economy. Inflation, along with the civil unrest that followed as a result, was Mossadeq’s Achilles heel.

At some point about this time while Mossadeq was still in office and the embargo ongoing, an Italian ship loaded with Iranian oil was seized by the British Navy in the Indian Ocean. As political tensions between England and Iran heightened to a crescendo, the United States for its part sought new methods of gaining access to Iranian Oil. Heightened political tensions in Iran led the former WWII allies to coordinate a coup d’etat together.

Mohammed Reza Shah Pahlavi

Mohammed Reza Shah Pahlavi sent a declaration to Prime Minister Mossadeq informing him he was deposed of his authority and that General Zahedi would assume the Office of Prime Minister. Mossadeq would have none of it. He had just won at the World Court in The Hague. He had some clout left, at least internationally. He could appeal to the United Nations (hereinafter referred to as UN). He was right. The Shah’s Plan A, the declaration, backfired and he was forced to leave the country, first to Iraq, and later to Italy in fear for his life.

Within three days the Shah and his close associates arranged Plan B: a plot to overthrow the Mossadeq Prime Ministership. The Shah’s flight to Italy provided a diversion for General Zahedi, who was also in hiding, to arrange the coup against the INF, Mossadeq’s political party. Mossadeq continued to maintain if not enjoy a large following in Iran and for this reason, the Shah and his associates were afraid of the people’s reaction to the coup. The principal and most vocal opponent of what became known as “General Zahedi’s plot” was the Toudeh Party, which had been growing progressively stronger under Mossadeq’s Administration. All three of the major interested parties in “General Zahedi’s plot”, the United States, Great Britain and the USSR, agreed not to interfere with the coup or stage a meddling counter-coup once the takeover of the Iranian government was completed by Zahedi.

Up until 1953, of the major world powers, England had the most influence over Iran and its affairs. As the year passed, American diplomacy and persuasiveness won out as did General Zahedi in the coup. The United States had two basic interests in Iran. The first and foremost concern was the dissolution of the Toudeh Party and its entrenched propaganda machine. Once dissolution was accomplished or nearly certain to be accomplished, the United States simply wanted to get Iranian oil into American oil tankers. To achieve these two objectives quickly, strategically and efficiently, the US decided it would be in its best interests to re-introduce the Shah as the dictator of Iran.

THE COUP’ETAT: 1953
    

A rabble of pro-Shah demonstrators, led by twenty-one military officers, staged the coup which was organized by the Central Intelligence Agency of the United States. Some of the twenty-one officers overseeing and/or carrying out the rebellion were enemies of Mossadeq and in Iranian prison(s) at the time. The coup was successful, Mossadeq was thrown in prison, and the officers that helped orchestrate the coup were freed from Iranian incarceration.

The Toudeh Party told its members and officers that a new Iranian government must be formed as soon as possible so that General Zahedi would not have time to consolidate his power in a military dictatorship. As far as the communists were concerned, anarchy and revolution were preferable to having all the authority with Zahedi, or anyone else. The Toudeh Party had a plan of their own and it did not include the Shah, Dr. Mossadeq or General Zahedi. The communists would “fatigue the new government”, then at an opportune moment, stage another uprising. Thus, the Toudeh Party would not have to “double-cross” their compatriots in the USSR at the outset, although they were allied with “the West” during the coup. Rather, they planned to allow the CIA devised coup to go forward and seize control of the Iranian Government at a later date. Toudeh organizers wanted to install a leader who they could manipulate while consolidating their own party’s political power. In 1978, The Ayatollah Khomeini was to become this individual.

Around the same period, a network of communist military officers were discovered accidentally by General Zahedi’s government. A specific officer was apprehended carrying a suitcase with the names of 1200 people that had infiltrated the Iranian military service. Six hundred of the names found were part of a conspiracy of anti-Shah military officers ranging from lieutenant to colonel (hereinafter Sr. Officers). The names of the other six hundred soldiers (hereinafter Jr. Officers) were written down in a complicated code. A major in the Zahedi armed forces, distinguished as an expert code breaker, was called in to decipher the names of the Jr. Officers found in the briefcase. Unknowingly, Zahedi had “hired” a communist infiltrator who took the codes of the 600 Junior Officers and fled the country, never to be found again. Fear and intrigue prevailed in the wake of the disclosures of the Iranian Major who left the service of the country. Since the identities of the 600 Jr. Officers remained unknown, the secret police and informants were investigating the case to uncover their identities. Communist influence seemed to pervade daily life, but such was the case in the United States and in the USSR as well in 1953(compare McCarthyism; Remnants of Stalin Purges, daughter’s defection).

The Reza Shah Pahlavi’s personal guard was not without its defectors [At an earlier time than 1953, Shah Pahlavi found a derogatory letter one morning at his bedside when he awoke. It shook his confidence immensely to the point it was visibly apparent to the Iranian public for some time]. Due to the present [1953] circumstances and the prior letter of warning, Pahlavi was suspicious of his allies, even his closest friends. Il etait raison (Fr.). What was not as apparent perhaps, was Zahedi’s transfer of power to the Shah.

The Shah Takes Over the Helm of a Persian Ship

Along with the six hundred Sr. Officers that were arrested by General Zahedi’s forces, the Iranian government arrested several communist politicians. Of these, forty were executed and the others imprisoned. The strong military response of the Shah and Zahedi frightened the Iranian population. The aggression was seen as a totalitarianistic gambit and short term (martial law) strategy, and unlike before, there were no protests over the government consolidative action. It was under these coercive circumstances that the Iranian Oil pact(s) with Western European powers and American oil companies was ratified by the Iranian parliament. It was decided that eight major concessionaires from different countries should undertake the production and sale of Iranian oil. Mossadeq’s government, and his goals for Iran were over. A new regime had begun to greet the populace with different goals and different ideals to focus upon—and it pleased the Shah’s Western benefactors.

Major Petroleum Concessionaires from the United States

The major concessionaires of Iran’s oil resources were based and/or headquartered in the United States and paid taxes to the United States. General Zahedi made a deal with the US oil companies and was awarded a fee of 60-70 million dollars to use as he pleased. In the new Iran-US Oil contract, 51% of the oil profits belonged to Iran, while 49% belonged to the oil companies that owned the concession: that meant they were the principal that was responsible for exploration, feasibility studies, production, sales, distribution including associated storage and transport of the petroleum product(s).

USSR Bears Gift

In the 1950’s, the USSR wanted the ouster of General Zahedi at any cost [don’t know why]. In an act of goodwill, the Soviets returned eleven tons of gold it had acquired from Iran during World War II. Although former Prime Minister Mossedeq had demanded return of the gold previously of the Soviets during his administration, the Soviets did not oblige him with the transfer. Now, the circumstances and geo-political climate had changed and the Soviets hoped that the “gift” would help ease relations between the two countries. Iran had enough oil for export to make this initial gold “investment in the future” worthwhile.

Iran was enthusiastic about the gold returned by the Soviets to sovereign soil, however, trade relations between the two countries remained muted. With British and American concessions paying top dollar, the Soviets could not compete and took a “backseat” to their former WWII allies in Iran oil exports. However, the USSR made it clear they would not interfere with the West’s arrangement with Iran only if assurances were promised that first advantage or first look would be given to the USSR in other domains and endeavors in the future, whatever they may be (e.g. wheat from the US, most favored nation status, or future oil contracts). A “divide and conquer” strategy was replaced by one of bargain and compromise—the “cold war”. The understanding was “We’ll let you have your way this time but you better make sure we get ours “next” time or were taking it.”

BARGAINING WITH THE BIG GUYS

Negotiations with the Middle East in the early 1950’s became the precedent for a new type of agreement between the superpowers of the United States, the Soviet Union and the United Kingdom of Great Britain with respect to Iran. The USSR conceded to Zahedi’s policy in order to focus its attention in other areas of the world, such as Korea. The USSR felt that the North Korean government, an assured acquisition of theirs, could do their bidding for them against South Korea, without getting their own hands “soiled” in war. Once the Soviet’s found a sympathetic group to do their bidding for them, there was no reason why they should not aid their comrades and overcome their enemies.

In Iran, the situation was not as clear-cut. Those that opposed a communist state outnumbered those who wanted one; at least that was the pluralistic sentiment. But like a boat in rough water, Iranians were unsure what other residents favored in public policy or governmental structure(s). What the plurality did agree on was they wanted change. Change was the only “mantra” anyone had any assurance in.

As a result of the foregoing, the Soviets did not interfere with Iranian trade during the early 1950’s or threaten it with coercive tactics that would “rock the boat” now being led by the “West”. No, the USSR was determined to “wait it out” for the appointed time when they could tell the US or the UK, “Our turn now–move over!”

SHAH PAHLAVI AND THE FOUNDATION OF HIS SECRET POLICE FORCE #SAVOK

In 1958, the CIA established a secret police force (secret service) for the Shah of Iran called the Organization of Information and Security of Iran (translated and hereinafter referred to as SAVOK). SAVOK was established to maintain order and keep the power in the hands of its ruler, Shah Pahlavi. SAVOK used totalitarian techniques and used totalitarian methods to achieve political stability. This Unit would be known to capture and detain anyone who opposed the State or who displayed dissatisfaction with the new regime.

There were several groups of individuals (probably some individuals were in more than one group?) who opposed the Shah. The different types of organizations, or “groups” were: 1) the Iranian National Front, or INF of which Dr. Mossedeq was a party member and was imprisoned when the Shah seized power successfully after the recent coup, 2) the communist party, aka the Toudeh Party and 3) Clerics (i.e. the Ayatollahs). The Shah used his secret police force SAVOK to suppress all these “groups” from interfering with affairs of State in Iran.

PRESIDENT JOHN FITZGERALD KENNEDY’S INFLUENCE IN IRAN (circa 1960-1963)

During John F. Kennedy’s term of office (1960-1963) a wave of political “coup d’etats” swept the third world (hereinafter referred to as the “developing world”). Political unrest prevailed in many parts of Latin America and South-East Asia. The reasons for the unrest were a general dissatisfaction with their respective governments and the widespread desire to establish a “better society” even if by means of violent upheaval(s). Kennedy’s method of restraining communist governments from taking over smaller, underdeveloped countries was to influence the presiding government to respect human rights. Kennedy’s diplomacy acted as a deterrent to anarchy and revolution in Iran because it gave the Shah limitations in the way he ran the country. Kennedy’s theory was that if the people were content with their government and their leaders, they would have no imminent reason to break with the status quo and revolt.

Kennedy was the significant factor which led to many reforms in Iran under the Shah’s administration. He advised the Shah in the early ’60’s to moderate the use of his power keeping in mind his duty to serve his constituents. In other countries, where the close monitoring of its national rulers was not as comprehensively studied as it had been in Iran after the second World War, communist governments assumed power only after society’s became discontent with their leaders. Kennedy stressed the development of a policy for human rights that would appease the public and decrease the chance of a revolution from ever occurring. The Kennedy Administration recommended Dr. Amini, Secretary of the Financial Ministry in Zahedi’s Cabinet to be appointed the new Prime Minister. Amini was very close to the Kennedy family and had represented Iran in the recent oil pact with Western concessionaires. The Western nations of the US, UK, France and Germany seemed to agree on Amini as Prime Minister as they found him to be an able negotiator. Amini was ultimately appointed through Kennedy’s influence and the Shah made special efforts to tolerate his rival’s presence; they were not the best of friends. Since Amini had been installed at the urging of John Kennedy, he had a special distinction in Parliament that none of the other members had. Amini was relatively independent from the Shah’s jurisdiction and had the right to express his personal views at Parliamentary sessions even if they were incongruous to the Shah’s.

REFORMATION: THE SIX PRINCIPLES

The Shah and Amini worked together to reform the Iranian Constitution. The work product of their tenuous political alliance was called the Six Principles of the Shah’s Revolution. These principles were as follows:

• All large land owners transfer some of their land to the peasants who had worked it as lessees. Up until the reform, landlords would rent out their acreage to peasants much like European feudal lords had done with serfs in the Middle Ages. Now peasants could be farmers, ranchers or entrepreneurs with a chance to make a living for themselves and enjoy the windfall of fruits from their labor and management.
  
• Young, educated people were sent to villages to teach the peasants how to read and write. The young adults also familiarized the country-dwellers with recent technological advances in health, medicine and agriculture.
  
• Medical school graduates must spend at least two years serving the village poor in Iran without a salary prior to entering the greater medical profession (in lieu of mandatory military service).
  
• Nationalization of Iranian forests, which had been owned by private landlords before the reform.
  
• Bestow women with rights equal to those of men
  
• Establish new election regulations.
  

Two of the six points infuriated the clergymen. They didn’t like the transfer of land to the peasants or making women’s rights equal to those of men. The transfer of land to the peasants meant they would have to rely more on almsgiving from them rather than solely from the wealthy landowners. Prior to the reforms, clerics received an allowance from the rich landlords. After the reforms, they were at the mercy of the almsgiving of the peasants who were now endowed with the means to give back to the clerics what was once given to them directly from the wealthy. The clergymen’s “job” prior to the reforms had been to quell dissent among the poor so they would cause landlords a minimal amount of “trouble”. Clerics did not believe women should be granted equal rights to men but rather, subject themselves to the dictates of men. Accordingly, Ayatollah Khomeini accused the Shah of formulating the Six Principles due solely to American and Zionist influence. The Shah had the power to silence Khomeini and other clerics by imprisonment, so most of the Islamic priests obeyed the Shah, however reluctantly.

THE AYATOLLAH KHOMEINI AND THE SHIET SECT OF ISLAM

Both sects of lslam, Shiet and Sunni, co-exist in Iran, although the Shiet sect is much more prevalent within its borders. In fact, Iran is the hub of the Shiet sect. Khomeini was among the Shiets since birth, and had been recognized as a Great Ayatollah at the suggestion of Shariatmadari [Sayyid Mohammad Kazem Shariatmadari (hereinafter referred to as Dari). Dari was of Azerbaijani descent [Məhəmməd Kazım Şəriətmədari, Persian: محمد
کاظم
شریعتمداری‎}, also spelled Shariat-Madari (1905 – 3 April 1986 )] and was an Iranian
Grand Ayatollah who recommended Khomeini become a Grand or “Great” Ayatollah during the reforms of the 1960’s-1970’s (from Wikipedia online in part 05-02-2014)]. The Shiets have a ceremonial rite in memory of Imam Hossein, the nephew of Mohammad the prophet, founder of Islam in the seventh century A.D. In 1963, during the ceremonial day of Hagation, an anti-Shah demonstration was held in Tehran, led by the Ayatollah Khomeini. The demonstrators shouted derogatory remarks and slogans against the Shah until the Shah ordered his guards to open fire into the assembly. Approximately one hundred people were killed in the shooting that afternoon, although Khomeini went on record accusing the Shah of executing 15,000 people.

The Ayatollah Khomeini’s claim that 15,000 people had been summarily executed by the Shah’s guard backfired. There exists an allegory known to Iranians which the Shah used to persuade his people he was “right” and Khomeini was obviously “wrong”: Once there was a very powerful king who conquered India named Nader Shah. One day, he became very angry with one of his subjects and ordered he be given 1,000 lashes and thrown into the dungeon. The condemned man was giddy with laughter when he heard the sentence.

“Why are you laughing?” asked the king.

“Your highness” replied the sentenced subject, “either you have not had the experience of being whipped or you cannot count. If one is to endure 1,000 lashes, he certainly will not live to see his prison cell!”

The allegory was thus used to parody Khomeini’s penchant for exaggeration. A videotape of the incident clearly shows no more than 100 could have perished. Khomeini either “cannot count”, or he makes use of puffery and chicanery to prove his points of moral superiority. Since it had to be assumed the Ayatollah Khomeini learned to add long ago, the Shah’s regime persuaded the people that it was Khomeini, and not himself, who used exaggeration to shuffle the facts and hide the truth from the people.

Similar events led by the clerics beholden to Khomeini occurred elsewhere in Iran, but most people accepted the Six Principles because this aspect of the Shah’s reform freed them from the domination of the landlords. Khomeini had misread the sympathies of the majority of Iranians and his reputation was tarnished. Soon after the Hagation uprising and subsequent smaller demonstrations throughout Iran, the Shah sought punishment for Ayatollah Khomeini. The Grand Ayatollah Shariatmadari was instrumental in saving Khomeini from execution as well as affording him exile in neighboring Iraq. The general population revered Ayatollah Khomeini as a figurehead of Shiet Islam and would have objected to any violent means of punishment. In a corner and wanting to wash his hands of the violent governmental responses to the Hagation and “after-shock” demonstrations, the Shah settled on the solution of exile as it would at least diminish his influence within Iran. Khomeini was made a “Great Ayatollah by Dari in 1965.

AFTER PRESIDENT KENNEDY

Some months after these demonstrations, on November 22, 1963, U.S. President John F. Kennedy was assassinated during a campaign trip to Dallas, Texas. After Kennedy’s death, the Shah removed Dr. Amini from office because of the absence of political pressure from the Kennedy Administration. The Shah had been afraid of Amini because of his power as a mouthpiece of scrutiny and a threat to his unquestioning control. The Shah chose a relatively inexperienced man named Amir Asadollah Allam to succeed Amini as Prime Minister. Allam was essentially another one of the Shah’s “yes-men.” Allam’s ignorance allowed the Shah to manipulate him as well as giving an impression to the populace that he was coordinating the power of government constitutionally between himself and the Prime Minister. In actuality however, the Shah had become the virtual dictator of Iran in the wake of Kennedy’s death.

Inflation characterized the term of Allam’s office, and after a few months, on March 7, 1964, Mansour, a more knowledgeable politician, became the new Prime Minister. Mansour was supported by the American government and raised the price of domestically purchased oil in order to sell large quantities at discount prices to the Western oil companies abroad. During his term in office, he raised the price of petroleum twice. The people of Iran were furious with Mansour’s actions, especially since they were still coping with the inflation brought about by Allam’s so-called “slipshod” Administration. Although the international spot price of oil remained relatively constant, Iranian domestic oil prices continued to increase under the Mansour Administration. The public grew increasingly furious.

The stage was slowly being set for revolution. Public sentiment was boiling over with negativity directed at the Shah’s regime and more individuals were speaking out and sharing their negativity with neighbors, friends and colleagues. The end of inflation and “hard times” seemed nowhere in sight and the populace found itself of the brink. Tension over the situation was causing fissures in the ancient civilization of Iran (see Persia at Wikipedia).

THE SIX PRINCIPLES: THEORY VS. PRACTICE

In time, the “Six Principles” of the Shah were not enforced by his administration and the populace began to believe the Shah had deceived them. The land that the peasants received from the landowners was rapidly being sold off to pay the loans they took out to begin farming the land. The bubble the Six Principles created was bursting. During the first year of the cooperative effort, the government stopped funding the peasants and they had no chance of paying back their loans unless they were extremely fortunate with their first harvest. There was no subsidy to save their land or a Make Home Affordable refinancing program. Without a ‘bumper crop’ and/or favorable commodities prices at which they could liquidate their agricultural products, the lack of government subsidy follow-throughs caused the eviction of many off the land that had been transferred to them just a year earlier. These vagabond peasants were forced to migrate to the cities where they could find jobs to support themselves and their families.

HOVEIDA AS PRIME MINISTER

Mansour was assassinated by a secret organization belonging to the clerics in February, 1964 and Hoveida, who was the Financial Minister in Mansour’s administration, became the new Prime Minister in January of 1965 and served in that position until his arrest following the Iranian Revolution of 1978 and ultimate execution on April 7, 1979. Hoveida’s first decision in office was to decrease the price of oil to domestic buyers. This was significant in that it was perceived by the public as a goodwill gesture and eased tense public relations between them and the Iranian government.

Hoveida’s political platform seemed honest and open to them. He criticized the way the previous government had mishandled its affairs, and accepted the shortcomings of his own role as financial minister under Mansour. He announced a new governmental policy was being formulated and his constituency was eager to believe his optimistic outlook for Iran was sincere. Hoveida’s dreams of effortless prosperity were short-lived however. In 1963, he had taxed the wealthy heavily for the property they already owned and luxury items they bought. During the next 14 years, Hoveida imposed 250 different kinds of taxes in addition to those the citizens were already paying under Mansour. For example, if an individual, group or family wanted to travel outside of Iran by air, the principal traveler had to pay a two hundred dollar travel tax in addition to the respective airfare charge(s). Subsequently, a one hundred and fifty dollar surcharge was imposed and collected for each additional passenger on the flight as well. This policy, as could be expected, infuriated the rich, but appeased the poor whom the Shah was most anxious to please—they rarely if ever flew.

GOVERNMENTAL CONTROL OF IMPORTED AND EXPORTED ITEMS

All important imports and exports were governmentally controlled under Hoveida’s Prime Ministry. The most important commodities traded in Iran were grain, sugar, oil and industrially manufactured items. The services the government controlled were the railroads, postal service and airlines. Managers of the various smaller divisions of commerce were bribed on a regular basis while others simply embezzled surplus money using accounting principles and methodologies enabling them to “skim off the top” of the accounts without anyone being the wiser (See also #slushfunds). The government was unable to supervise all the subsidiary commerce division heads and graft soon became prevalent. Division managers enriched themselves often without being called to account for their actions to the public’s detriment.

For example, if an individual asked for permission to build a house, the housing office might say, “No, not unless you pay me this extra fee (as a bribe). During the rampant corruption of the division managers, one “minister” was found to have embezzled four million U.S. Dollars from an undisclosed sugar contract. When questioned by reporters about the embezzlement, Prime Minister Hoveida said that governmental officials “deserved” the added monetary job perks due to the important vital nature of the work they accomplished for the Iranian people.

IRAN AS A MEMBER OF OIL PRODUCING EXPORTING COUNTRIES (OPEC)

In an act of goodwill toward his people, the Shah had dissolved the foreign concessionaires in Iran and nationalized oil resources circa 1963. The oil companies could sell and distribute the oil, but the petroleum products themselves were declared a public trust by him.
The result of the Shah’s nationalization of Iran’s oil meant both increased revenues and greater political leverage within the OPEC cartel, of which they had by this time become members.

THE SHAH’S DOMESTIC POLICIES AND FOREIGN RELATIONS COMPARED

International investor was the Shah, and he placed large sums of money in foreign sources to assure him of assets were he to be thrown out of his home country as he had been in the early 1950’s during his confrontation with Dr. Mossadeq.
The Shah bought shares of foreign stock. Among his holdings was a 25% ownership in a German-based corporation named CROUP, and a relatively large position in Pan-American Airways. The Shah also built oil refineries in Africa, India, Pakistan and gave financial aid to the United Arab Republic, Great Britain, Pakistan and several African countries. In 1976, the economy of Great Britain was sagging and in dire need of economic stimulation. The Shah’s immediate investment and the currency float between Iran and the U.K. spelled increased British employment and a shot in the arm economically.

The domestic policy of the Shah was far different than his open-handed foreign policy. In the scholastic year of 1973-1974, the Shah allotted $1,500,000.00 per day to feed all students under sixteen years old, and gave $100.00 per month to each university student. In the elementary and high school programs for students under sixteen, the money for the food was sent in large quantities to the several different supervisors in the various districts of Iran. The supervisors in charge of distributing the lunch money for each child often found ways to withhold some of the money earmarked for the students. The district supervisors allowed skimpier lunches as time progressed and in doing so, were able to divert the more and more surplus money to themselves as an unsanctioned “reward” for their thrift and ingenuity. Sadly, the “unused” portion of the lunch money often surpassed the amount used to buy the student lunches and feed the children.

Of the 150,000 students in Iranian Universities some year in this period, 80,000 students were “foreigners”. Iranian students of age received one hundred dollars a month from the Pahlavi regime while “foreign students” received a four-hundred dollars a month allowance if they were sympathetic and receptive with the Shah’s regime (See foreign student subsidies). These gross imbalances in the student funding program did not content, but rather infuriated the public, especially parents of those participating in Iran’s education sector. Apparently, the foreign students were subsidized by the Iranian government and advanced funds before they were used in aid of its own people (this I suppose, angered the remainder of the population who weren’t involved in Iranian Public Education).

Of the utmost concern to the general public was lower prices on food; but it seemed Shah Pahlavi wanted a top down and lateral approach to “educating” its youth. The lateral being the “foreign students” used to fortify the Iranian Public Education at the expense of the “treasury”, whatever amorphous methodology or vehicle that treasury may have been housed in [due to lack of hard facts, editorial discretion utilized in last two paragraphs]. Food prices had been rising steadily since the Shah’s reintroduction to power in 1958, and the people became discouraged; beginning to think Shah Pahlavi was depriving them of their birthright. In retrospect, if the Shah had known beforehand the financing of the educational sector would break down and embezzling would occur, he might have used the student allowance money differently, to fight inflation, for instance. However, his advisors, like him, were out for their own gains but did not share the Shah’s altruistic sentiments toward the underprivileged classes. Since they were not the Shah, they may have felt underprivileged in a sense. A “me-first” mentality prevailed during this difficult time. At the turn of the twenty-first century in the United States, the sentiment was expressed as “I got mine, screw you.”

Embezzling fever spread all the way to the top of the political arena in Iran. One classic example of the government’s misuse of funds was discovered when a large sum of money was deposited in a Swiss bank under the name of Iran’s Federal Police Chief. As an alibi, the Chief said that he sent the money to the bank in his name so that no one would suspect it was Shah Pahlavi’s money. The Police Chief claimed he had every intention of giving the money back to the Shah when it was prudent to do so. It could be assumed Pahlavi was under extreme scrutiny and criticism of the free press at the time. The Shah accepted the Chief’s alibi, and kept the money for himself. People continued to demand lower food prices while concurrently, economists recommended to the Shah that he lower the price of gasoline instead of funding educational nutrition and foreign aid. The savings from cutting the educational subsidies would cover a wide range of goods and services in Iran. It would ease overall inflation, increase employment and raise the Iranian standard of living. For whatever reason, the Shah did not follow the advice of the economists and continued his education financing and nutrition program. As one might expect, civil unrest spread and the rally cry was “the government is ‘the Shah’—the economics are ‘the Shah’s'”.

POLITICS OF DEMOCRACY IN IRAN

The Shah was interested in Iran being seen as a modern democracy and demanded citizens have respect for the Constitution. There were three primary political parties in Iran. The leaders of each party were pre-selected by the Pahlavi family and were usually either relatives or close trusted friends. The three parties under the Shah’s regime were: 1) the Iran-Nowin Party, which was Prime Minister Hoveida’s party and had the majority in Parliament, 2) the Mardom Party, and 3) the Pan-Iranist Party. The parties were structured in a way that benefitted the Shah’s regime. Individuals the Shah and his council trusted were appointed as leaders of a particular party. In the three-party system, the Shah felt he could manipulate control of the government through “divide and conquer” tactics. The citizens of Iran knew the three-party system in Iran was “fixed” and many declined to vote or participate in Iranian democracy. As a result, the Shah’s secret police, SAVOK, forced people to vote or face the consequences of incarceration or worse. Despite the Shah’s intense scrutiny of his constituency and the terror tactics employed by his police force, if the requisite number of votes were not sufficient to elect a certain individual, SAVOK would see to it ballot boxes were stuffed with the name of the desired candidate.

SAVOK’S REVERSE-PSYCHOLOGY

In 1962, SAVOK ordered the less important members of Parliament to criticize the minor aspects of the Shah’s regime. The theory behind this policy was to get citizens more involved in politics and try to seek constructive rather than destructive changes. SAVOK’s plan backfired and “little criticisms” began to irritate and snow-ball into gigantic ones.

Underground coalitions distributed pamphlets criticizing the government, saying such things as “Even the government itself knows it is corrupted.” Propaganda tracts sent anonymously to houses and apartments aroused public interest in Iranian political corruption and mismanagement.

PRIME MINISTER HOVEIDA AND BALUCHESTAN

Baluchestan was in the far north-east corner of Iran and out of Hoveida’s “jurisdiction”. Hoveida referred the outlying region to the Shah. Relations between the central government and the public in Baluchestan were strained because of he had a “deaf ear” to their requests. When asked in Parliament why the people of Northern Iran were not allowed to fish, Hoveida replied “I am not your prime minister. Under the dictates of my appointment by the Shah, I have no jurisdiction in the matter. If you have any questions pertaining to that problem, you will have to address them to the Shah personally.”

Baluchestan, a city near the Pakistan-Iran border, ran out of water one summer because Afganistan, at the request of Soviet Russia, dammed the Hirmand, widely considered an ancient holy river. The farmers of the North-East region of Iran were forced to emmigrate to another province where there was sufficient water for their crops and/or livestock. The Hirmand was to Iran much like the Ganges is to India. The new Afgani dam was built in their own sovereign territory but upriver from the Iranian border and increased Afgani capacity to generate hydro-electric power and store water for their people(s).

One of the two members representing Baluchestan in the Iranian Parliament spoke at an assembly meeting asking Prime Minister Hoveida for the necessary funds to help villagers in his region to dig water wells in the North-East to enable them survive the summer drought. As it was, farmers in North-East Iran were evacuating to provinces that had water for their crops and livestock. The population of Baluchestan dwindled to approximately 900,000 people during this event due to lack of proper land management and public works. Hoveida remained indifferent to the plight of the North-Eastern farmers and their legal representatives. Baluchestan was geographically distant from the prosperous capitol of Tehran, which made it convenient for the prime minister to ignore them. Hoveida thought he could get by with the flattery he espoused in the capitol of Tehran by saying such things as, “The Shah takes care of his people”. It was inconceivable to the prime minister that the farmers were in the desperate conditions they claimed to be in. When Hoveida refuted the honesty of the representative from Baluchestan, he exacerbated the strife which already existed between the federal government and those empathizing with the Baluchestanis, but Hoveida made his position crystal clear: no aid of any kind would be sent to the North-East region of Iran.

The general public later found out Hoveida was the dishonest one. He had not done his due diligence on the region or he was simply lying. As soon as refugees from Baluchestan migrated to Tehran, they told their stories of hardship to those living in the capitol. Tehranians wondered if they were next to be “thrown under the bus.”

THE SHAH’S DIFFICULTY REGARDING THE CONTAINMENT OF PUBLIC UNREST; SAVOK CRACKDOWN circa 1975

The people of Iran felt that the representatives of the several parties should convene to discuss and perhaps litigate the country’s myriad problems. The Shah felt such a meeting would be counter-productive and weaken the morale of Iran. It would take aim at the countries deficiencies while leaving out the tremendous benefits his regime had introduced to the nation through industrialization. As a result, the Shah denied his people the representatives forum and instead, instituted a one-party political system which all Iranians had to join. This, the Shah hoped, would quell controversy by putting an end to factions hell-bent on victory for their allegiances.

It was the “allegiances” that were becoming a problem. Ministers could see the structure of the Iranian government was top-heavy. Whoever held the supreme office in the country had a ticket to riches beyond belief, or so some believed. The Shah surmised factions were actually beginning to ally against him as they had against Dr. Mossedeq during his term of office. The Shah proclaimed membership in the Rastahitz Party was mandatory. No dissenters, abstainers or other parties would be tolerated. Join Rastahitz or leave the country in disgrace was the implication of the Shah’s daring shift to one party rule.

In one instance, an engineer refused to become a member of the party and instead of being exiled as most dissenters had been, the government sent him to an asylum to be tortured and beaten. The courage and steadfastness of the engineer drew nationwide attention and SAVOK was put on alert to quash anti-Rastahitz rebels. SAVOK used this period of suppression to consolidate their power and learn about the workings of their people who they were assigned to watch. SAVOK brazenly wanted people to know how they would deal with dissenters and non-conformists. No longer afraid of the public, SAVOK all but boasted about their power to incarcerate and torture if necessary to achieve the Shah’s ends of a peaceful, prosperous and educated Iran. Dissenters would be singled out and beaten at will.

The Shah declared the Rastahitz Party would have three principles:

• The belief in an Imperial Regime with allegiance to the Shah
  
• Respect of the Iranian Constitution
  
• A strict belief and enforcement of the Shah’s “Six Principles” (see pp 8-11 above)
  

In the course of the next two years, the Shah asserted almost absolute control of the Rastahitz Party. Even though Hoveida was supposed to lead Party as acting prime minister, it was evident he did little to oppose the Shah and keep his power in check despite the Party’s principle to “respect of the Constitution.” In the summer of 1977, after two years in this state of affairs, the people grew increasingly restless and discontent with the tactics of their government. The Shah sensed it was time for a leadership change within the Rastahitz Party. Jamshid Amouzegar, who had been interior and finance minister in Hoveida’s cabinet and Chairman of the Board of Directors of Iran’s OPEC delegation, was selected as the Rastahitz candidate to follow Hoveida who had been prime minister for the preceding fourteen years.

Political life was not over for Hoveida however. As soon as he left office, he became the chief minister of justice. The chief minister of justice coordinated negotiations between the Shah and his cabinet. The new position, somewhat like a “Chief of Staff” in the United States, suited Hoveida. Coming off fourteen years of criticism for not listening to the public’s needs, he welcomed not having to dodge their complaints in public. As chief minister of justice, Hoveida could enjoy moving closer to the Shah’s “inner circle” and further away from public scrutiny.

Hoveida set out to transform the office as soon as his predecessor, Assadollah Allam vacated the post. Hoveida’s power was not diminished by his “demotion” from prime minister to chief minister of justice. As chief minister of justice, he was able to rub elbows with the other ministers, glean information and maintain his clout. During negotiations between the Shah and his ministers for instance, Hoveida was often a useful mediator and the Shah’s go-to man to get deals done. Although he had to share power, Hoveida was certainly a major figurehead of the Iranian government during Amouzegar’s Administration [August 7, 1977-August 27, 1978].

AMOUZEGAR AS PRIME MINISTER OF IRAN [August 7, 1977-August 27, 1978]

In 1977, Amouzegar (also known as Amougazar) raised the price of governmentally controlled items such as petroleum. The increase in fixed prices for nationalized products riled the public, which had been growing increasingly discontent with the Shah’s regime [this writer did not ask the source about specific incidents or details of the public’s response to the government influenced inflation rates during this period]. The people in Iran wanted to change the party system and began to incite passionate demonstrations in order to accuse the government of the injustice of economic hardships (perhaps boiling over from prior events under Hoveida). In response to the demonstrations, the Shah’s Rastahitz party was forced to protect itself through the use of surveillance and SAVOK police enforcement. The Shah used the Rastahitz Party as a tool to keep peoples thoughts and actions within the confines of one political ideology—his own. The Shah was able to establish and retain the one-party system in Iran through the use of his secret police, who continued to use totalitarian tactics against its own citizens.

SAVOK used brutal forms of psychological conditioning upon individuals (including its own members) to maintain authoritative control over them. This system was a “fatherhood”, Highlander top-down system as Adolf Hitler employed in Third Reich Germany. The regimes and citizens of the two countries, Iran and Germany, are not being compared here by the ghostwriter/editor as much as the “bones” of the political structure. Execution, exile and imprisonment not only petrified the public from acting against the regime, but it prevented the potential reactionaries from arousing widespread, outright contempt of the monarchy (see Amouzegar’s uniform on #Wikipediaonline). Without leaders to coordinate a counter-offensive force against the Iranian government, citizens opposed to the Shah became sitting ducks for a SAVOK attack. The Shah’s primary fear was that the public’s discontent and hatred would be unleashed upon the regime with the momentum to polish it off. As the years of Shah Pahlavi’s reign passed, the fabric holding it together frayed. The Shah became desperate, fearing thin fabric of his government would rip apart. He began to rely on SAVOK as the sole cohesive force to maintain law and a semblance of “temporary order”. From the public’s point of view, an unsettled social environment and sporadic, chronic civil unrest continued. As a result of the ever-increasing social unrest, the Shah became a nervous wreck. The thread-like tentacles of SAVOK’s organization began to lose their grip on the civilian masses and more and more individuals set their faces against the Shah. A unified, consolidated opposition had not entered the consciousness of the general public as of yet, but various alternative forms of government were being explored and openly discussed despite SAVOK.

KHOMEINI BECOMES AN AYATOLLAH FOR PURPOSES OF DIPLOMACY AND SELF-PROTECTION

In 1965, Great Ayatollah Shariatmadari invited six religious leaders to elect Khomeini a top religious position, making him insusceptible to execution under the law. The position Khomeini was granted was that of a “Great Ayatollah” (translated as “Word of God”) or “Imam” (one of an oligarchical council of Islamic leaders, similar to the figurehead of the Papacy in the Roman Catholic Church). In Iran, it is law that the Ayatollah proclaims the word of God and is therefore immune to any governmental intervention that is a threat to his bodily person. Once regarded as an Imam, Khomeini’s fear of execution would vanish.

KHOMEINI’S ROLE IN THE IRANIAN REVOLUTION OF 1978

In 1978, Ayatollah Khomeini used his physical distance from Iran during his exile in Iraq to enable sharp criticism directed against the Shah’s regime. The attention of the Iranian people quickly focused on Khomeini’s speeches as he was the only Iranian leader familiar enough with Iranian politics and religion to speak openly about the Shah’s regime. Before his exile, Khomeini could not speak out against the Shah and draw crowds due to SAVOK’s jurisdiction over him at that time.

Without SAVOK breathing down his neck (and perhaps with the aid of Shiet supporters in Iraq), Khomeini’s following grew. He denounced the Shah on a regular basis and the crowds were enthralled as they listened. Now here was a #leader. They were looking for “reform” and a new father, and Khomeini fit the bill in 1978. Before Khomeini arrived on the scene and became popular, most had wanted to follow the political leaders who were already well known. The Shah suppressed their voices, so the Ayatollah Khomeini’s voice by comparison rang clear over the air waves in print and by word of mouth. His words played to their heartstrings the songs of religion their souls longed to hear. They were tired of empty speeches that led to dead-end reforms—they wanted action and to get one over on the Shah’s secret police force SAVOK.

Khomeini’s political, social and religious platform became ever more popular among the people of Iran because his proposals became the will of the people: most wanted the Shah and his regime ousted. Khomeini promised the “uprooting and removal of the evil tree” that was growing stronger, sapping the strength of the Iranian people and providing no meaningful fruit to the people. The Shah, Khomeini would proclaim contemptuously, took more goods than he gave back. The Shah was a one-way ticket to a disintegrated, demoralized Iran. The people wanted the Iranian economic tree to flourish and they were optimistic Khomeini’s resilience and Islamic-focused doctrine could take them to prosperity. After removal of the “evil tree”, Khomeini believed he would become fertilizer for a petro-plenty tree to be shared by all in Iran. Khomeini’s movement toward counter-dictatorship was increasing in momentum like a huge boulder rolling down a hill destined to crush Shah Pahlavi at the bottom of its trajectory. The bulk of Khomeini’s support came from peasants, lower class city-dwellers and illiterate religious disciples of the Islamic clergymen. The illiterates were subservient to the cleric’s will and did not question their methods, credibility or authority. They had limited capacity to discern what was happening around them and relied on the clergymen to be their “eyes”. The power of the Ayatollahs was centralized in the mosques and that is where they organized masses of peasants against the Shah. The mosques imbued a sense of sanctuary even SAVOK might not breach. Khomeini became the archetypal savior and the Shah his evil counterpart. [Compare parables of the good and evil trees from the Bible, as well as “fertilizer for the new tree” versus the Christian “holy communion” “I am the vine, you are the branches.”].

The Iranian National Front and the Toudeh Party

Two other fronts were staking out positions against the Shah’s Rastahitz Party: The Iranian National Front or INF and the Toudeh or Communist Party. The INF was more moderate and business-oriented than either the clergymen or the Rastahitz Party. It was comprised mostly of merchants, middle-class citizens and students. Its leaders were the colleagues of the former Prime Minister Mossadeq, who by 1978 was deceased. These colleagues carried on the traditions of the party in secret since the Shah had placed a moratorium on freedom to associate in a political party other than the Rastahitz Party.

Another movement opposed to the Shah’s regime was the communist party (Toudeh), whose members were primarily students, workers and educated people dissatisfied with the Shah, democracy and capitalism in general. The base of the Toudeh Party was located at Tehran Technical University (hereinafter referred to as TTU]. All three movements, the clergy, the INF and the Toudeh Party worked from different vantage points (loci) against the Shah: the clergy with Khomeini’s followers at the mosques, the INF in secret and the Toudeh Party from the universities. SAVOK could not be everywhere at once.

The Toudeh Party’s centralization at TTU gave them immediate recognition and widespread notoriety in the public eye. So much was their popularity among the people from that location that the government thought it necessary to transfer TTU out of Tehran and into the suburbs of Esphahan, Iran. The move would disrupt the triad aligned against the Shah and the lines of communication among TTU faculty, students and administrators.

The Shah and his cabinet made the claim that the move was not essentially political in nature but would enable the universities to be closer to the metal smelting factory near Esphehan. The closer proximity of the smelter to TTU had several advantages but the timing was not lost on the Toudeh Party. During pre-arranged demonstrations, the communist speakers used the university relocation as political ammunition and blasted the Shah. University students and faculty resisted the move even before the demonstrations began and now they had communist mouthpieces going to bat for them. As a result, the faculty and students sensed a “solidarity” and empowerment. The TTU relocation was another example of the Shah’s program of bullying. For his part, the Shah had dissenting university faculty “laid off” for their disregard of his decision to relocate TTU. Laid off professors gained the support of factions who felt the relocation to be another underhanded scheme of the Shah’s. One of these factions was the merchants of Iran. The merchant faction wanted the university professors who were laid off paid their forfeited salaries. Merchants offered the professors money to recompense them for their lost jobs. In a show of unity and self-respect, the professors did not accept the merchants’ offer of money but rather opened a bank account and distributed information about the account, including the account number, and asked that all teachers and educators in the country donate whatever they could to the account. Their colleagues responded generously to the request and the unemployed professors limited themselves to only half of their former salaries although the donations far exceeded the capacity to pay them a full paycheck.

The restraint of the professors in utilizing the charitable trust (not used necessarily here as a legal term of art) account was designed to demonstrate suffering and self-sacrifice. They wanted to show the attentive and anxious people of the country that the time to revolt was at hand. Their restraint of material livelihood came down to a quiet impression of a collective fast. The fast concomitant with the sacrificial and suffering had a bout [end (Fr.)], a deepening cause and determination to overthrow the Shah. Removing the present regime in Iran meant single-minded thinking of the people was in order, just like the communists, the merchants and now the teachers were telling them. They desired to come together to protest the mishandling of the government and its current leaders in the Rastahitz Party. In order to make the daily demonstration more effective, the professors asked for everyone to live a more frugal existence in order to strengthen solidarity against the Shah’s regime.

A NEW BOARD OF DIRECTORS APPOINTED IN RASTAHITZ PARTY–1977

Many of the lawyers working for the revolution wanted to re-elect a new board of directors because they were dissatisfied with its present “pro-Shah” constituents. The Chairman of the Board was a close friend of the Shah’s. The lawyers were unhappy with this man representing them and they fought for someone else who would represent their interests more succinctly. The lawyers finally succeeded in getting a new board of directors and with it, much of the Shah’s clout among the eschelons of lawyers disappeared. All the new members of the council were persons who had previously fought against the Shah and had not changed their view of him much if at all. The transition made a transformative change in the psyche of the population of Iran and more particularly, the Rastahitz Party. It was a significant blow to the strength of his regime.

The new Board acted as the liaison between the citizens of Iran and its government officials. They defended the constitution and the moral rights of citizens and prisoners of the country by working on various reform programs in the penitentiaries. It sent people to investigate SAVOK’s treatment of prisoners and those that had been released from incarceration to tell their stories. The findings of the investigators revealed that the prisoners had been tortured by the secret police illegally while under arrest for political crimes. The Board defended the prisoners and “ex-cons” while prosecuting SAVOK and its coercive tactics beyond the pall.

SAVOK ON THE “WHIPPING POST”

Judicial proceedings were instituted wherein the Board would represent the mistreated prisoners pro bono (for the public good without a fee) and news of the proceedings helped to incriminate the illegal and inhumane activities of SAVOK.

SAVOK was the main cause of the Shah’s problems from which all others followed like his own shadow. The shadow seemed (“mother I know not seems“,
Hamlet from Hamlet) to follow the Shah as a reminder of the self-perceived horror that his people did not love, respect nor obey him. SAVOK was the major cause of the peoples dislike for the Shah. The Shah used SAVOK to achieve his own ends in keeping his grip of control over the country. SAVOK began to conduct themselves atrociously in beatings and threats as far as the end justified the means. The coercive tactics were left to the discretion of the police without proper review, checks or balances. The police were allowed to use a subjective view of “reasonable force” when interrogating, executing or incarcerating their arrestees. Perhaps it was the Shah’s distrust in his countrymen and women which forced his hand on brutal methods if he wanted to maintain his position in Iranian society. The more force and violence SAVOK used to suppress dissidents after the new Board had ruled, the stronger the retaliation by the public against SAVOK and other elements of oppression in the Shah’s regime. In fact, the people began to think of SAVOK and Shah Pavlavi as one, although the two were not one. SAVOK, one of the strongest, most expansive and expensive organizations at the time and the Shah did not communicate well with each other under the intense scrutiny of the Board. The Shah’s lack of a peculiar coordination with SAVOK which would be necessary for such a government to prevail intact was woefully lacking, at least as far as the Board was concerned. Not only the lawyers, but the prisoners, ex-cons, the collective will of an entire nation was determined to oust the dictator. Thus, it was not only the Shah’s inability to adequately control his subjects that bought on his exile from Iran in 1978 but also the weapon he had used as a means to achieve his vision for the Iranian people, SAVOK, proved a rather blind albeit not objective ally in law enforcement under their jurisdictions

SAVOK’S RETALIATION AGAINST AYATOLLAH KHOMEINI

In the months immediately preceding Ayatollah Khomeini’s return to Iran from Iraq in 1978, SAVOK was busy devising a scheme to degrade his reputation. SAVOK printed an article in the daily newspapers alleging that Khomeini was not a descendant of Mohammed, the prophet, but rather, the descendant of an untouchable from India. SAVOK claimed Khomeini’s brother, who was born in India, carried the name Hendizandh. “Hendizandh” was a name given to his brother because SAVOK alleged that Khomeini’s grandfather was an untouchable.

Citizenship in Kaom, Iran’s holy city, were aggravated with SAVOK’s accusations. It didn’t take long before the aggravation of the masses was turned to anger. The clergy led a rally in support of the Ayatollah against the government’s subversive activities contrary to Islamic doctrines. A police force was called in to confront demonstrators at the rally and at some point opened fire on the demonstrators. Some of the crowd fled to the nearby home of Great Ayatollah Dari for asylum or “sanctuary”. The Shah’s police followed the rabble into the house, killed a clergyman and wounded others present.

The aftermath of the affair left the government much to explain to its people…and the Board. Because Great Ayatollah Dari was a very popular figure in Iran, it was difficult for Savok to justify the event without some degree of taint due to the death in the Dari compound. High ranking officials in the Shah’s government representing him apologized for the unfortunate occurrence. The argument of the Shah’s lawyers and representatives was that the police that stormed the Dari compound were not local police and did not know the home they entered was that of Great Ayatollah Shariatmadari. If the police were locals, they would have known the house belonged to Dari and would not have followed the rabble in hot pursuit and would not have attacked anyone there.

SHARIATMADARI [DARI]

Shariatma Dari is from the Osaboyjam province, the capitol of which is Tabriz. On August 11, 1978, the people of Tabriz, in empathy for the martyred of Koam, demonstrated in the suburb of Istafan. More than 100,000 people were involved in the demonstration, making it large enough to shake the government’s confidence in itself. The demonstration was so successful that it began to tip the scales of domination away from the government and toward the anti-Shah movement of the clergymen (compare “Movement of Jah People” by Bob Marley and the Wailers). The people felt that the Shah was even taking their privacy and freedom of religion away from them.

In hopes of quick-quick stabilization of the civil unrest in Iran, SAVOK brought 200,000 peasants of their own from all over the country to show
the still remaining wide-spread hearty support for the Shah.

STUDENTS ARE QUICKER THAN OLD MEN: STUDENTS ACT AGAINST THE SHAH’S DICTATORSHIP

On September 7, 1978, students joined together to protest the Shah’s move to send university professors to Isfahan, a city 300 miles south of Tehran. As soon as school resumed in September, the students became active in the socio-political affairs of Iran. They often argued with the government on ways to support the former professors of TTU. This topic was only a ploy used by the students in an attempt to weaken the political fabric of the country and shake regime confidence: the fighting and hysteria had already begun unbeknownst to “anyone over 30”. Whenever students demonstrated in the streets, the Shah’s anti-riot squads attacked the crowds and beat them with clubs. The brutal activity angered the students and fighting broke out often between the two factions. The students continued to riot successively day after day, breaking windows of government banks and office buildings. The people looked at each violent event as one step closer to their liberty and freedom.

                Two Years Earlier

In 1976, the government approved a bill that would raise the price of oil in Iran by sixteen cents a gallon annually. The Iranian National Front and the clergymen invoked the populace to protest the bill. The design for the protest was devised by boycotting oil for one day. [Edward James Olmos invited me to such a demonstration of solidarity in Los Angeles, but I was going nowhere fast back then as an extra. Later in the day he asked me “Are you an extra?” “Yes I responded at the set’s construction site.” He had Tony Plana, the director, who I recently starred as Arizona prosecutor Jose Martinez in the television movie Jodi Arias—Dirty Little Secret (2013), remove me from the set to the back seat of an automobile. Later in the day I saw Olmos driving a new red Ferrari. Got the feeling he bought or rented it with the pay from the film. What’s the saying? Someone’s got to enjoy this world. “It’s A Wonderful World” Louis Armstrong. Tony Plana said I did a good job on the Arias jury—thanks James and Tony for teaching respect of craft]. The clergy asked people not to work or drive their cars for one full day to show the government they could do without gasoline for one day. Most people in Iran were still afraid to miss work because of the consequential retribution delivered care of SAVOK. Traffic in Tehran the day of the moratorium was less than usual, but not so scant as to attract significant attention to the boycott. Because of the stress the clergy and the INF had placed on the importance of the boycott, the Shah believed his worries were over when the protest “failed.”

The clergymen of Quom demanded that the Shah permit the Ayatollah Khomeini to return peacefully to Iran. The people, led by the clergy, demonstrated to make their position clear to the Shah and his “regimsters” (sic). After being provoked by the demonstrators to violence, the police tried to intervene, and rioting broke out. The police tried to disperse the crowd with machine gun fire before the rioting got out of control. People of all Iranian provinces mourned for the dead after the unrest and brought up fresh protests against the Shah’s brutal regime.

THE SHAH’S LAST TELEVISION INTERVIEW

In an interview broadcast over national television, the Shah blamed Prime Minister Hoveida for the most recent “mishap” in Quom concerning the entry into Dari’s home. The monarch said that he knew nothing of TTU’s demands and accused Hoveida of mishandling the affair. The Shah centered his attention upon the shopkeepers because during the time in which Hoveida had been prime minister, a Trade Commission controlled the price, quality, standardization and quantity of goods. The Trade Commission bothered shop-keepers by imposing fines upon them if certain specifications were not met. The Shah thought the demonstration was simply a matter of “shopkeeper discontent”, but he underestimated the counter-current pounding against the walls of his regime, until they see them cave. Because there were over 250 different kinds of taxes in 1978, the Shah felt that the financial strain of the people was caused by the Trade Commission, and played some part in the social unrest. Somewhat like the colonies of North America in 1765 however, the Stamp Act and subsequent “Boston Tea Party”, were only the early warning indicators of a much bigger revolution to come.

ANALOGY OF SPRING TECHNOLOGY

There were several causes, acting together, which effected the outbreak of the Iranian-Islamic Revolution in 1978. In Iran, the situation was different than for America in 1765 because there were many causes of the people’s hardship(s). The problems in Iran accumulated to the point that the excess tension let loose a massive “Marcusian” explosion. Like a spring that can absorb only so much shock before it reaches capacity of movement, the Iranian people were nearing the end of their patience and ability to cope with the restraints put upon them by the government. They had been compressed to the limit, and were ready to spring back upon the regime [1]. The pressure directed against the government had been building for decades. It first began with the Shah’s father, Reza Shah Pahlavi, and continued through the broken expanses of years that Mohammad Reza Shah (his son) was in and out of power as a monarch. In reaction to their frustration and dissatisfaction, common civilians joined the radical students in demonstrations and protests. They broke windows of governmental buildings, burned movie theaters, liquor shops, dance halls, bars and restaurants; anything that resembled the “West”. For their part, the clergy found these night club establishments immoral places where evil was found and may have given a tacit approval to the destruction (Compare Jesus at the moneychanger tables).

SAVOK took a rash action against the anarchists because they were helpless to do anything else on such a large scale. In Abandan, a key city for oil production in SW Iran, SAVOK was suspected of having set fire to a theater filled with 600 spectators inside. SAVOK first accused the clergymen of setting the fire but then the clergymen, as many suspected, blamed SAVOK. There were motives for setting the fire on both sides, but no party could prove the guilt of the other.

MASSIVE COALITION OF DEMONSTRATORS INCLUDE THE SELF-STARTING AS WELL AS THE PEASANTS MOTIVATED AND LED BY THEOLOGICAL CLERICS OF ISLAM

Students, merchants, industrialists and businessmen and industry led one huge faction of the grand coalition standing against the Shah’s regime. The other massive front in the coalition against the Shah, led by the clerics, consisted largely of uneducated “common folk” or “peasants”. The peasants for the most part, could neither read nor write and those that could often had trouble analyzing political events in their proper context and relied on the clerics to guide them. The discerning cleric shepherds of the largely illiterate, the revolutionary leaders, were university or seminary-educated theologians of Islam.

Call No Man Father [2]

(Matthew 23)

In time, the Shah became perplexed about the political situation in Iran and had Prime Minister Amouzegar replaced by the Chairman of the Senate, Sharif Emami. Emami was an engineer and had been the Shah’s financial secretary for many years. He monitored many of the Shah’s private investments such as hotels, restaurants, farm acreage—real estate and the businesses in them. Under Emami’s oversight, the businesses were well run and the Shah had the utmost trust in him as a leader. Some of Emami’s family were members of the clergy, whom he kept close relations. The appointment of Emami was favorable for the Shah’s regime as a sign of change—friends of the clergy were becoming prime ministers!

During WWII, Emami was one of the fascists of the Kabud Party of Iran who helped the Nazi regime distribute propaganda. In 1942, the Allies occupied Iran. Emami and other Kabud fascists were captured by allied agents and placed in prisoner of war camps under allied control.

When a new cabinet member was suggested by the prime minister, the people of Iran became excited about the prospects of an entirely new cabinet. Shah Pahlavi had a different idea in his mind. He ordered Emami to shuffle the ministers of the various departments around but not lay them off. Thus, the Minister(s) of Arts would be transferred to the Ministry of Education, for instance. Many of the newly appointed transfers were not qualified for the new positions in government, but this was of secondary concern to the Shah. His primary concern was not whether the appointees were qualified, but whether they were loyal and faithful.

The Shah’s display of political deceptiveness was an insult to the people’s intelligence and just another reason to oppose him and his leadership efforts. The public was excluded from the affairs of State to such an extent, they concluded the only way they would ever be “heard” was to try and overthrow the government. The developing image of the Shah as a domineering father figure and his constituency prattling, submissive children took shape as a collective negative connotation in many people’s minds.

THE PAHLAVI’S—IRAN’S ROYAL FAMILY

The Shah’s ministers were either personally close to him or to his wife, Empress Farrah, whom he married in 1959. One example of the nepotism the Shah displayed was the appointment of Empress Farrah’s brother as the Minister of Culture and Art.

Sharif Emami told newsmen that all political parties were free to be active as he considered appointments to his new cabinet. Emami’s purpose to welcome all parties to apply to his cabinet was designed to alleviate some of the national tensions and rivalries at hand, but on the contrary, glasnost (openness, Rus.) only delayed a mood of intensified wrath in the zeitgeist (Ger.) of the collective public psyche when public demands were not up to snuff.

THE AYATOLLAHS’ REIGN BEGINS WITH A SEPTEMBER RAMADAN

September saw the rise of more frequent public and religious protests against the Shah and his family. In 1978, Ramadan, the Moslem Holy Day of fasting and prayer, fell in the month of September. Nothing is to be ingested from 4:30am until dusk (approximately 6:30pm). The extent of the fast is so orthodox that bathing in water above the head is not allowed because drops of fluid could be taken into the body by the tongue or nose. During Ramadan, even the sick and injured must not take medication for their illness(es). This religious day of penance and reflection was a golden opportunity to bring people together to unite in solemn solidarity against a commercialized government.

The Demonstration of Ramadan, Tehran, Iran, 1978

During Ramadan, the clergymen led the people down the main boulevard of the city where people would sit down to pray. At a central square in Tehran, the clergy announced that they would repeat the march the following day and invite all Moslems to attend the procession and pray. The following day’s emphatic demonstration activity would take them to Jhaleh Square, one Tehran’s largest.

The Shah became frightened by the assembly of over 300,000 participants and declared martial law. The new military restrictions on the people included a moratorium on associations of more than three people in a public place for any purpose. If more than three were engaged in an assembly, the militia could arrest the “transgressors” without further ado. All those placed under arrest as a result of the new restriction on association were subsequently tried in military, not civil or criminal forums. Martial law also forbade citizens from being up and about in the streets between the hours of 9 pm and dawn. At seriously critical moments in the crisis, the Shah’s staff extended the curfew one hour to include the period of 8 pm to 6 am. Promoters of the Jhaleh Square assembly obviously did not abide by the Shah’s anti-humanist assembly laws because they maintain they over-reached and were not reasonable under the circumstances.

The Shah’s suppressive plan for martial law in Iran backfired and as a result, many people were discontent with their monarch and wanted vengeance for depriving them of some basic freedoms and inalienable rights. The way the 900,000 people gathered the next day as directed by the clergymen in Jhaleh Square could be described as a “huddle”. Men stood, sat or reclined next to each other in the center of the square while the women and children stood around them to prevent the militia from attack—an interesting defense later colloquially referred to as a “human shield” defense. No wonder it drives armed forces of the opposition up the wall. Maybe I’m just a cowering man and like the idea of female protectors. What brave women in Iran. Anyway, back to the Account: as expected, armed militia showed up at Jhaleh Square too with megaphones announcing, “Martial law prohibits these unlawful assemblies. If you do not leave the premises, we will begin to open fire.” All at once, the people sat down in silence as though it were a pre-staged play. This unified act of defiance had a pronounced, threshold effect of aggravation turning to rage on the militia officers. An order was made to open fire on the uncooperative civilians. Shooting ensued for four straight hours via tanks, helicopters, machine guns and SWAT (special weapons teams formed and organized to deal with public rioting and hand to hand combat). At the end of the day, approximately 4,000 people were killed (though the government reported that less than 100 had perished in the conflict).

All doctors, nurses and medical personnel had to attend o the injured patients privately in their homes or the Shah’s militia would apprehend them once they were discharged from the hospital. When the newsmen got word that SAVOK was arresting wounded demonstrators from their hospital beds, it was too much for them to tolerate. Following the reporting of the hospital room arrests, people became angry and it was necessary to bring in the National Guard until all cities and towns were occupied by soldiers to keep peaceful law and order. Under Prime Minister Sharif Emami, a new wave of political influence cast a pall over Parliament. Of the 300 deputies in Parliament, fifteen opposed Shah Pahlavi’s regime. These fifteen dissidents blamed governmental policy as the major cause of the gap between the nation and the Shah. When the prime minister came to Parliament after the massacre, the fifteen deputies shouted “Your hands are stained with innocent people’s blood!”

DEMANDS LODGED ON MOHAMMED REZA SHAH PAHLAVI’S GOVERNMENT BY THE CITIZENS OF IRAN

Iranians were weary and upset with the totalitarianistic leadership in their country. They demanded three fundamental changes to occur, or threatened more radicalized demonstrations going forward.

1. The Shah shall no longer hold the position of supreme governor and law maker of Iran but his position in affairs of government shall be primarily ceremonial in nature as those of the supreme monarch in Great Britain, influential albeit without a pen.
   
2. The Shah and the governmental representatives shall obey and respect the Constitution.
   
3. The return of Ayatollah Khomeini with asylum in Iran.
   

Three days after the massacre at Jhaleh, when the demands were made public, most were still in a state of shock over what happened to their countrymen and women just a few days before. In an address to the Iranian Parliament, Deputy Pezeski expressed the dismay that the Shah should be allowed to stay in the country. At first, the people thought it must be another of the Shah’s reverse-psychology tricks to plant Pezeski to call for the monarch’s departure.

During a lull in activism after the massacre, the lawyers began to establish a new front against the Shah. This front emphasized human rights, the dignity of the individual, and other freedoms for all Iranians under internation laws and norms. Pezeski declared publically that he was not a member of the Rastahitz Party but was forming his own party called the Pan-Iranist Party.

The organization for the defense of political prisoners was active defending political offenders for both past and present offenses. Those individuals arrested for political crimes in the past had been tried in civil courts of law. As a result of the lawyers’ actions, all of those convicted in military courts were able to appeal any conviction and/or sentence they received from them in the appellate courts. The lawyers’ demands took a great deal of power away from the Shah and his regime. He could no longer be described as the man with “all” the power in the country.

In former years, political enemies of the Shah and so-called “undesirable” clergymen were exiled to the far-reaching corners of Iran by a five-member panel of government officials where weather, and or living conditions were poor and undesirable. The organization for the defense of liberty and freedom said those forced into exile through the use of unconstitutional means against the rights of the individual should now be freed. The previous violations of personal liberties violated international law and human rights norms as well as statutes in Iran’s own Constitution.

LAWYERS’ ROLE IN THE REVOLUTION

Experienced lawyers successfully reinstituted professionals who had been forced out of office or their business. Judges, teachers and other government officials had been given stiff sentences by the Pahlavi regime for what they considered “serious political crimes”. The lawyers usually charged astronomical rates, but chose to defend their clients pro bono (free of charge as they were unable to pay while in prison and the defendants’ need was great). Victories were tallied for the Appellants, freeing many of the political criminals at the appellate level.

When those who had been exiled were again brought to trial in Iran, their “criminal” file was drawn and the appellate case would proceed. The public seemed to celebrate the lawyers’ successful appeals and welcomed the former exiles home when their convictions were overturned on appeal. These acts of amnesty given to the many political prisoners and exiles freed in Iran brought joy and gladness to those welcoming them home. The re-integration of the former prisoners and exiles into Iranian society demonstrated the lawyers’ political adeptness had now translated to clout and their swagger bolstered the general sense of rebellion they and the Iranian people felt regarding some of the Shah’s more notorious recent activities. Consequently, as the Shah began to see his power gradually slip away, he became more desperate in regard to his own place in the country.

AYATOLLAH TALEQUANI

Ayatollah Telequani, a seventy year-old leader, returned to Tehran after his imprisonment. More than one million people went out to greet him as everyone stood marching in the streets of the capitol city. Talequani spent over ten years in a prison so there was a season of celebration upon his return to Tehran. [During Talequani’s detention, he was tied to a tree and forced to watch SAVOK agents rape his daughter because he remained uncooperative. Because Ayatollah Talequani did not bow to SAVOK’s demands, he was often whipped with cables by their agents.

Talequani believed that the clergymen must only lead their followers in the struggle against the present government, but not take positions of political prominence after the revolution. Several times after the Shah was deposed, Talequani told the clergymen to return to their mosques, which was their rightful place, and allow the Iranian people to adopt their own form of government: their right of self-determination. All the other clergymen were opposed to Talequani at this time due to his democracy oriented self-determination position on how the Iranian government should be structured after the revolution. The other Ayatollahs believed Talequani too naïve and idealistic in regards to self-determination and threw their weight behind an Islamic Republic. Their leverage in the legislature was relatively powerful at this time and everything that passed into law had the stamp of the Ayatollahs’ “supreme” influence.

Despite wide-spread opposition and perhaps contempt from the other clergymen, Talequani remained the most respected Ayatollah in the nation. Because of his sway over the people, his adversaries were fearful of him. This is some indication of foul-play in the religious leader’s death. He passed away one night after eating dinner with several Soviet diplomats. He suffered from excessive heart palpatations late in the evening and was not properly attended to by physicians. His fellow clergymen neither sent for an ambulance or a heart specialist, but sat idly by waiting for the seventy year-old to perish. Talequani had addressed four million people in a speech earlier that day, and many felt the timing of his death peculiar and mysterious. In the speech, he expressed the opinion that people should establish their own government and the clergy should not intervene in the electoral process.

The Union of the National Central Bank published a list of government officials who had sent money out of the country to have exchanged for foreign currency. Bank employees told newsmen that 60,000,000 dollars had been diverted to foreign banks during a two month period. The Union took advantage of the news by organizing a worker’s strike against the government. The reason given for the Union strike was the flight of Iranian capital out of the country, but this turns out to have been a planted alibi—misinformation. Anarchists, working in Iran for the past 30 years, were devising more and more ways to destablilize the Shah’s regime.

During the reign of Shah Pahlavi, all major banks were government owned and operated. When the employees of a bank went on strike, it weakened yet another strand of cord holding his government together. When the banks did not function, the flow of money in the economy slowed to a dangerously low level. Repatriating large sums back into the hands of the Iranian investment community was not allowed which would have offset the money leaving the country. As a result, the economy stagnated.

One of the deputies during a Parliamentary session said that the Minister of Education, Mr. Ganji, sent five million dollars to a European bank in his own name and provided evidence to show Ganji embezzled the money from earmarked government funds. This news made it an opportune moment for the public to demonstrate. They burned government buildings, buses and troop carriers. The rioting mobs used psychological warfare by igniting rubbish and causing rubber tires to smolder, emitting profuse amounts of nauseous, billowing smoke. The demonstrators’ tactics worked: the soldiers became scared and did not react against them. Of all the methods that the anarchists used to fight the Shah, it was their psychological putsch (Ger. push; see also blitzkrieg) of invading and ransacking government buildings and property and setting it on fire which demoralized and frightened the Shah’s soldiers. The mobs did not stop after the government’s property was burned because private property could provide the Shah with tax revenue. Cinemas, salons or any other establishment that would not join their cause was burnt to the ground. The anarchists wanted to fatigue the governmental structure and they were succeeding.

Meanwhile, educated people thought the clergymen wished to attain the political power in the country but the clergymen when asked asserted they had no such aim or interest in political affairs. To assure the skeptics and to put to rest the fears of the prominent citizens of the country that the clerics wanted to establish an Islamic Republic, Ayatollah Khomeini said that the clergymen were not interested in political affairs in the least. He said politics were outside of their realm of “duty.” Iranian political experts however, were convinced by Khomeini’s Parisian Declaration while in exile, that if Khomeini did come home and rise in the Shiet ranks as Ayatollah, he would have more power than the professional politicians who had more experience leading the country than him.

PRIME MINISTER SHARIF REMOVED FROM OFFICE, GENERAL AZARI, COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF OF THE ARMED FORCES INSTALLED

Prime Minister Sharif Emami was fired and the Shah handed the power of managing the government to the military. General Azari, Commander-in-Chief of all armed forces was appointed by the Shah as the new prime minister. This cabinet appointment was designed to frighten the people than a military crack- down was imminent. The Shah and his advisors were worried that a coup, a very savage coup may be staged very soon against the regime. His military arm, some might say totalitarianistic arm, was established to curb attempts to overthrow his regime. This new tactic of the Shah worked for a few days as there was no unrest and the opposing forces led by Khomeini were devising a plan against the new government. Basically and fundamentally, the country was for all intents and purposes under martial law. The Shah had become a nervous wreck regarding the absolute stability he believed he needed to maintain order over his people. He implored clerics in a radio and television broadcast to reassure their members that a new, more liberal government would be considered if calm prevailed. For his part, Khomeini used the down time to consolidate his front and mobilize the various factions into one common aim: the ousting of the Shah. Their scheme to undermine the Shah’s power began with the new prime minister, General Azadi.

It was evident to qualified observers that the Shah wanted to maintain order and control over his subjects more than anything else. When General Azadi, the highest ranking officer in the Armed Forces went to the Parliament to introduce his new cabinet, he pretended to be a religious man, not the vengeant Gestapo-type the Shah would have him to be. Azadi’s statements to the people and acceptance speech for the prime ministry were meek at a time when the Shah could have used swagger [3]. Azadi was conciliatory to the clerics and deferred to their religious zeal. As could be expected, a few days after Azadi’s acceptance speech
the public demonstrated in the streets. They saw a weakness in Azadi’s character and knew he would not use force to attack them during demonstrations. The rebels felt as if they were given free reign and one of the four holy months in Islam, that of Moharam was near. Had Azadi’s acceptance speech been more hard-nosed and included warnings that expressed the gravity of the Shah’s determination to purge all dissidents, the revolution may not have come with Moharam.

Traditionally, on the first day of the holy month of Moharam, people asked the government if they could assemble in honor of Saint Hossein, who was slain during Ramadan near the time of the birth of Islam in the 7^th Century. This year, the request proved to be a touchy subject for both the Shah and his people. For the Shah, martial law had just been imposed and to allow them to assemble at this volatile period might be political suicide. On the other hand, if he refused, they might lose control of themselves and try to overthrow the government.

Mohammed, the initial “founder” of Islam, had one daughter who in turn, had two sons. The younger grandson of Mohammed was called Hossein and the older one Hassan. Hassan was a weak ruler and allowed his cousin Yazid, his mother’s nephew, to call the shots in his kingdom. Even when Yazid was cruel and unjust toward those in Hassan’s kingdom, he did not rise to their defense. When Hassan finally died, Hossein became the new leader of the people known as the Imam in the Shiet sect of Islam. But also surviving Hassan as leader was former joint leader Yazid who vied with Hossein to be the new Caliph, successor to Mohammed’s throne. Yazid was known as the “prodigal ruler” and Hossein as the noble and proper heir to Caliph. However, Yazid had ruled over Hassad and was practiced in achieving leadership among leaders. Yazid assumed the position of Caliph based upon his will to assume it, not any vested authority of what was dignified or proper. Hossein challenged Yazid’s authority to assume the throne as Caliph and Yazid ordered Hossein and the men accompanying him in the challenge murdered. To this day, the story of Saint Hossein’s murder is told as a cruel reminder of the strong overpowering the weak, however unjustly. Since then, in the Shiet sect, Hossein has taken on the symbol of a popular underdog who was slain because he fought for a just cause against his cousin the tyrant Yazid. Iranians have always been sympathetic toward underdogs because of this central lesson they learned from childhood on the relationship between Yazid and Hossein.

Because this legend is embedded in the Iranian culture and inherent in the foundations of Islam, the anarchists and clergymen used the relationship of Hossein as an “underdog” figure to symbolize the present-day situation between the Shah and the people, led by Khomeini ; the Shah was portrayed as the wicked Yazid and Khomeini and all those who fight for justice as Hossein. A holy demonstration in memory of the martyred Saint Hossein was planned for the first day of Ramadan, in September of 1978. At the demonstration, the clergymen reiterated publically what had been spread in private: the Shah was a tyrant paralleling Yazid and everyone who opposed him was like the martyred Hossein, who, though perhaps not victorious in the flesh, would come back to avenge his death and establish justice in the world.

After the speech, the citizens gathered together every night in Ramadan, many with megaphones, to chant “Allaho Akbar” (God is Great) toward the Shah’s palace.
For one hour every night, the Shah and all others within earshot of the chanting were forced to listen to the frightening howls. The new method of psychological warfare dehabilitated the government and gave impetus to an oil workers’ strike which the opposition forces led by Khomeini hoped would make the national economy of Iran effectively bankrupt.

The strike did in fact crush the government’s power over the population. On the ninth and tenth days of Moharam, the days in which Hosain was killed at the inception of Islam in 600 a.d., the people of Iran demonstrated in huge numbers crying, “The Shah is the symbol of Yazid in our time!” Martial law was ineffective when three million people had taken to the streets demonstrating against the government.

Communist guerrillas arrived at 5 a.m. one morning and ransacked a central police station in Tehran. They killed several guards in the attack by bombing parts of the station with grenades and Molotov cocktails. The guerrillas distributed tracts asking for individuals’ cooperation during the transition to a new government by violent means. These guerrillas had access to the weapons and small bombs needed to carry out the revolution. Sometimes, these guerrillas attacked soldiers as they rode by in personnel carriers, killing many of them, and making them wary of any further travelling on main thoroughfares. This type of guerilla activity sparked a flame of concern in the Shah’s quarters and they were perplexed about ways they could bring back law and order. The daring of the guerrillas in their confrontations with the Shah’s guard gave people the courage to carry on with the coup–the communists’ tactics were effectively working step by step towards an end–the ouster of the Shah. The communists desperate, hasty attitude to bring about the revolution quickly was contagious and spread throughout the country as the month of Moharam progressed. Newspapers went on strike because the Shah had tried to control their content, denying journalists and readers freedom of the press. The media was not allowed to write or broadcast what they wished, and as a result, many of the radio and television stations joined the press in a general strike.

As winter progressed, heating oil became unavailable to the public due to increased demand and a virtual stand-still in production due to strikes. General Hoiser, a high ranking officer in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (hereinafter NATO) studied the political unrest in Iran for one month. Hoiser’s report was sent to United States President Jimmy Carter and NATO chairpersons meeting in Western Europe. It advised the support of Ayatollah Khomeini instead of having the country descend further into disintegrating chaos and allow the communist guerrillas to organize a Soviet-controlled government. If the communist forces assumed power in Iran, the people would follow them like another of the Soviet’s socialist satellite countries which existed at the time of the late 1970’s. The NATO committee concluded that a religious government in Iran would tend to counteract any communist infiltration since one of the Communist Party’s main tenets is a determinant disbelief in God and that religion is “an opiate of the people”. [4] If a religious republic replaced the Shah’s monarchy, it was believed by the NATO analysts that monetary support and/or military intervention in Iran would be less likely to be required from the international community to circumvent extreme Soviet influence. Part of this conclusion was based on the presumption Ayatollah Khomeini would institute rigid adherence to an Islam code of conduct in the newly proposed Islamic Republic of Iran.

The Shah, knowing his situation as the countries continuing monarch was growing dire, asked Dr. Sanjabie, the leader of the Iranian National Front, to become the new prime minister. Dr. Sanjabie flew to Paris to meet with Khomeini and seek his approval of the appointment by the Shah. There was some argument at the outset of their discussion, but it was decided as long as the Shah was in power, Sanjabie would not become prime minister or take responsibility for the Shah’s government. Hosier, in the company of the American ambassador to Iran and several members of the press, went to the Shah’s palace to discuss the monarch’s departure from Iran.

DR. SHAPOUR BAKTIAR ACCEPTS THE OFFICE OF PRIME MINISTER OF IRAN’S PARLIAMENT–1978

After the press conference, the Shah asked Dr. Saleh Zehedi to become the new prime minister since Sanjabie declined to accept the position. Zahedi consulted leaders of the INF, but they refused to support him as prime minister. After repeated attempts to persuade his colleagues to allow him to take on the job, Zahedi dejectedly turned down the Shah’s offer. Having failed twice to appoint a prime minister, the Shah asked Dr. Saleh Baktiar of the Iran Party, a sub-party of the INF, to be prime minister. The Iran Party was established during the Second World War and Baktiar followed only Sanjabie as the most powerful politician in the INF-Iran-affiliated party structure. Dr. Baktiar accepted the Shah’s offer, but the INF and the Iran party drove him from power and the alliance. Baktiar was known as a brilliant and experienced politician, possessing a fluency in three foreign languages: English, French and German. He was a well-travelled man and proficient orator.

When Baktiar was 17 years-old and a student in France, he joined the French Republican Party and helped fight Franco’s dictatorship in Spain. During WWII, after France had fallen and was occupied by Nazi Germany, Baktiar joined the French resistance to combat the fascists. When WWII was over, Baktiar returned to Iran in the ranks of the Iranian National Front and fought off British oil companies who were interested in exploiting Iranian oil. Baktiar was a very close companion to Dr. Mossadeq who led the INF Party and Iran itself in the early 1950’s. After the coup d’etat removed Mossedeq from power in 1953, Baktiar was arrested and sent to prison without trial where he remained for the next five years. The same man that jailed him was now exalting him to the second most powerful position in Iran: prime minister.

Baktiar’s father was the leader of the nomadic Bakhtiary Tribes. In 1900, Baktiar’s father fought against the dictatorial monarchy in Iran in favor of a democratic form of government. After a dozen years of democracy at the turn of the 20^th Century, Reza Shah, Shah Pahlavi’s father, reinstated the king’s ultimate and comprehensive dictatorship in Iran. Although all parties and factions seemed aligned against him, Dr. Baktiar accepted the prime ministry provided Shah Pahlavi leave the country.

During the search for a successor, General Azadi remained the acting prime minister. General Amir Hossein Rabii, commander of the Iranian Air Force who went on trial immediately after the revolution, invited all military commanders to attend a conference organized by General Abbas Qarabaghi . Qarabaghi met General Hosier at the conference, who told him that he thought the Shah should leave the country. Hosier referred Qarabaghi to three or four individuals who coordinated Khomeini’s activities in Tehran. General Hosier later met with Ayatollah Beheshtie about the expulsion of the Shah. At the time of these discussions regarding the removal and dismissal of the Shah as the supreme monarch of Iran, General Azadi had a heart attack and immediately left the country for “treatment.” Dr. Baktiar stepped into the position of prime minister after these “coincidences” and the Shah made it apparent he was leaving the country on a “long vacation”.

Behind the domestic scenes of everyday life among the peasants, NATO members met in Europe to discuss the Shah’s predicament and decided it would be best if he left his throne. As soon as the Parliament officially elected Baktiar as the new prime minister, the Shah left on a plane to Egypt where he was given political asylum. Baktiar declared he supported Iran’s Constitution and the rights contained therein that protect the rights of individuals to be free.

AYATOLLAH KHOMEINI CLAIMS BAKTIAR A TOOL OF AMERICA

Ten Thousand (10K) Iranian demonstrators chanted in the streets of Tehran to show their support for the new prime minister. Some of the clergymen, including Ayatollah Shariatmadari supported the Iranian Constitution, but Khomeini said that anyone who supports the Constitution is his enemy and an enemy of all Moslems [A Roman Catholic priest recently [2013] downplayed the significance of the U.S. Constitution compared to the Catholic faith]. Khomeini claimed further that Baktiar was a tool of America and would enable them to bring back the Shah once the people tired of demonstrating. Khomeini told journalists one month prior to the Shah’s exodus that he condoned the Iranian Constitution except the Article allowing the Shah to hold the highest position in the country, making laws by executive order and using his veto to defeat proposed legislation. When the Shah left, Khomeini changed his platform to suit his new taste: he wanted the Iranian Constitution to be scraped and rewritten [without a completely new draft of the Constitution, Khomeini could not take the country’s power into his own hands. Prime Minister Baktiar would retain most of the control over policy in Iran while he would fade helplessly into the background, another feeble clergyman sent to pasture.

When Baktiar became prime minister, he returned freedom of the press to publishers, released all political prisoners, dissolved SAVOK, discontinued martial law, cut exorbitant taxes and gave the right of exiles to return home. However, when the newspapers began to roll the presses again, they did not praise but attacked Baktiar severely.

KHOMEINI ACTS

Khomeini gave a declaration to an engineer named Bazargan to go to the south of Iran to talk with the oil production workers to arrive at a suitable oil production quota to meet the needs of the country. After one week, the workers agreed to produce about six to seven hundred thousand barrels of oil per day for their own country. After the limitation was established, the electric company in Iran went on strike to protest Baktiar’s position as prime minister. Without electricity, the oil could not be distributed adequately and shortages were widespread. The strike was another ploy used by employees to mobilize revolutionary forces around Khomeini and drive Baktiar out of office. The electricians’ and laborers’ strike succeeded and all political parties followed the advice of Ayatollah Khomeini. They believed, as Khomeini informed them, that Baktiar was a puppet of America and Israel.

Three weeks after Baktiar’s appointment as prime minister, Khomeini decided to return to Iran from Paris. Baktiar asked one of the political leaders, named Nahzi, to give Khomeini advance notice so that he and the Ayatollah could meet when he arrived in Iran. At first Khomeini accepted, but the next day, he retracted his acceptance and said Baktiar must resign as prime minister and would not meet or discuss the matter further with him. The reason that Khomeini would not meet Baktiar was because he wanted to control the country by himself and would not concede power or office to the prime minister.

During the revolution in Iran, Khomeini revealed a lack of self-confidence when confronted with issues before the media or in public view. He would not debate with other leaders whether they be Iranian or foreign. For instance, he did not accept an audience with Kurt Walheim of the United Nations to negotiate with Khomeini over release of the 52 American hostages who had been captured by “students” from the American Embassy in Tehran. Khomeini did not meet with foreign leaders because he did not like to compromise if he didn’t have to and he didn’t have to. As long as he held ultimate power in Iran, his diplomatic style tended to be stubborn and unyielding. When Khomeini found himself in front of television cameras, he often looked down at his knees or hands self-consciously. At times, it seemed to some that Khomeini had faith, but no confidence in himself. Others noted his nervous “stage fright” was not due to modesty or being shy since he was not known to be a man one might describe as “humble”.

THE MEN BEHIND KHOMEINI

The three people who backed Khomeini in his quest for dictatorship were Dr. Ebrahim Yazdi, Naser Ghobadzadeh and Bani Sadr. These men planned to groom the Ayatollah for the coming riots, strikes and demonstrations. Many people, suspicious of Yazdi’s status as a naturalized American citizen and Ghobadzadeh’s training there asked them whether their allegiance was with America or Iran. Newspapermen were suspicious of the duality expressed by Yazdi and Ghobadzadeh backing of an Iranian political figure while holding U.S. credentials. They had Yazdi and Ghobadzadeh in a Catch-22 [5]—if Yazdi’s allegiance was still with the United States then his allegiance could not be said to be entirely supportive of Iran. Many also thought Yazdi was a member of the CIA because he swore an oath to the United States when he became a citizen of that nation. If his allegiance was not with the United States, the Iranian journalists did not see how they could take him at his word. If he lied to one country, what would stop him from lying to them?

Yazdi and Ghobadzadeh were never popular politicians and it appeared to some they used Khomeini as a tool for their political maneuvering. Ghobadzadeh lived in the United States on two separate occasions. Once as a young student where he was expelled for mischievious conduct and later on, after jumping into politics and becoming a Syrian citizen, he studied psychological warfare at a premier American intelligence university and became an expert in the field. Ghobadzadeh’s interests led him to acquaint himself with Yosef Arafat, leader of the Palestinian Liberation Organization (hereinafter PLO), and the two men became close collaborators and friends.

BAKTIAR’S SHORT TERM OF OFFICE

Baktiar’s plan to begin a liberal republic designed around the Constitution, and not based on the Shah’s whims. People were relieved after Baktiar’s speech, and hoped their freedoms and the government’s liberal attitude would continue. The public’s attention however, soon became transfixed by the savior of the Iranian people, who promised instantaneous results: Ayatollah Khomeini!!

Baktiar did not allow the free-functioning of the airport to the public in an effort to hamper Khomeini’s arrival. Iranian Air Force officials and/or functionaries failed to completely obey Baktiar’s orders and “others” found out. Without directly disobeying the prime minister, air force personnel offered to pick up the Ayatollah Khomeini in Paris, France. The French Government did not allow foreign military jets to land on their airstrips at the time, but understood the military was taking orders from Khomeini, not Baktiar, who continued to take orders from the Shah. The news of the Air Force Officer’s proposal to pick up the Ayatollah in Paris also bolstered rising internal dissent which represented the rebellion in the military (army) ranks. After the incident, insubordination and outright flagrant failure to follow orders spread rapidly throughout the Iranian military services. More servicemen were opposed to the Shah than ever before. Within the Shah’s special guard, a soldier killed more than twenty officers by machine gun fire while they were dining. A number of soldiers deserted their encampments and fled to neighboring rural villages Absent Without Leave (AWOL).

A GREAT DEMONSTRATION OCCURS

The people gave Baktiar an ultimatum: if he does not allow Khomeini’s arrival in Tehran, they would begin firing ammunition on all government agencies and their employees. The threat was one of guerrilla-type warfare, and Baktiar could not overcome the public’s insistence on bringing the Ayatollah home to Iran. After one week of negotiations, Khomeini landed in Tehran. Seemingly every business and organization had a secret plan designed to diminish if not dissolve the Shah’s control and influence over them. For instance, an organization was set up among members of the Iranian Air Force designed to co-opt the military commanders. Once the threshold of defectors into the organization was met, the political power of the Shah’s was siphoned off to Khomeini. The organization was able to convert the air force officers by emphasizing service to Islam, not the Shah.

The rebels who organized the arrival of Khomeini planned a mission to receive the Ayatollah which ran like clockwork. Khomeini’s arrival marked his first time in Iran since he was exiled by the Shah in 1963. At his arrival in the Capitol of Tehran, Khomeini’s visage revealed its all-too-familiar signs of grim seriousness. He had presence. It was arranged that he go to Tehran University to meet with professors and discuss plans for the revolution. Khomeini’s council however, advised him to go to Behesht Zahra, a public cemetery, instead. A meeting at the university with the revolutionary coordinators would only weaken the Ayatollah’s power at a “petit summit”. If he agreed with their proposals, he would give their sector more power once the revolution was over and if he disagreed, it might conflict with his orders in the post-revolutionary regime. The Khomeini clan (inner circle) claimed that the streets of Tehran were too crowded to meet with the professors but they would do so as soon as time permitted it.

BEHESHT ZAHRA CEMETERY—AYATOLLAH KHOMEINI PRESIDING

At the Behesht Zahra Cemetery, Khomeini was able to impart a religious significance to all those who perished in the recent spate of guerrilla warfare and to emphasize that there was nothing more important for him to do than honor of the first fallen in noble cause of freedom. His supporters advised him to quiet the crowd in reflection upon the freedom fighters who made the moment possible at the cemetery to bring them together as one in solidarity. The Ayatollah came a long way from Paris to mourn the dead at Behesht Zahra and nothing, neither the up-and-coming rebellion nor matters of State would make him divert his focus.

Khomeini’s speech at the cemetery made it clear that he knew very little about mere politics. He spoke like a parrot, dictating the points told to him by his tutors [reminds me of the Carter-Ford Presidential debates where Carter had statistics on the tip of his tongue]. He renounced the Iranian Constitution and said their forefathers had no right to dictate the way of a “new Iran.” In renouncing the old constitution, Khomeini proposed adoption of a new constitution, one in which he will “choose his own prime minister.”

Ayatollah Khomeini rejected life in a palace and resided in a school dormitory. He led a simple life just like the ancient prophet Mohammed. Different groups of people went to visit the Ayatollah in his apartment, and they passed by the austere black-robed figure with waves and cheers of admiration. Throughout the cheering, Khomeini remained motionless (no one must get a view of his new dental work!) In the days of the prophet Mohammed, the oral orifice was often closed for hygienic purposes to hide decayed teeth and their odor from bystanders. In the 7^th Century A.D., it was regarded as indecent as it was now in Khomeini’s case, to show the interior of one’s mouth. Did he have dental work or didn’t he?

Khomeini was soon transfigured into a demigod among the citizens of Iran. The five other Ayatollahs were more learned in Islamic doctrine that Khomeini, but nevertheless, they were forced to pay homage to him as their leader or be accused of high treason. The other Ayatollahs recommended Khomeini as the new leader of Iran with the hopes that in time, his power would diminish.

BAZARGAN AS PRIME MINISTER

Khomeini appointed Bazargan as the new prime minister of Iran. He requested that Bazargan, the leader of the INF, resign his post as President of the Iranian National Front Party and follow him unconditionally. The power could remain under the clergy’s umbrella. Although the INF did not foresee Khomeini’s tactical move to consolidate power under himself and neutering the independent decision-making capabilities of their politicians, they continued to show support for the Imam.

The power over the country began to change hands when the Ayatollah’s staff did not allow former Prime Minister Baktiar’s appointees to be installed in their posts. All previous appointment orders made by Baktiar were revoked and any such further orders would be made by Bazargan, Khomeini’s “First Officer.” Havoc brewed in the military ranks as well. When a regiment was out on patrol, soldiers would often disobey their commanders’ orders to execute dissenters of the Shah by turning around and shooting the commanders!

One week after his arrival in Tehran, Khomeini’s revolutionary council began to spread the rumor that soldiers appearing at Khomeini’s residence were sent by SAVOK to frighten him. The rumor was unfounded, but it attracted the public’s attention and gave Khomeini’s camp additional impact in criticizing the existing government. On February 10, 1979, a clash arose between the government soldiers and the general public due to the rumor and many casualties ensued. The next day in a town east of Tehran, Khomeini supporters met at a local air force base to discuss plans for the revolution. The Shah’s guard was still in the country trying to maintain order after the Shah had left and attempted to break up the meeting once they found out where it was being held. Within half-an-hour, news of the confrontation spread throughout the city and martial law was re-instituted by the new prime minister. People were told to vacate public streets from 6 pm until noon the following day.

Khomeini reacted strongly to the violent intervention of the Shah’s guard at a private meeting to discuss the revolution at the air force base. The Ayatollah ordered everyone to demonstrate that evening in protest to show the government that they were not to be bullied by the Shah’s guard or any kind of martial law oppression procedures. He accused the Shah’s guard in the military of planning to stage a coup and reinstate the Shah! Khomeini and/or his advisors used psychological warfare to frighten the Shah’s last remaining loyal guardsmen. His forces burned all flammable material and filled the streets with smoke. The smoke screen terrified the Shah’s guard because they were unaccustomed to the eerie gloom cast upon the city. On the main street of Tehran, the crowds shouted out to Khomeini that he allow them permission to engage in holy war. The crowds were ecstatic over the prospects of fighting for their benevolent leader, the Ayatollah Khomeini.

Meanwhile, in the east corner of Tehran, a group of Iranian Air Force soldiers were found demonstrating against the Shah. When the pro-Shah command heard this, they ordered a nearby outpost to quell the demonstration and punish the transgressors. “Punishment” for the Iranian High Command meant deploying tanks and automatic weapons in the police action. The commander at the scene used an army installation on the outskirts of the city as a forward base to use in the assault on the mutinous soldiers. If the installation was on the outskirts of the city, the motorcade of army personnel would not have to traverse the streets of Tehran which were full of rioting people and smoke by this time.

Communication of the attempted “punishment” was quickly intercepted by Khomeini forces. Two polically active military organizations that had been in hiding, Mojahedin Khala, a religious-socialist group and Fadayan Khala, a radical communist organization, heard that the Shah’s guard were soon to attack the air force installation east of Tehran. They took the opportunity to intervene, supplying rebels with Molotov cocktails, rapid-fire machine guns and various automatic rifles. When the two rebel organizations came to the aid of the protesting soldiers, their guerrilla-like warfare outfoxed the Shah’s guard. Molotov cocktails were thrown at the Shah’s tanks, setting them afire, debilitating their forces. When all the soldiers in the Shah’s tanks were dead, rebels salvaged whatever working weapons they could and distributed them among the people with the proviso they were to fight off what remained of the Shah’s small army.

When the Shah’s guard was all but defeated by the guerrillas, the Guard commander in Tehran asked for the assistance of the commander in Kermanshah, a city about 400 miles west of Tehran to fight the mounting aggression of rebel forces. The newly summoned regiment moved toward the districts of Tehran and halted when they came upon Karadj, a city 20 miles north of Tehran due to an angry, uncooperative rebel mob. Residents had been foretold of the movement and were ready with machine guns and Molotov cocktails to greet them. The citizens put up such a persistent and effective fight that the soldiers never did arrive in the capitol city.

In Tehran, most of the civil police stations were seized by the guerrillas. People defied any and all civil authority departments affiliated with the government. Women had important roles in fighting the troops as well. They made sand-bag barricades for the rebel fighters and nursed the hungry and wounded in their homes. At the end of the day, eastern Tehran was occupied and controlled by the rebels.

The next day as could be expected, the city was in a shambles and the political tension rose to an alarming degree, one could probably say redline. Dr. Baktiar, the former prime minister, spoke in the Parliamentary Senate asking all the commanders of the legitimate army to return to their posts and carry on with their usual duties. However, many of the commanders already sympathetic to the cause of Khomeini saw opposition to the growing rebel forces both unwise and unproductive. The soldiers having heard the political rhetoric, were seen placing flowers in their gun barrels as a gesture indicating they would not shoot their own–peace was at hand.

At two o’clock in the afternoon local time, the national broadcasting radio station issued a report describing the Karadj showdown. Hoards of citizens, led by the two guerrilla organizations, attacked both military garrisons and police headquarters in downtown Tehran. General Rahimi, the former Chief of Police and commander responsible for enforcing martial law was taken captive in the raids. After Rahimi was arrested, the entire city was engulfed in chaos. No one from the Shah’s former government held any position of authority in Tehran. Each sector of the city had an organizing arm represented by committees made their headquarters in the local mosques of each strategically significant neighborhood. Armed youths, taking their orders from various committees, began to control the affairs of the capitol city. Armed confrontations and skirmishes that befell other major cities in the country were similar in nature to the conflict transpiring in Tehran, it was after all a revolution.

TWO GUERRILLA GROUPS: TIP OF THE SPEAR

The street rioting was well staged by the two guerrilla groups: Fadayan Khalq and Mojahedin Khalq. In one instance, when a rabble of angry demonstrators arose, trying to take over a police station, two experienced commandos from the Fadayan Khalq crashed down the station door with the rear end of their military truck. The ruptured entry allowed the rebel peoples to overtake the installation, despite continuous shooting of the guards within the sealed building. The newly formed “district committees” took over the governmental installations to serve as outposts for the two guerrilla group operating either tacitly or explicitly for the Ayatollah Khomeini. At the end of the two days of rebellion, one could not distinguish Tehran from a European city following a WWII bombardment. The sight of the destruction only furthered the rebel population’s endeavor to overtake the ailing former government of the Shah. The rebel peoples demolished buildings impulsively so that all forms of the old regime could be removed from their sight and minds. They placed steel girders across the thoroughfares to prevent tanks from traversing the guerrillas newly gained territory. Buses and personnel carriers (lorries) were continually burnt by the rebel peoples in protest and payback for the bitter years of oppression under the Shah’s previous administration. The prevailing attitude among active revolutionaries was annihilation now, reconstruction later, two separate and seemingly unaffiliated steps. It was like a civil war without a president presiding over the troops.

Despite the disorder, people united in the difficult days of the revolution to help each other through the shortages and casualties that beset the population. Signs of improved conditions began to appear after a relatively short time and people shared what little they had with their comrades. Youth Volunteers distributed oil among the people in rationed amounts and shopkeepers sold their food inexpensively in temporary kiosks set up in tents at the marketplaces. The entire country helped to rebuild the broken nation. People were apt to consider themselves “brother and sister” because they were all fighting for a common cause, the extinction of the Shah’s regime.

Khomeini’s Revolutionary Guard was faced with a problem. They had distributed thousands of guns to help in the revolution against the Shah and his guards but now that the fighting was over, they wanted to get them back to avoid possible use in a “counter-revolution” against the Ayatollah Khomeini. The threat of a second coup against the new revolutionary government prompted Khomeini to demand the return of all guns to the mosques.

The main focus of the government and its people was still the elimination of the former regime, and the execution of its officials. Khomeini used the element of revenge and concept of justice to keep his people spirited as they began to rebuild the new republic. Most people knew a sense of unity was required if they were to successfully establish a new government, so they returned the guns they had received from the guerillas to the mosques, and followed their orders without question. It had been seven months since production in the country was moving at full capacity, and when the new regime was semi-securely established, it was time to step-up production again. The employees needed a salary for their labor, the Ayatollah needed capital to strengthen his fledgling regime, and everyone needed energy. When it was safe, the two major organizations that worked underground to overthrow the Shah’s regime, the Fadayan Khalq and the Mojahedin Khalq, came out into the open for the first time. They knew that they would be thanked for their accomplishment this day. Glorified, not vilified.

When they came out into the open, they encouraged employees to choose their own administrators from among themselves, like labor unions. The elected council represented the organization as a whole and would facilitate achieving the objectives of the union by acting as coordinators, advocates and influential spokesmen. Each of the “councils” pledged their allegiance to the Imam and his welfare, as well as the support of the Ayatollah’s Party, backed by Fadayan and Mojahedin Khalq, and for national unity. Operatives of the Ayatollah’s new Party asked factories to dedicate their companies to the Ayatollah. The council in each factory named itself “the committee of the Imam” to emphasize its loyalty to the new Eminence, Ayatollah Khomeini.

Thereafter, Khomeini and his committees had vast control over all private and public companies. Members of his special party would infiltrate the companies’ labor force when voting time came for the election of a company council. To insure that the leaders of each company were faithful to Khomeini, the Revolutionary Guard pre-selected the possible candidates for the position before nominating them. The voting procedure, if it can even be characterized as “voting” became a corrupt ritual of formal appearances. Instead of private balloting, voting was carried out in vast assembly halls, with the prospective leaders chosen by Khomeini’s collaborators and presented to the workers as “good and able men” for the Imam, who was considered as infallible as a Pope might be. After a random show of the employees’ hands, whether it be one or one hundred hands counted for him, the man that was pre-selected to lead the organization wound up winning the election. These leaders often knew nothing of managing a large corporation, and the only prerequisite to acquiring the position was a zealous loyalty to the Khomeini regime and contempt for all those opposed to the revolutionary government. Khomeini’s party wanted to change the whole structure upon which businesses, governmental utilities and the general economy was based. The former hierarchical business structure that had been adopted from “Western capitalism” by order of the Imam’s committee was declared obsolete and replaced by a new strategic management and production blueprint. The new economy was based on a “union superstructure” which gave some of the savvy committee heads an advantage over the Ayatollah Khomeini, whose knowledge was mainly steeped in Islamic clerical hierarchies. A large Union like the Teamsters in the United States was formed by the committees and called a “council”. This council theoretically based its corporate decisions on the will of the laborers within that Union. The main glitch in the new superstructure was a disconnect between the managers and their ability to run the organization and/or business, a disconnect between the managers and the Imam, who knew relatively little of the businesses and/or organizations reporting to him. Due to poorly organized logistics following the insurgent revolution, expertise was again lost as it had been decades before, during the transition to the new government in Iran. The resulting outcome was a chaotic Iranian economy in the late 1970’s.

The laborers within the large companies retaliated passively to Khomeini’s high-pressure bulldozing by simply not working to their capacity. They knew an outright strike or revolt would not be wise at the time since human life no longer seemed sacred. The Ayatollah would just as soon crucify dissenters than allow them to meddle in his plans. Members of anti-Khomeini forces were massacred by the dozens every day in Iran, so company employees mostly kept quiet to avoid incrimination and be slaughtered.

Khomeini somehow found out about the slacking employees and declared that working was a religious duty for all Moslems and that “[anyone who does not work hard is not only anti-Moslem but could be considered an agent acting against the Imam].” If someone was accused of being a spy within a particular organization or company, he could count on joining the former high-ranking officials of the Shah’s regime on execution day.

ISLAMIC COURTS

The new type of justice courts were incorporated into an Islamic based court system. The Iranian people, though many were Moslems, were unaccustomed to such judicial, quasi-religious procedures in the courts and found them strange. In the former judicial system, courtroom protocols were structured like those found in France, Belgium and Switzerland, civil law instituted by statute which had its origins during the reign of Napoleon Bonaparte. The reason for Iran’s judicial similarity to those in Western Europe was that most of the attorneys that practiced law in Iran had been educated in Western European countries. Many followers of Khomeini’s regime were against the former judicial system because they saw it as an unfair tool in the hands of SAVOK. During periods where “martial law” was imposed on civilians, military courts would sometimes determine the fate of civilians as well as military personnel. When military courts tried defendants, SAVOK prepared the evidence in such a way that the accused would invariably be proven guilty. Since the military court was largely, if not entirely under SAVOK’s control, no one undesirable to the Shah’s regime could escape its peculiar forum of judgment. Under Khomeini, the Islamic courts, defendants, lawyers, professors and journalists soon discovered, the “reformed” methods of civil and military justice could be harsher in their scrutiny and less objective than even the maligned legal system that was in place before it.

The Islamic Court has only one individual residing as both judge and trier of fact: the clergyman (in the United States, the “trier of fact” in a formal judicial proceeding is a jury or a judge). Evidently, the Islamic Courts were not some new invention at all but rather, created fourteen centuries earlier during the founding of Islam. The due process is quite simple and expedient. The Islamic ulama (priest) simply asks the accused various questions and decides for himself if the person is guilty or innocent of the charge(s). Once the decision is made, the ulama needs only two people to confirm the accused’s conviction and sentence. In capital cases, if an individual, in the cleric’s opinion, aids “corruption on the earth”, the defendant is entering into a battle against God and the Islamic brotherhood, and should be executed. In the laws of Islam, a condemned individual must be executed immediately without being given food or drink. To give a condemned person “good things” that God has provided is a sin and as far as the religion of Islam is concerned, God’s blessed creations are meant to be partaken solely by the faithful and not the corrupt.

Shiet law dictates that the judge in a particular case should not let emotional states such as sadness, worry, sleepiness, hunger, thirst or nervousness affect his objectivity when judging an individual. The trial therefore, is held during the day and the accused is given the right and opportunity to defend his or her self. The clergy however, do not always abide by the religious codes regarding judicial procedure in establishing justice. Though the public disapproved of the former judges and judicial methods of the Shah’s regime, they felt the new court system could prove even worse as it lacked the checks and balances of a “Western” judicial system. One individual or group of complicit clerics could decide a defendant’s fate.

Dissatisfied, the people wanted the right to an impartial jury and an attorney as they had been in the past. Khomeini, ignorant of modern legal procedure, said that no other judge is as important or as necessary as the clergyman. They claimed it is he alone that should decide the fate of a man, since it is God’s Court which he presides over. Khomeini’s belief about court judges did not necessarily correspond with Islam (especially Shiet) codes of justice. Some of the other Ayatollahs rebuked Khomeini’s view on legal procedure, saying that in capital cases, everyone had the right to defend his or her self from execution, but Khomeini remained firm; the clergy alone would adjudicate justice. The clerics used the courts as a platform from which he could express their disapproval with the Shah’s regime. Their propaganda was effective in labeling the Shah as evil and his courts unjust.

Ayatollah Xanjani, imprisoned during the Shah’s regime, believed that the rightful place of all clergymen was the Mosque. He said religious leaders should not delve into political affairs but be content with the simple life of a clergyman. His view correlated with the one expressed by Ayatollah Talequani, who believed that clergy should only interfere with the process of government when they believe its officers and functionaries are ill-managing it.

FADAYAN KHALO AT TEHRAN UNIVERSITY

Fadayan Khalo declared they wished to demonstrate at Tehran University, then march to Ayatollah Khomeini’s residence located some two miles away. Khomeini refused their proposal because they were communists (and by implication, “irreligious”). Because of the Ayatollah’s refusal to allow the march, Fadayan demonstrated at the university and prepared speeches for approximately 150,000 people who attended. They did not march to Khomeini’s home, nor did they carry his picture on placards, exalting his image and his name. The Fadayan Khalo was angry that Khomeini would not allow them a greater free reign of influence after all they had done for him to put him where he was politically.

One could tell by observing those who gathered at Fadayan Khalo’s request at Tehran University that the educated classes worried about Iran’s future. By joining the assembly organized by the Fadayan Khalo Party, they demonstrated their unhappiness and discontent with the focus and goals of the Khomeini Party, which they considered opposed to their own. The core constituency of the Fadayan Party was comprised primarily of students and educated laymen. Although a small political party, they were very experienced in organizing political activities. Khomeini’s goals opposed those of Fadayan Khalo due to the fact that inter alia,
Iran retained elective democracy in the midst of its Islamist reformation. The bottom line for Khomeini’s regime was to lead the illiterate of the country, as there were more of them than literate peoples. At a meeting with illiterates and peasants of the Islamic faith, Khomeini spewed out his disgust for the knowledgeable and intellectuals of Iran saying, “[This country belongs to you, the illiterates. Knowledgeable people do not have a share in the Islamic Republic. We need faith, not knowledge. The knowledge of the scholars belongs to Western science and we will have no part of that here. Let the scholars confide in (former Prime Minister) Baktiar].”

Ayatollah Tallequani, who had a following of the educated population met with Khomeini to discuss his upcoming trip to Oom, a Moslem holy city in Iran. Tallequani believed that if Khomeini left Tehran for Oom, it would signify a shift away from the political scene in the Capitol city. However, Khomeini’s trip did just the opposite. It aroused Iranians to celebrate the Ayatollah’s coming reign over the entire country. The factions that opposed the Imam dared not speak against him at this time as public support for him was too great. Upon Khomeini’s arrival at the Feizieh School in Oom, he would deliver a speech that laid out the groundwork for the future government of Iran. [The Feizieh School was a centuries old Institution where Khomeini and four other great Ayatollahs had been educated in the religious sciences of Islam.

The major aims of Khomeini’s speech at the Feizieh School were:

1. To re-establish an Islamic government as it was during the period of the great prophet Mohammed.
2. To remove Western influence(s) from Iran as completely as possible.
3. That Iran shall act independently, and resist impositions of foreign powers for political, economic and/or military reasons. [Although he vaguely referred to the Soviet Union in his address as “the East”, the main thrust of his argument against foreign influence was directed against the United States and Israel.]
4. The State emblem of the lion and the sun must be removed from the Iranian flag to be replaced by new symbols representing the Islamic Revolution in Iran. The emblem of the lion and the sun was a symbol of royalty, and the revolution did away with the monarchy’s role in governing Iran.
5. Khomeini wanted to establish a special ministry to direct others to do what was dictated to them through the written law of the Koran, the Holy Scriptures of Islam, and to avoid that which was contrary to the Islamic doctrines contained therein. These two points, to do what was right and avoid what was wrong, were the most important duties a Moslem had, according to Khomeini. Khomeini went on further to state that it was every Moslem’s duty to watch out for one another’s brother on the spiritual road. After catching someone in sinful behavior, a mild reprimand is in order. The second time one is caught in sin, a strong reprimand, and physical beating is called for on the third offense.

In a nationally televised broadcast, Khomeini was seen with other clergymen that had less than stellar reputations among the people. One of those accompanying Khomeini for instance, was a known smuggler. Another, Khomeini’s son-in-law, was known as a real estate tycoon who sold lands set aside for the religious and set aside the proceeds of the sale for his personal benefit. Merchants had sold him land below market prices and wrote off the discount as a charitable tax deduction. In turn, Khomeini’s son-in-law resold the parcels on the open market to the highest bidders and made a tidy profit from the sales. Khomeini remained silent about the real estate sales of his son-in-law during the broadcast, but did include him in his administration. The son-in-law was valuable to the Ayatollah Khomeini for his worldly knowledge and shrewd business savvy.

Khomeini said in the broadcast he would break up the Department of Justice. Justice ministers would no longer be allowed to eat or drink out of silver tableware or have female secretaries. A few days after Khomeini made the statement forbidding these luxuries, Prime Minister Mehdi Bazargan noted the rif-raf that frequented the Ayatollah’s company on television and became concerned with the import of such a public display of Islamic political unity. Bazargan said that the clergy were gossiping about him behind his back. The prime minister and the clergymen were trying to debase each other’s reputation because their political views did not mesh. After Bazargan accused the clergy of spying and gossiping on him, the clergy told journalists they were referring to the lifestyles of Bazargan and those like him. The clergy claimed that the prime minister had a young female secretary, drove a Mercedes-Benz automobile, and worked in an office covered with Persian rugs. Bazargan retaliated by saying that at the present time, even a shopkeeper can afford a Mercedes, and having female secretaries was not that unusual, even in Iran. He asked the clergy “Is it unusual for me to have my own personal secretary?”

Khomeini’s recent intensive and strict orders disturbed the Iranian people because they felt that all citizens should have equal status under the new government, but it did play out that way. Throughout the business world, employees refused to obey their superiors. The banks began to open, but because former business owners had fled the country, the acumen of management and their employees was lacking. Due to challenged functionality, the government gradually consolidated all of the private banks into a nationalized fund and promulgated their existence to interested parties, but even this did not significantly help alleviate poor economic conditions in Iran. The Army too became discombobulated and government officials reduced mandatory military service to one year only, from a two-year stint.

In spite of these changes, many of the higher ranking officers (colonels and generals) were leery of returning to their garrisons due to their possible arrest and execution via the Revolutionary Guard of Ayatollah Khomeini. The new regime established the Revolutionary Guard to protect itself as there was no other police force equipped or organized to do so at the time. The conditions for membership in the Revolutionary Guard were very simple, yet demanding: a strong belief in Islam, and an unconditional devotion to Ayatollah Khomeini as their ruler. The Guard was rapidly formed and aided by Palestinians who benefitted from Khomeini’s government. Khomeini came out in support of the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) and was very supportive of their measures.

Under Palestinian direction, the Guard raided the homes of the rich, took their valuables, and executed many of their inhabitants. After the evacuation of the rich families from their homes, the clergymen, while accusing the wealthy of committing the crime of “self-indulgence” by having an overabundance of luxurious and superfluous possessions, usurped the houses and expensive cars to run their own “meaningful and important” errands for the new regime. The clerics rationalized that they were the best recipients of God’s good gifts as they were involved in His mission. The clergymen brought many priceless and rare articles, antiques and jewels to their own homes and used the personal property themselves or sold them for a very good price at market.

Bazargan expected Khomeini to give him more freedom to run the government that he inherited from the last prime minister, but on the contrary, Khomeini gradually took power away from him. Khomeini and his son-in-law made laws and issued orders that suited their own particular tastes. What “tasted” good to the Ayatollah Khomeini did not always “taste” good the next. Rules and regulations were constantly promulgated and repealed. Khomeini’s regime organized a revolutionary council composed of clergymen directed to help control the proper functioning of Islamic Iranian society. All but three of the council members had the power to order commandos drawn from the Revolutionary Guard to enforce executive authority—their authority. The Revolutionary Council or “committee” was often referred to colloquially as the “Khommittee“. The Khommittee used the gunman at their disposal to exercise authority in matters of State, and when they thought it necessary take appropriate weaponry to initiate armed government reprisals. The Khommittee would target the particularly wealthy residents to be thrown out of their homes and executed. It was not necessary for the Khommittee to get a warrant or injunction. The fleeting whim of one of its respected members was enough to sentence anyone to death. They attacked homes in the dead of night in surprise raids. When the wealthy occupants were arrested, they were offered the ultimatum to give up their homes and possessions or face the death sentence. The Revolutionary Council brought individuals to court and accused them of financially aiding Israel. The punishment for such a crime was death, and the only remedy to avoid capital punishment was to bribe the Chief of the Revolutionary Guard with all the worldly possessions he could muster.

Newspapers informed people that the Revolutionary Council was taking bribes from the rich. To prevent a scandal, Khomeini spread the rumor that SAVOK had influenced members of the council. In point of fact however, all of the former members of SAVOK had fled, been imprisoned, or executed. Khomeini selected one of the clergymen as the chief coordinator of all the Khommittees in order to prevent corruption and insure justice. It took a lot of time to control the council as a whole because of the anarchy and disruptions occurring daily in Iran.

Khomeini gave the newspapers the freedom to write anything they wished; they were not censored or repressed. Khomeini wanted Bazargan to promulgate a republic based on Islam. The adherents of political party rule and the generally educated population believed in the separation of church and state: that religion and politics should be kept separate when governing the nation. Those who supported the separation of Church and State reasoned that there was no recent model of an Islamic republic in Iran and that it was risky to embark on such a great dislodgement of Iran’s Constitutional government. Without a proven track record of whether an Islamic Republic would function as planned, many Iranians were reticent about handing government leadership over to Moslem cleric overlords.

POST-REVOLUTION POLITICAL PARTIES–THE THREE HOUSES: KHOMEINI’S ISLAMIC PARTY ON THE RIGHT, THE IRANIAN NATIONAL FRONT ON THE LEFT AND THE CENTRIST STUDENT UNION BRIGADE

There were three main streams of political thought and affiliation during the transitional government as Iran moved from a monarchy to an Islamic Republic [Compare “Salon” {Fr.}][6]. One group was Khomeini’s religious society that was by now incorporated into the governmental structure. Another was the comprised of politicians from the Iranian National Front (mostly the educated classes) and the younger generation of “students” generally considered mid-way politically between the clergy on the right and the INF on the left.

Prime Minister Bazargan and his acting cabinet selected “Democratic Islamic Republic” as the title of the political system of the “new Iran”. The respected Ayatollah Tallequani agreed with Bazargan’s choice of words, but the Ayatollah Khomeini did not like use of the word “democratic” to describe any aspect of Iran as it was a Western term and should not impinge on what was to be Iran’s sovereign State structure. The debate was on. Newspapers were filled with editorials on what kind of regime would rule in Iran; what would be its name? For his part, Khomeini showed distain for the word and concept of “democracy”. For their part, the plurality of the press favored the more clearly defined term “democracy” to be added to “Islamic Republic”. Khomeini threatened his adversaries on the future name of the Iranian government by painting them as profane and deserving of punishment.

The managers of Ayatollah Khomeini’s “stage show” were groups formed to visit the Imam every day in Qom (aka Oom). Groups gathered at the Faisieh Theology School and Khomeini reciprocated by giving these devotees fresh lectures daily. This tactic was effective because it gave Khomeini’s party sympathizers and supporters which he needed immediately after the recent violent events of the “revolution”. The planners of the televised display showed busloads of peasants and villagers brought to Qom to show their wild enthusiasm for their new leader Ayatollah Khomeini. The “shows” were an astounding success. Khomeini enlightened and entertained his audiences day after day. Sometimes, he had marvelous audiences that were already fired up. He didn’t have to work very hard to persuade them. They cheered when he addressed them—they didn’t need a neon sign that said “APPLAUSE”, they were sincerely inspired. These meetings became symbiotic wherein the speaker, Khomeini and the audiences fed each other’s enthusiasm. Authorities that viewed the Ayatollah from home on their television sets would jest that Khomeini had great potential as an entertainer or better yet, a stand-up-sit-down comedian in the United States.

As the bearer of good tidings, Khomeini declared he would institute a program to build houses for the deprived people of Iran. He opened a checking account for himself and let the whole country join in enlarging it. The account number was 100. His followers donated thousands of dollars while merchants gave the Imam sufficient acreage to make housing for the poor feasible. Khomeini was not satisfied by the country’s gifts at the outset and demanded more from his countrymen. Being a powerful Imam, he expected parents to gladly sacrifice their very children before his feet if he so desired it. To further manipulate the citizens’ minds, a new television program was devised by the “stage directors” of the televised “Khomeini Show”. They persuaded illiterate women to visit the Imam in droves to offer their gold, silver and jewels. The scene, as depicted on the television screen, was very touching, stimulating donations from all quarters to account 100. The propagandized “Khomeini And The Peasant’s Hour” was an effective tool in unifying the nation to support the poor—it also gave Khomeini more revenue to work with to bolster his fledgling administration. When donations had reached the appropriate peak, Khomeini gave a speech of appreciation to the people in which he heaped praise on those generously donating for the welfare of the poor in Iran. During the speech, sacks full of the jewels and precious metals that had been collected during the donation drive were presented on camera and shown being transported to Ayatollah Khomeini’s house.

A NEW SHOW BEGINS—SALES TAXES

Although Iran was currently selling oil, it took more than two months for them to get revenue from its sale. The time lapse between the sale and revenue receipts incentivized clerics in charge of accounts receivable to save the funds in trust until more revenue flowed into the Ayatollah Khomeini’s coffers and/or to the appropriate need of Iran’s Islamic Republic. Both students and the employed were compelled to donate a certain percentage or pre-determined quota fee to account 100. The money was purportedly used to strengthen the new regime and to increase its ability to resist a counter-coup against the Khomeini regime (security). The students who donated as a sign of gratitude for being able to enjoy an education in the Islamic Republic got most of the money donated to account 100 from their parents, who were also donating for their own position in the new society. The merchants for their part, paid an exorbitant tax because they had the most money readily available to be used by the clergymen. The laborers and other employees were asked for approximately half-a-week’s wage per month. In Iran, there was no income tax, only tariffs on the sales of merchandise, so the offering was not an overwhelming burden as long as one did not need to buy or sell products or taxable services. When some party or individual paid less than he or she was expected to donate as often happened, the giver was accused of being a counter-revolutionary or working underground with the deposed Shah’s associates in some undisclosed manner.

THE REVENUES TO CLERGY ACCOUNTS: #100; #200

The first publicly released accounting from Khomeini’s “treasury” office reported total holdings of accumulated deposits to Account #100 amounted to approximately two hundred million dollars. Success breeds success. Khomeini opened Account #200—exclusively to alleviate suffering of the poor by building homes and infrastructure for their use. I wonder if this was designed as a Transit Oriented District like Karlsruhe, Germany? The answer was not easily found on Wikipedia today, as I write, June 2, 2014.

The “housing project” was meant to furnish poor people with a place to live. When Ayatollah Khomeini came to power, his officers seized apartment complexes and houses which had been in development under the Shah’s Administration but remained unfinished because the construction companies involved in the macro-project fled the country. Khomeini and his collaborators say the unfinished construction project as an ideal ploy to coerce the public into donating their money into Account #200. Khomeini’s group kept the money probably after they decided they would not “put good money after bad”. The Islamic Republic changed the financing so that the government’s treasury would pay for the Shah’s “lamed” building project and not the donations to Account #200 as was initially disclosed. When this happened, it put additional stress on the government’s budget and the completed dwellings were later sold to only those who could afford them or some of Khomeini’s Guard.

After one year, Khomeini had not dispensed any of Account #200 to the poor. He declared the Housing Foundation officially closed in that it had not been effective “in alleviating the housing problem for the poor.” When asked by the press where the funds of Account #200 were allocated (or located), the Ayatollah Khomeini could not reply.

The scene depicted the way Khomeini and his collaborators succeeded in gleaning money from the public’s hands. The disguised methods of extortion in almost every sector associated within Khomeini’s regime or the greater ambit of government jurisdiction and authority was deceptive. The failings of the new programs proposed by the Imam caused disappointment among many of the Iranian peoples. Still, most did not think that Khomeini was trying to deceive them, but always had good intentions at heart.

Some groups of discontented people tried to make the distinction between Khomeini and other clergymen. Instead of accusing the Ayatollah with the “failure” of particular “programs”, Khomeini supporters said that other clergymen working under the Imam were responsible for the foul-ups and miscalculations. Khomeini often commended his supporters’ fundraising and even embezzling “for a good cause” and for their party, they claimed it was not possible for Khomeini to keep tabs on all of the priests (tutors) from neglecting their duties of worship and public service.

Organized political caucuses at this time argued establishing an Islamic Republic was not orthodox and contrary to the nature of Iranian principles. Khomeini resolved Iran should have an Islamic Republic rather than a democracy. Khomeini’s decision brought unsettling attitudes among the people from the provinces of Kurdestan, Gonbad, Bluchestan to the Sunni’s in the southern reaches of Iran.

For the past fourteen centuries, there had been a dispute between the Shiet and Sunni sects of Islam. In the 7^th Century A.D., Iran was generally far more technologically advanced than Arabia, but not in the art of war. The Arabs had skilled warriors that overcame Persia. For the next two hundred years, the Iranians buckled down and used their knowledge and expertise to manipulate and frustrate the purposes of their occupiers. Persians and the greater Iranian communities were promoted time and again to be the leaders and final arbiters in education, administration and accounting. Finally, the Persians were able to overcome the Arabs and drove them from their land [7].

SHIET AND SUNNI SECTS OF ISLAM

The major fissure in Islam took place in Persia when Iranians (Shiets) refused to accept Hassan and the Arab (Sunni) saints and their Caliphs as descendants of the prophet Mohammed. The Shiets chose Ali instead, who was both the cousin and son-in-law of Mohammed, as their Imam (Caliph). The main reason for the different Caliphs in the Shiet and Sunni sects was that Hossein, Ali’s son, chose the former emperor’s daughter as his wife, and she chose him. [At the time of the Arab invasion, Arabs took Iranian men, women and children to sell in the medinas (open markets) as slaves to be used in Arabia. When they were going to sell the Iranian emperor’s daughter, wise Ali asked that the princess of the former monarchy not be sold but allowed to marry among the young Arabs. As it happened, the princess chose Hossein, Ali’s son, who was next in succession to the place of Imam after Ali’s brother Hassan.] The two realms united in this marriage: the old Arab empire (the Sunnis) and the Iranian side of the new Islamic heritage (the Shiets).

The descendants of the princess and Hossein therefore, were half of Arabian, half of Iranian royal ancestry. The descendents of the princess and Hossein were informally chosen as the future Imams of the Iranian people. The official Caliphs were taken from Ali’s cousin Omanid’s offspring because the Shiets did not have the clout the Sunni sect maintained in Arabia or neighboring Iraq for that matter.

Iranians resisted the Arab culture by claiming Hossein’s descendants and not Omanid’s would be the sovereign Imams they would recognize as their “supreme leader”. After all, Hossein’s children were half Iranian and thus more exposed to the Iranian cultures than Omanid’s offspring. However, the Iranian people were not allowed to have a political leader of their own while serving under Arab authority and domination. To maneuver within the greater Arabian jurisdiction, they came up with a religious angle to law abiding citizenry. Iranians felt a distinction should be made between religious and political leaders and in that way, diversify the political leadership in government around the 8^th and 9^th Centuries. Iranians claimed Omanid’s Caliphs were essentially vassals of extortion seeking alms through coercion and intimidation. Further, Iranians claimed God had appointed Ali and his offspring as the true Imam, and not the royal ancestral line of the Sunnis: Hassan, Yazid and Omanid. Since there was no other figure or royal from Arabia who they felt could fulfill their destiny as a People, most Iranians followed Ali and his descendants as religious leaders with some political clout.

The severing of the Shiets and their Imams from the Caliphs of the Sunni sect caused chronic political upheaval. The turmoil derives from a longing for self-determination on the side of Iran against what the Sunnis believed was their right to rule as victors of the throne left by Mohammed, his daughter, her two sons and cousin Yazid. In other words, on the one hand the Shiets believed heredity and blood should determine a leader as in a monarchy whereas the Sunnis believed if the acting supreme leader was embued with significant credentials, he was entitled to keep the throne until which time he was challenged and defeated. Since Hossein challenged Yazid for Caliph despite his own modicum of power among the Shia after his brother Hassan’s death, it may have somehow been fate or the will of God that Hossein perished at the order of Yazid. In Iran, the Shiet sect is by far the majority and best represents the ideology of not only Islam, but of Iranian culture throughout the ages. The Shiets would directly or indirectly force the Sunnis to obey them as the Sunnis were outnumbered demographically. In turn, the Sunnis experienced fear and probably some paranoia that if Shiet clerics were given political as well as the ecclesiastical power they already possessed as Imams, they might disregard their civil rights. In the post-revolutionary months of 1978- et seq., the Sunnis based their grievance against the Ayatollah Khomeini, ruling over them on the “co-mingling of politics and religion” (Compare “unlawful discrimination” in the United States of America from the 13^th and 14^th Amendments to its Constitution ratified in the 19^th Century to the ancillary case law and defined Federal and State Statutes “on the books” to date as well as scriptures, “It was written in the book”; “It is written”; “the word of the Lord is tried”).[8]

KHUSISTAN:

Khusistan is one of the thirty one provinces bordering Kuwait and Iraq in the southern region of Iran, and is inhabited mostly residents of the Sunni faith. In Khusistan, the situation was quite different than in other Sunni provinces within Iran. In this province under Iranian jurisdiction, which is the center of all oil production in Iran, the population is a mesh between two types: 1) The first group is primarily Iranian and the latter group in terms of genotype recent time of arrival was Arabian, but now speaks both Farsi (an Iranian tongue) and Arabic. The latter group of “naturalized” citizens of Arabic origins asked Khomeini, as a Shiet Imam, if Khusistan could become a separate state of the Union of Iran, as California or Texas is to the United States. Their new political party was called “the Center of Culture and Politics for Arabian People.” The proposal that each province should have some duties of self-determination and self or interactive government with the nucleus was generally accepted amongst Iran’s educated. The peasants however, did not understand the detailed implications that such a change would bring to the government. [I guess one always runs that risk when one is resigned to being blind sheep. Be attentive and curious sheep. What’s the difference between a Judas Goat and a “Fisher of Men”?] [9].

AYATOLLAH KHOMEINI TIMELY RESPONSE TO IRAN REGARDING THE KHUSISTANIANS

Khomeini took advantage of the public’s ignorance and declared that the Khousistanis wanted to separate itself from Iran, one of the wealthier regions of the country, and become “allies of the United States and Israel!” He ordered his Revolutionary Guard to keep up the pressure on Khusistan and topple their opposition party poised against the Khomeini regime.

The Khusistani leader, Ayatollah a le Shobair, was exiled to Qom one night by Khomeini’s Guard. In response to the disgraceful exile of their Ayatollah, Khusistanis fought against Khomeini’s Revolutionary Guard. Khomeini appointed General Madani in response to Khusistani disruptors and gave him authority to silence the people by force if he had to. General Madani was the defense minister in Khomeini’s regime and presently commander of the navy. Madani was responsible for the stability and security of Khusistan, a strategic area situated off the Persian Gulf, on the border of Iraq. As Governor-General of Khusistan and Commander-In-Chief of the Navy, he wore two hats and had the martial clout to overcome uprisings in the southern province.

Khalkhali, a religious judge, traveled to Ahvaz in the center of the Khusistan province and convened a trial of eight youths that fought against the Khomeini regime. Within the space of one hour, the judge heard the testimony of the eight and sentenced them all to summary execution. Madani’s totalitarian methods were designed to intimidate residents so they would not get swept up in the opposition’s endeavor to disrupt and retaliate against the Khomeini regime. Many more youths were sentenced to death and a great number thrown in jail. In one instance, a seventeen year-old girl and an eighteen year-old man were handing out tracts criticizing the effectiveness of the newly formed government under Khomeini. Once captured, the young man was sentenced to death, and the woman to life imprisonment. The sentences were primarily meant to frighten others, and instill chill on the wealthy Khusistani’s who were riding Khomeini’s coattails to a revolution misaligned with the Revolution won by Khomeini’s collaborators and the Shiets.

ARAB REACTION TO MADANI

The “Center of Culture and Politics for Arabs” changed their method of diplomacy from one of calm to one of violence. Khomeini’s denial of their semi-independence and the installation of Madani as their Governor-General infuriated the people of Khusistan and decided to blow up petroleum pipelines which disrupted the supply of heating oil to Tehran during the winter months. During the winter of 1978-1979, people were forced to wait in line for a ration of heating oil for six full days. [Compare gasoline rationing in the United States during the same period.]

UNDERGROUND DEMOCRATIC PARTY IN KURSISTAN, KURDESTAN AND GONBAD

During the thirty years of the Shah’s regime, the Iranian democratic party Kursistan, Kurdestan and Gonbad was forced to be active only in secret. In February, when the revolution occurred, people from all over the country merged toward the Federal military garrisons. In Kurdestan, the democratic party pilfered weapons and ammunition from the installations and obtained 17 tanks for deployment. They became a powerful force to be reckoned with once they had access to tanks. They needed conventional arms to fulfill their provocative mission to destabilize, albeit illegally, the Islamic Republic emerging from the ashes of the Revolution.

Khomeini was fearful of any rivals to his supreme command and authority in Iran. He ordered the Revolutionary Guard to bring the people of Kurdestan under control. The Guard ransacked homes, seized alcoholic beverages and broke liquor bottles against the walls and floors belonging to the home-owners to frighten and disrupt their daily activities (restoration and clean up might take priority over demonstrations in the plaza). 30,000 inhabitants of one small city of Kurds began to get angry at the Revolutionary Guard’s terror tactics and left the town to live on the plains in tents. Iranian citizens from different parts of the country were concerned about the refugees and carried food and medicine to them.

In a sign of protest, the people tolerated the bitter cold of the plains to guilt the clergy for sending the Guard to Kurdestan. The clergymen were not about to repent of their former acts of government and heightened the scrutiny on the uncooperative province. The clerics in charge of domestic security acted quickly to stifle any political opposition to the Islamic Republic of Iran. In northern Kurdestan, Khomeini’s Revolutionary Guard opened fire on a Kurdestan Democratic Party (KDP) meeting and a fierce conflict broke out between the two sides. The battle, which lasted three days, was meant to show the rest of the country that the clergymen were stronger than the individual efforts of any one province. The results of the revolution left many immigrants with nothing to live on. They had been taught a sad lesson by Khomeini and his army. During the aftermath, Khomeini tried to persuade the Kurdish peoples to follow his dictates, like the winner of a fight might patronize his weaker opponent. However, the fallen, self-exiled refugees were experienced in techniques of survival and political confrontation. Their stance in the desert was a symbol of their independence. An abject refusal to heed the Ayatollah’s demands– “What more harm could he do us?” they thought to themselves.

THE REVOLUTIONARY GUARD IN GONBAD

Gonbad is a province located on the east shore of the Caspian Sea which stretches north to the then Soviet border. The clergymen planned to attack the region which included eight thousand members of the Sunni sect of Islam. The Sunnis in the region wanted to establish a party called the “Center of Culture and Politics of the Gonbad People.” During a large meeting of the Party, Khomeini ordered his Guard to open fire on the gathering. Firing into assemblies of rival Parties became one of Khomeini’s standard methods of demonstration dispersal. Khomeini’s objective in the blitz was to scatter the people of Gonbad and dissolve their power. The Sunnis got machine guns and answered the Guard’s gunfire with bullets of their own. A heavy battle ensued and the Revolutionary Guard could not overcome them. Khomeini was determined to punish the remnant, so he ordered militia from all over Iran to reinforce the troops at Gonbad. Khomeini’s army and the Revolutionary Guard had many new volunteers who had not yet been adequately trained to fight in a police action of the scale they encountered. As a result, hundreds of young men fighting for Ayatollah Khomeini and his regime were killed in the week-long battle.

Khomeini believed that the communist Fadayan-i- Khalo party was behind the mobilization of the Gonbad people and decided that he would do away with the interfering party at his first opportunity. Fadayans in each town had a headquarters filled with armed youths. They had been fighting against the Shah’s regime previous to the revolution through the use of terror tactics against Iranian and American officers in Tehran. Whenever Khomeini sent his Revolutionary Guard to a province, he always told them that a conspiracy of America and the Zionists was in the making and it was their Islamic duty to circumvent their efforts.

The Revolutionary Guard can be separated into two groups. One group, in the minority, was comprised of dedicated patriots who fought for their beliefs and received no salary for their efforts to overcome the Shah’s regime. These men refused to continue fighting for the Revolutionary Guard once they witnessed their own friends with whom they had fought against the Shah’s regime shot down by fanatic guards pretending to be “cleaning their guns”. Trustworthy soldiers of the Revolution were being systematically shot if they did not strictly adhere to the Ayatollah Khomeini’s doctrines. The ranks of the Revolutionary Guard decreased in quality as more of the good soldiers were shot or abandoned the Service. The majority of Khomeini’s Guard which remained after the purges were opportunistic idlers, illiterates and ruffians before the revolution who now had purpose and profit in their lives as Revolutionary Guardsmen. To them, being a “good” guard for the Ayatollah Khomeini meant corralling people’s faith to the nationwide Islamic Republic through means of corrective actions. One example of the Guard’s corrective action included plundering goods from people’s homes, especially the wealthy whom they extorted by threats of Khomeini-ordered retribution. They grifted and made illegitimate deals with influential members of society as a formal government had not yet been established in Iran. Local police forces were beginning to get organized and the Guards guided and collaborated with them as they formed under their direction. The local police did not dare to work independently from the Guard lest they should offend their superseding authority. The Guard was an extension of the Supreme Leader’s law enforcement authority which was being defined by informal albeit sometimes harsh police action on a case-by-case basis.

KHOMEINI’S GUARD AND THE PALESTINIAN LIBERATION ORGANIZATION

Khomeini’s Guard was primarily comprised of illiterate fanatics who considered the Ayatollah as their mentor. They loyally obeyed his commands with the unwavering respect expected of an elite special forces soldier. The Guard was trained by members of the Palestinian Liberation Organization, hereinafter referred to as the PLO. The Guard’s training budget was well-funded in order to arm, train and maintain their combat readiness.

Khomeini warned that uprisings like those in Gonbad and Kurdestan would continue in the future and said they must be vigilant and prepared for containment operations. Khomeini put a great deal of trust and confidence in his Guard, but they were still a fledgling organization, not strong enough to enforce laws domestically and protect the country from foreign invaders. To maintain a secure Islamic Republic of Iran, Khomeini knew he needed to establish a formal standing army. He used terrorized officers who turned compliant after they witnessed hundreds of their fellow officers executed by the Revolutionary council after summary trials and convictions. The time was ripe for the formation of a new, powerful army to take shape that was to be entirely at the disposal of the Imam, Ayatollah Khomeini.

The Commander-in-Chief of the army was replaced and two generals, Purdoost and Qarabagi, formerly closely associated with the Shah, who began to organize new military forces in secret. A sly general named Shaker was appointed as the Commander-in-Chief of the Iranian Army and began to strategize a plan to vanquish the Kurdish people.

STABILIZATION OF THE ISLAMIC REPUBLIC UNDER THE AYATOLLAH KHOMEINI “The End Justifies the Means.” [10]

Khomeini wanted to stabilize his regime so he followed the Shah’s method of neutralizing the opposition. Khomeini decided to silence the Kurdish people and suppress their activity against the new regime. Whenever an underprivileged class of people felt oppressed by the government or the upper classes in Iran, they would utter slogans and chants demanding liberty, equality and justice for all people. They emphasized the people’s suffering and claimed the injustices of society prevented everyone from living in a “Utopic” society. [11]
Whenever a new regime overthrows a pre-existing government, they usually become more fierce and brutal than the former one in order to maintain control of the nation’s citizenry. Leaders put on a façade for the public, using rhetoric that offer hope and prosperity for the future. Their speeches are often filled with deceit because they attempt to justify their actions and totalitarianistic cruelty with exhortations of hope. If the clergymen could vindicate the actions of their government with sweetened words, it could pacify any lingering public doubt of its stability and longevity.

All political groups and parties in Iran knew that Khomeini’s regime would reorganize the army to use it as their own private strong-arm for “justice”. These groups demanded that the military be dissolved and that a National Armed Forces be organized to replace the Shah’s old army. Each group wanted equal representation in the new army, so many of the formerly trained specialists would have to be shuffled around to prevent high concentrations of biased officers and special forces coming under Khomeini’s unchecked command. The army suffered the loss of several experienced personnel but the political parties with a voice were strongly in favor of the reorganization.

In order to keep the current experienced personnel in the new armed forces, Khomeini’s regime gathered all the police officers in a stadium while the Ayatollah Talequani read a prayer of repentance to them. The officers repeated the prayers as an act of repentance to absolve them of the sins they committed while in the service of the Shah. After the ceremony, the clergy announced that the officers seeking forgiveness were “reborn”, “innocent” and completely washed clean of any past crimes. Many modern Iranians however did not accept the Ayatollah’s absolution ceremony as a sufficient form of accountability. “Absolution” was an ancient religious ritual which allowed a priest to mediate between people and God for the forgiveness of their sins. Iranians were not accustomed to such ancient rituals being used in recent history and did not consider them appropriate. Although the government officers repented, and the Ayatollah considered them forgiven by God, the clerics soon had some of the “innocent” officers executed anyway which created a credibility issue. The execution of repentant individuals was against Islamic law and made the clerics look perverse to many professionals who followed and closely scrutinized the Ayatollahs’ edicts. The Ayatollah’s were caught in a “catch-22” [12]; “old wine in new skins”. [13]

ISLAMIC DOCTRINES VERSUS IRANIAN TRADITIONS: DISSONANCE

Khomeini’s regime wanted to replace secular Iranian traditions such as Zoroastrianism with Islamic religious practices and incorporate Islam into Iran’s statutory laws. The clergy urged people to participate in Islamic ceremonies and rites as part of a daily practice to gain salvation. Most Iranians however preferred the quasi-secular celebrations and holidays to the Islamic rituals, much to the dismay of the clerics. Most Iranians may describe themselves as Moslem, but many would not disavow their national heritage.

In Iran, there are two contrasting feelings: one is primarily religious, which most are bound to and the other is a reverence for the national traditions derived from Iranian religions before Islam was introduced (i.e. Zoroastrian). Zoroastria (see also Zoroaster and Zaraostria) was an Iranian prophet who lived in the 11^th Century B.C. Iranian culture and religion revolved around the life of this prophet until the Arab invasions in the 7^th Century A.D. In the fourteen centuries which have elapsed since the Arab conquest, there have been dissonant strains and conflicts between Zoroastrian-based and Islamic based traditions and belief. At times, these dissonant strains and conflicts have been complicated further by the separation of Sunni-Arab Moslems and Shiet Iranian Moslems all living within the borders currently known as Iran, part of the former Persian Empire.

In their abhorrence of the Iranian Zoroastrian culture, the Islamic clerics proposed to ruin Persepolice and Pasargadae in or about 1979. Persepolice and Pasargadae were two Zoroastrian capitols which had existed since Zoroastrians first practices there between 1000 and 500 B.C. The clerics simply believed the two capitols of ancient Zoroastrianism were a distraction to the Iranians and an insult to Islam. The capitols reminded people of days gone by including life under the Shah and the golden ages of Darius the King and other Emperors which had ruled their land for millennia. As far as the clerics were concerned, these eras and empires were long passed in history, but Islam was on the rise.

TROUBLE WITH KURDESTAN

Ayatollah Khomeini ordered General Qarani to ambush Kurdestan with fighter jets and/or other air ships two months following the revolution. The Kurds implored Ayatollah Taleqani to have Khomeini stop the air raiding of their province. Talequani went to the city of Sanandj to negotiate possible solutions to the Khomeini-Kurdestan conflict. In Sandaj, Talequani met with Sheikh Ezeddin Hoseini, a Kurdish religious and political leader and Dr. Qasinlu, General Secretary of the Kurdish Democratic Party, with Khomeini’s authorization. At the meeting, the Kurdish leaders demanded that the city be controlled by a select council who would have no interference from the Revolutionary Guard. The leaders also proposed that in addition to a council, the province could have a governor which would represent Kurdestan albeit under the Imam’s control as “supreme leader”. This step, however small, was the first one recognizing their voice in the new regime.

When Talequani and the ministers of the interior were talking about the possible establishment of a democracy in Kurdestan, Phantom jets flew above 50,000 attendees to the negotiations sending a cautionary message to the crowd. Talequani and the council members sent a telegram to Qarani warning him to stop his provocations of the Kurds. The General answered that although he respected Talequani and the ministers, he followed orders from Khomeini alone. It was Khomeini, the General said, that wanted to frighten the Kurdish people.

After the negotiations, Talequani received permission from the Imam to give the Kurdish people the right to manage Sanandaj democratically, on an experimental basis. Talequani also was able to have General Qarani discharged from his position as Commander-In-Chief of the Army to ease the tense relations between the people of Kurdestan and Khomeini’s regime. Thus, for the first time in Sanandaj, the Capitol of Kurdestan, citizens were able to live temporarily in a democratic society. A civil council elected by the people handed the domestic affairs of the province in association with the Governor-General who was appointed by members of Khomeini’s regime.

Several weeks later, as General Qarani was awaiting an appointment by Khomeini to another post in the new regime, he was assassinated by two members of the Forgan Party. It was rumored the assassination was spear-headed by a sociologist who believed Islam had metamorphosed over the ages by the clergymen into a “false religion”. The interpreted the Qoran in a way that the ideal society was based upon socialism, though still respecting Islamic religious doctrine. In its propaganda tracts, the Forgan group claimed that Khomeini’s regime was aberrant to the ideology expressed in the Holy Qoran, and actually acted against Islam. They accused Khomeini’s Administration of replacing the former aristocrats and cruel monarchs who ruled Iran before them by the co-option of religious fanatics and dogmatists that were even worse elements of a government than before the revolution. The Forgan group claimed that though the faces changed, the government officials had not; they were still corrupt. The political structure of Iran had remained the same although the clergy were in the monarchs seats.

Ayatollah Motahari, a very close companion of Khomeini’s and president of the Imam’s Revolutionary Council, was killed by the Forgan group in their dismay over the lack of representation they were receiving in the government. Both Khomeini’s constituents and those of Forgan began to plot attacks against each other in the wake of the killing. Khomeini’s regime took advantage of Motahari’s death by creating diversionary spectacles such as hostage taking and blaming an earthquake on American nuclear weapons testing. It was hoped the spectacles would attract public interest and promote anti-American sentiment and help assemble enthusiastic demonstrations supporting the Ayatollahs and denigrating the continued American surveillance and influence in their country.

SURVEY SAYS:

At this time, Ayandegan, a popular newspaper for the knowledgeable people in Iran, established a research focus group to survey the various opinions about the assassinated General Qarani and Ayatollah Motahari. The newspaper encouraged respondents to write their opinions about the slayings and to submit them to the research group for publication. When the first round of survey responses were collected and published, what conclusions could be drawn by the newspaper and it’s readers was an embarrassment to the Imam. Some of the published opinions in the newspaper article highlighted the rivalry between Forgan and Khomeini’s regime. The article set forth a hypothesis based on the survey responses collected and other hard evidence collected by the newspaper, that the major causes of the terrorism and injustice in Iran could be traced to the struggle among Khomeini’s cronies for power and domination of the country. The Imam’s associates persuaded him to deliver a declaration chastising the newspaper. In his declaration, Khomeini contended that the Ayandegan was a counter-revolutionary newspaper associated with Zionists and should be abolished.

The newspaper was closed for a time immediately following the Imam’s remarks, but not without some push-back. The publisher, as well as the reporters, were afraid of the possible repercussions they might face if they published more of their opinions about Khomeini’s regime. They were also afraid to say anything positive about Khomeini because of reprisals from the terrorist group Forgan. In answer to the Ayatollah’s accusations, Ayandegan journalists brought to light the fact that its writers had been persecuted and imprisoned under the Shah, and it was therefore irrational to believe they were conspiring with Israeli’s against him. In a special one-page publication, Ayandegan mildly reproached Khomeini’s regime by saying the newspaper had rallied for freedom from the Shah, but that their rally cries were not intended to promote religious dictators who denied them the same freedoms of the press they had been endowed with under the Shah.

Continued attacks on the Ayandegan publication took place. The clergymen arranged fanatic groups to assemble in front of the Ayandegan’s office and demand them to profess their allegiance to the Islamic Republic. The implication of the demand was that Khomeini’s religious zealots gave the newspaper an ultimatum: either obey Khomeini or be considered counter-revolutionaries and executed as such. The newspaper continually expressed its belief that it could not simply “do what it was ordered to do”, after all, it was a newspaper. The journalists claimed that democracy required freedom of the press and the right to print opposing political views. The Imam’s search committees tried to prevent the sale of the Ayandegan as well as the Paigham-i-Emrouz- Azadi (an INF-funded newsletter), the Nedaye Azadi, and the magazines Tehron Messavar and Omid-i-Iran. These publications printed the “facts” of a story with a spin, angle or slant which displeased the Ayatollah Khomeini.

But it seemed the more pressure Khomeini’s regime put on the creation, production and distribution of the publications, the more the students (and “students”) sought to distribute them. One newspaper in particular, Paigahm i-Emrouz , bitterly defamed Khomeini’s regime by implying Khomeini might turn into a fascist dictator worse than even the Shah. The fact that Khomeini was suppressing and/or chilling free speech and freedom of the press was a prime example the journalists cautioned the nation.

KHOMEINI INFRINGES ON FREEDOM OF ASSEMBLY—OR CHILLS IT ANYWAY—MOSSEDEQ’S GHOST

Matin Laftari was Mossadeq’s nephew, and a prominent lawyer who had once served as a Vice President of the Lawyer’s Institute. A few weeks before the closure of Ayandegan, Dr. Matin Laftari summoned all people to attend the annual anniversary of Mossadeq’s death at the former prime minister’s tomb. Though Mossadeq’s tomb is about 100 miles from Tehran, people who respected the deceased leader rushed to visit the tomb along a semi-paved road.

Khomeini tried to prevent people from paying homage to Mossadeq and persuade them to honor the Imam instead. Khomeini was obliged to gather special groups to the streets and urge them to carry placards bearing his image. The people going to Mossadeq’s tomb did not heed Khomeini’s vain exhortations and more than one million people gathered at Mossadeq’s grave.

Ayatollah Talequani, in his speech at the tomb, beseeched those assembled to avoid internal discord in the country. Commenting on the strained relations between Khomeini and Mossadeq, Talequani implied that clergymen are often over-anxious to rule because they think they are wise in all matters because they may be wise in one. He commented further that the people should have the privilege, indeed the right, to choose their own leaders and government. Self-determination of the sovereign nation of Iran belongs to its citizens as well as to the clerics. The clergymen should only intervene in the self-determination rights of Iranian citizens if the democracy they have chosen fails.

The keynote speech which highlighted the day’s assembly belonged to Dr. Matin Laftari. In his speech, he described the movement of the Iranian National Front away from both the traditional platform established by his uncle, Dr. Mossadeq, and the blundering Khomeini regime by outlining significant differences between the politicians in the INF and the clergymen coordinating Khomeini’s Administration of government. In order to remedy the waywardness of the INF, Laftari promoted a new party, the National Democratic Front (hereinafter NDF), which would emphasize the separation of church and state in a constitutional Iranian government. The political and governmental duties of government would be administered by politicians and the Islamic leaders would have the duties of fulfilling religious obligations. The duties of the two groups were not to be intertwined but rather, work along separate parallels of leadership, one line of political power, another of religious authority.

Most of the socially and politically active individuals were in favor of establishing the NDF but were concerned the new party would take most of their members from the INF and thereby weaken it permanently. One activist group within the Iranian National Front wanted to change the policies of the INF, but not splinter it into newly formed political parties. This group demanded that their leaders become more assertive when negotiating with the clergymen in political affairs.

The General Secretary of the Iranian National Front, Dr. Sanjabe, was the foreign minister in Bazargan’s cabinet. Sanjabe tried to resign from his position earlier, but Prime Minister Bazargan wanted to keep a token member of the INF on his cabinet, and refused to accept the resignation. Sanjabe felt as if his hands were tied in Khomeini’s regime, and his resignation would bring the Ayatollah recriminations from the INF as they would have less voice and representation in the Islamic Republic.

Sanjabe publicized his disappointment with Shahriar Rouhani, Dr Ibrahim Yazdi’s son-in-law, who was representing Iran for Khomeini in Washington D.C. at the time. Shahriar Rouhani had replaced Zahed, the former Iranian ambassador to the United States at Khomeini’s request, and refused to take orders from Sanjabe. Sanjabe alleged that Rouhani, a student in the U.S. Capitol, sent a telegram informing him that certain documents in the Iranian embassy revealed that Zahed had paid large sums of money to several American senators. When Sanjabi heard this, he requested that Rouhani return the documents to Iran. After a conference with his father-in-law about the documents, Rouhani refused to send Sanjabe the documents, but rather, met with Cyrus Vance, the American Secretary of State for Jimmy Carter’s Administration at the time without leave to do so by Foreign Minister Sanjabe. If Rouhani was to act independently of his authority, Sanjabe said there was no reason for him to continue as Khomeini’s foreign minister, and abruptly resigned. After Sanjabe’s resignation, the INF looked much more critically at Khomeini’s regime since they no longer had a representative in Khomeini’s Administration.

Six hundred people: university students, employees, teachers and other educated groups implored the writers of the Ayandegan newspaper to begin rolling out newspapers promoting a “free press” again. The clergy instigated three hundred vagrants to attack people present at the demonstration to promote freedom of the press and Ayandegan in particular. The rabble was paid to hit demonstrators with clubs and stones until the assembly disbanded. Those assembled for the freedom of the press demonstration did not scatter when attacked, but shouted, “Down with Reactionaries” in their native language(s). The demonstrators were crowded along both sides of the streets shouting protests against their attackers. Men held each others’ hands and made a wall around the women and children at the meeting. Despite repeated attempts to protect the women at the demonstration, some young girls suffered from knife wounds. One of Khomeini’s fanatics stabbed a pregnant woman, infuriating the by-standers watching the two factions clash.

The demonstration was a great success for the liberal front in that it carried home to each who attended the importance of freedom of speech, assembly and of the press in Iran. It also focused attention on the Ayandegan, and free press supporters urged them to start rolling the presses again. Khomeini however, became very angry at his opponents temporary victory, and like a wounded snake, was waiting for the opportunity to eradicate all reformers who opposed him or his government. Mainstream public resistance to the Khomeini regime was beginning to take root in directions away from the Ayatollah.

To draw people’s attention elsewhere, Khomeini convened a national dialogue on the question of the future of Iran, and what form of government it should adopt, an Islamic Republic, or “a regime like the Shah’s”. The clerics threatened to ex-communicate anyone who did not vote for an Islamic Republic. Khomeini and most if not all of the clerics favored an Islamic Republic and made the statement that anyone who did not vote for an Islamic Republic would not be considered a Moslem. For their part, the educated population of Iran demanded a Republic that was not necessarily affiliated with Islam—a separation of church and state.

Khomeini’s statement threatening Moslem identity over one’s political affiliation created a de facto controversy under Islamic doctrine and the Ayandegan was only too happy to point this out to the masses who would read or listen. A free-lance writer’s article appeared in the Ayandegan quoting the Prophet Mohammed, that anyone who uttered the sentence “I acknowledge that God is unique and Mohammed is his messenger” would be known as a Moslem and “no one could deny him that fellowship” (emphasis added). The layman questioned Khomeini’s authority in the article by asking “Do you add anything to what the Prophet Mohammed has said?” The writer went on to question the basis of Khomeini’s divine authority to innovate on traditional holy doctrines as religions were supposedly based upon a constant absolute “truth.” To add or change what Mohammed had determined as the method by which one becomes identified as a Moslem, or changing scripture in any other way was a great sin to be avoided, but Khomeini had not avoided it. Therefore, it begs the question the writer intimated, is Khomeini to be followed if he is so cavalier as to promote Islamic doctrines contrary to its founder Mohammed?

Khomeini did not answer the question posed in the Ayandegan article but revealed in his silence a sense that he lacked a comprehensive knowledge of Islam that could put to rest the journalist’s argument(s). Khomeini had been caught in his verbal bloopers yet again. One of his most serious bloopers was his call for a holy war (jihad) against the Shah’s regime. According to Islamic doctrine, Islamic leaders in any position do not have the right to urge Moslems to jihad. In the Shiet sect, declaring war is the sole right of the Absent Imam (the 12^th Imam), who, according to Shiet belief, would emerge someday to bring all nations under the Islamic flag. In the Ninth Century, the twelfth Imam, a five year-old child, hid himself in the cellars of his father’s house while marauding soldiers attacked the home. No one saw the boy thereafter, and it was told that God ordered the Imam to live in secret. Alms were a way “messages” could be brought back and forth from the deputy of the Moslem people to the 12^th Imam.

Khomeini said that anyone who wants to pay his khoms (1/5 of one’s income), or his Zakat (1/10 of the income of the wealthy Moslems) should deliver them to his deputy, who would in turn deliver them to the missing child Imam. He also said the deputies would deliver any questions about religious rites to the five year-old Imam. Through knowledge the deputies acquired from their correspondence with the 12^th Imam, the deputies would be able to answer any questions people had about jihad or anything else. This traditional belief has been carried on throughout the ages—so while the young Imam remains unseen, no Ayatollah can declare a holy war.

VOTER’S REFERENDUM ON THE ISSUE OF WHETHER IRAN SHOULD FORM AN “ISLAMIC REPUBLIC” OR AS THE CLERICS THEN RULING PUT IT, ANOTHER VERSION OF “THE SHAH’S REGIME” ?

Khomeini’s regime prepared itself for a referendum on whether Iran should be a democratic or Islamic Republic. In the election, Khomeini gave sixteen year-olds the right to vote for the first time in history. The people that were in charge of the ballot boxes were carefully chosen Khomeini advocates. The poll employees made every attempt to stifle the liberals’ attempt at a “Democratic Republic”. Khomeini and his administration were so fearful of losing their political power in the election, they asked voters to make a decision: either choose the Islamic Republic or resign yourself to live again under a Shah. Even with the psychological manipulation of the people’s choice, the Revolutionary Guardsmen stuffed the ballot boxes with votes for the Islamic Republic just to make sure that “justice” prevailed.

At the conclusion of election day, the number of ballots cast for an “Islamic Republic” in the Referendum tallied 20,000,000 in a population of 35,000,000 eligible voters. In Kurdestan, Gonbad, Bluchestan and Khuzestan, most of the eight million inhabitants did not vote for the Islamic Republic. All these provinces (except Khuzestan) were primarily populated with Sunnis who were hostile to Khomeini’s regime. Nevertheless, the votes for an Islamic Republic victory were overwhelming in these “Sunni-weighed” provinces just as they were in primarily Shiet-inhabited jurisdictions.

A large portion of the voting population cast their votes for an “Islamic Republic” simply to condemn the Shah’s regime. If we give Khomeini’s regime the benefit of the doubt, the unduly high number of votes for the Islamic Republic could have reached as high as eight million. The additional 12 million votes in favor of the Islamic Republic were due to unethical and unrestricted voting procedures. For his part, Khomeini promised the people before the voting began that the country would become “ordered” if and when an Islamic Republic was adopted. He blamed the current disorder in the country on the lack of a defined governmental structure and a president to preside over it. He claimed that if an Islamic government was adopted, the political structure would stabilize and the clergymen could resume their appropriate place in mosques while lay candidates could be voted into office democratically. Most of the people who actually voted for an “Islamic Republic” in the Referendum had been persuaded by Khomeini’s rhetoric because they trusted he would not deliberately deceive them. He was respected as a leader with his personal strengths and weaknesses by most while others saw him as a flawless seer who could do the nation of Islam no harm. In general, the Iranian people accepted the referendum as time passed and they saw the government’s efforts to commence reforms. People reasoned that since the Imam was reputably closer to God than most, he could interpret the will of God for Iran more precisely.

The referendum on the formation of an Islamic Republic came at harvest season. Khomeini used Abu Bakr, the first Caliph of Mohammed in the 7^th Century, as a theme to direct people’s attention toward self-sacrifice. In former times, the Caliph and his counselors decided to send armies to Iran and Rome to preoccupy Moslem’s minds with the advent of the Holy War. Similarly, Khomeini was searching for a way to make people work the forthcoming harvest without getting paid. He had made remonstrations those who were able-bodied and out of work should volunteer to work the fields during the harvest for the welfare of the country. Because the newly developing regime had little if any money, they needed free labor. Khomeini requested his people devote themselves to God in their thoughts and in their labor as a personal religious duty for the benefit of all Moslems. Everyone who helped in the harvest he said, would earn a place in Paradise. Khomeini and his cohorts began a vast propaganda campaign in an attempt to persuade people to partake in the communal harvest. Films presented on television depicted rural farmers that helped peasants harvest crops. Khomeini’s mediamen proclaimed that with everyone’s cooperation, Iran would not be required to import wheat or rice from abroad. If one paid attention to the characteristics of the program, it was obvious the “helping farmers” were actors working for the Khomeini government and not farmers teaching the peasants agricultural techniques. Despite the inability of the television programs to convince people it was their duty to work, Khomeini achieve his underlying purpose to preoccupy the minds of the public with the upcoming “harvest” while he and his team were preoccupied with other matters at hand.

Khomeini decided to rule the country alone with the help of his PLO-trained guardsmen. He knew he could do the job better than anyone else, and asked the prime minister to prepare an Islamic Republic for him to approve. After a month of preparation, the first draft of the constitution was ready for authorization. The basic structure and content of the document was adapted from the French Constitution, though the rights of the citizens were more strictly limited. Women for instance, did not have the same status as men, and were expected to remain subservient to their husbands. They were not allowed to keep positions of influence in society. Female judges held over from previous administrations were dismissed. The only privilege of significance that women held equally to men was the right to vote. Khomeini’s interpretation of Islam was that women were essentially weak and irrational, and hence should remain submissive to their husbands’ commands. It was for this belief that men and women were fundamentally different that Khomeini would not trust any women to take stations of authority within the religious hierarchy or in the political realm.

Khomeini went on to point out the sorry state of marital unions in Europe and America with their skyrocketing divorce rates. He said marital instability arises when women are given rights equal to those of men. In the United States, women were allowed and encouraged to become business professionals, and it was because of this fundamentally “unethical” attitude regarding a woman’s proper role in society that Khomeini claimed caused so many unsuccessful marriages in the West.

The other major divergence from the French Constitution was that more authority would be given to the government to control the media and the post office. The police were allowed to search private property without a warrant or prior order of the court. The lack of official controls over police activities gave Khomeini the power to use the police force as his own “Gestapo” (secret police) to curb the subversive activities of his subjects.

The newly drafted constitution provided for a hierarchical structure of the secular government as well as the roles of its governing clerics. Khomeini held the highest post, under him was a council of clergymen, and beneath them the executive department consisting of a president, a senate or parliament, and a prime minister. Khomeini and the council of clergymen could veto decisions of the executive department, so they retained “supreme” authority over the government at all times.

Public dissent between various factions in Iran arose over the new constitution, and their viewpoints were openly publicized in the newspapers. It was clear to the educated people that Ayandegan wrote the most “objective”, balanced articles on the government and its new constitution. In June of 1979, a decree from the revolutionary prosecutor was issued stating that Ayandegan was a tool of Israel and provokes an ideological subversion of Iran. The Imam Committee closed the Ayandegan yet again and arrested many of its employees who were held in jail pending trial. The evidence the Imam Committee held against Ayandegan and its employees was that the printing presses confiscated from the printing house were manufactured in Israel.

The committee had ways of labeling this circumstantial evidence as conclusive evidence of guilt. Soon other newspapers in opposition to Khomeini’s regime were asked to make an account of their positions and to explain the reason(s) for their treacherous behavior against Ayatollah Khomeini. All publications that were not sympathetic to Khomeini’s regime were shut down. The Executive Department of Iran, including the President and the Prime Minister knew nothing of the Imam Committee’s action regarding the closure of opposition newspapers. The following afternoon, the Revolutionary Public Prosecutor issued another declaration saying that all newspaper publications that were not “pro-Khomeini” would be shuttered. The Prosecutor put off to a later date the question of whether those newspapers already closed would be allowed to print even “pro-Khomeini” journalism.

A NEW INVASION—THE STRENGTHENING OF KHOMEINI’S REGIME

A few days later, revolutionary guards attacked the Fadayan Khalq party headquarters with tanks and occupied the building. A different group of Khomeini’s guards were sent to occupy the headquarters of Mojahedin Khalq, another political party with an armed militia incorporated into it. The Mohahedin’s are Islamic-Marxists, Marxists that refrain from a strict “anti-materialistic” philosophy. The occupation of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran and the kidnapping of American hostages were staged by these two leftist parties.

The Mojahedin group was made up mostly of students who resisted the guards by lining up with their parents in front of the party-building. Ramadan, the month of fasting and prayer commenced during one of the confrontations between the Guard and the Mojahedin. The Mojahedin kept their fast and prayed in the street in front of their party-building. They tried to get Khomeini’s approval for the public fasting and prayer and allow them to continue, but their requests were met with disapproval. The Revolutionary Guard brutally attacked the Mojahedin affiliates and occupied the party-building as they had Fadayan Khalq’s. The headquarters of the Toudeh Party, the pro-Soviet communists however, were protected by Khomeini’s Guard and allowed to carry on with their regular activities. In addition, the Revolutionary Public Prosecutor gave special permission to the Toudeh Party to publish its newsletter. No one protested the action because the government would stifle any and all dissenters.

DR HASSAN NAZIH: FACTIONS AGAINST THE AYATOLLAH KHOMEINI

At this time in 1979, the Lawyers’ Institute was discussing the Iranian Constitution, the various political parties and Khomeini’s staff. Dr. Hassan Nazih, President of the Institution, spoke against Khomeini’s platform. Nazih was selected as Chairman of the Board of Directors of the National Iranian Oil Association because he was well known for his upright conduct and benevolence. He had been a close friend of Mossadeq and fought against dictatorship in Iran for thirty years. Because of his open criticism of the Shah, he spent time in prison. Dr. Nazih had achieved wide recognition and prestige since the fall of the Shah and no one thought he would risk tainting his stature by speaking against the fledgling Khomeini regime, but he did.

Dr. Nazih criticized the new dictatorship saying that if only one person is allowed to speak on behalf of 35 million Iranians, Iran’s prestige as an ancient civilized government would be jeopardized. Nazih emphasized the basic joy derived from people’s freedoms: the ability to socialize, for example. “We are a rich country with 11 billion dollars in exchange currency. No one can call us mostazafin (miserables, Fr.) any longer.” Nazih was referring to Khomeini and the clerics when he said this, because they had often called Iranians “miserables” according to a legend in the Qoran. The Qoran is narrated by an Egyptian Pharoah. He treated all people as slaves and referred to them openly as “miserables” or mostazafin. Nazih spoke with a group of lawyers and said that Iran should adopt a constitution that corresponds with their own Islamic culture and traditions.

The following day, Khomeini addressed a group of peasants and said that Iran did not need the advice of lawyers. He reasoned that the lawyers could not pray, so their knowledge was heathen. He claimed that Nazih wanted to betray the country to American and Israeli interests and must not be listened to at all. Khomieni reached out for the support of the illiterates by saying that they (Iran) did not need lawyers to survive and prosper as a nation. Their firm religious belief was that what the nation needed were followers of the Islamic Republic and its cleric leaders. Obedience and respect of the clergy are enough to find success in life the clergy maintained. “God confirm you who follow us”, they proclaimed.

Khomeini and the rest of the clergy threatened professionals such as lawyers, doctors, teachers, engineers, writers and physicians to obey them or suffer the consequences of punishment at the hands of their beloved illiterate followers. Under these circumstances, the National Democratic Front demanded that people demonstrate against the clergy. People went to Tehran University for the demonstration while the overflow remained in the surrounding streets. At four o’clock in the afternoon, the gathering began to march toward the square where the prime minister’s office was situated.

VIOLENCE AT THE DEMONSTRATION: [ALLAH PARTY vs. NATIONAL DEMOCRATIC FRONT]

At the beginning of the demonstration, vagrants of the Allah Party (Party of God) drove lorries and buses full of their members to attack the gathering. The attackers were mercenaries hired by Khomeini’s regime to break up the demonstration. The 150 mercenaries loaded ambulances with stones and bricks to throw at the crowd of 800,000. Many of the people demonstrating retaliated against the Allah Party, and Khomeini’s mercenary forces left (fled by the original, emphasis added). [Original translation ended after “forces” in previous sentence].

When Khomeini heard that his rabble did not succeed in breaking up the demonstration, he called for the Revolutionary Guard to disperse the crowds with machine gun fire into the sky. When Guards realized discharges into the sky had no effect, they administered tear gas in their immediate vicinity. Still determined to achieve their purpose, the demonstrators marched on. Khomeini’s Guards used gas masks while administering the tear gas while infiltrating strongholds with knives, thereby dispersing the crowds of demonstrators. Rocks and clubs were also used unnervedly (sic) by the Revolutionary Guard. More than 300 persons were wounded in the attack.

Despite the casualties, the demonstrators marched on. Well, not exactly marched…they read a manifesto in front of the prime minister’s office.

KHOMEINI CAUGHT IN ALLEGED UNTRUTH

That night, Khomeini was frightened and claimed publically that 300 wounded people from the demonstration were all from the Allah Party and not the National Democratic Front. He ordered his Guard to capture Dr. Matin-Laftari, General Secretary of the National Democratic Front, and execute him. Soon after Khomeini’s order went out, the NDF issued a declaration stating that Dr. Laftari did not order the shootings and was therefore not responsible for the 300 “accidental injuries” occurring at the demonstration. The NDF’s Board of Directors accepted the responsibility for the demonstration, ostensibly putting Matin-Laftari in the clear, but Khomeini would not change his mind; Laftari should be executed. Khomeini wanted revenge for the stinging criticism he endured from Laftari the previous month at Mossedeq’s tomb.

The Ayatollah emphasized repeatedly in his campaign that the nation should keep a “unity of words” and not try to contradict the Imam or the new government. Khomeini proclaimed that a “unity of words” would avert discord and tamper down anti-Islamic attitudes. Dr. Laftari agreed with the Ayatollah that a “unity of words” should be instituted, but not if Khomeini was the only one allowed to utter them! After this insulting remark of Laftari’s, inter alia, Khomeini sought to take the lawyer’s life more than ever.

Khomeini sent his Guard to Laftari’s home, then to the home of his mother-in-law trying to locate him, but Laftari was nowhere to be found. Khomeini then ordered Laftari’s immediate family be confined to their homes and had his mother-in-law, who was visiting the Laftari home, arrested. Increased pressure was placed on Laftari’s family to help locate the fugitive as he was able to elude the Revolutionary Guard without a clue as to his whereabouts.

Dr. Hassan Nazih, a steadfast and brave politician that stood up to Khomeini when criticism was in order, became the overwhelming favorite in the up and coming Presidential Elections in Iran. Khomeini was not enthralled about a major critic of his inaugurated as president, so he decided to dispose of him. Nazih was the Chairman of the Board of Directors of the National Iranian Oil Organization (NIOO) at the time.

Khomeini realized that Laftari was very popular among the oil workers and sought to use his enemy’s loyalty base as the leverage against him. Khomeini called into question the integrity of Laftari and the working conditions that the oil service employees performed under. The Ayatollah sent his son-in-law clergyman Eshraqi to investigate the NIOO working conditions, pay and benefits of its employees. Eshraqi did not find the employees dissatisfied with their conditions, but on the contrary, they praised Nazih for the concern and fairness he showed his workers. Finding Nazih without fault in labor relations, Eshraqi reported to Khomeini that Nazih was not a good production manager. Nazih defended that charge by responding that while he had been President (and CEO?) of NIOO, production costs were cut in half while oil production was constant despite repeated shut-downs during the Revolution.

If one day went by without more than ten of the Shah’s men executed, it was an unusual day. The people of Iran grew accustomed to the executions and violent attacks of the Revolutionary Guard upon uncooperative dissenters. Khomeini wanted the nation to be revived by Islam. Those who did not follow the laws of the newly formed “Islamic Republic” would be severely punished. For example, the Revolutionary Guard caught a surgeon with a glass of whiskey after spending eleven straight hours in the operating room. His punishment: twenty-five lashes. The next day, when doctors, nurses and medical personnel arrived on the scene protesting their colleagues flogging by a medieval Ayatollah Khomeini, the Imam’s Guard attacked and beat them all with clubs.

BAZARGAN AND KHOMEINI MEET FOR AMNESTY TALKS REGARDING POLITICAL PRISONERS

Prime Minister Bazargan, politically a moderate, made a call on Ayatollah Khomeini to plead amnesty for the political prisoners still being held that were arrested by the Revolutionary Guard during the Shah’s regime. Khomeini, stubborn as usual, responded that “foreign agents” and their conspirators must be punished. Khomeini had the “grand” reason that they were also sacrificial in the sense that to display Islamic dignity and justice, the traitors must be put to death in expiation of sin in order for the resurgence of the Islamic faith to blossom in Iran.

At this time, as the new regime was being formed, factories were shut down and production slowed to a crawl. The theologians were apparently not familiar with the economic principles of supply and demand as the price of manufactured goods continued to increase under the clerics’ management. These economic theologians threatened to whip any merchants who sold their wares at a premium to the current rate. In other words a “price freeze” to stem inflation was in effect and the law would be stringently enforced. Some merchants and salesmen were whipped in public for defying the clergymen’s demands, but the whippings did not improve the economy. Industry was the root of Iran’s economic troubles. Production was low in Iran because owners and managers were killed by Khomeini’s henchmen and not replaced by qualified personnel.

In each factory, a member of the clergy was appointed to coordinate the personnel. The employees however, refused to work for clergymen acting as inept supervisors. In retribution of the workers’ antagonistic attitudes, the clerics in charge labeled them “communists” that were too lazy to work and reduced their salaries by 50%. Jobs became hard to locate and food was scarce or prohibitively expensive to most of the population. Khomeini’s economic advisor, Bani Sadr, declared that everyone must consume only what is produced within Iran; there would be no importing of goods for storage or consumption. The result of this policy was that the price of eggs, fruits, rice, grain and meat increased by 300% and were not readily available even at those prices.

The Iranian Constitution was being prepared at this time of 1979. It would give increased power to the clergy and supreme authority to Khomeini as “supreme leader.” Khomeini’s power to veto all governmental decisions of Parliament, the President and the Prime Minister made him the new political and spiritual “dictator” of the country. When the referendum for the new constitution was brought before the public, many districts and cities refused to cooperate in the election. They felt their rights or those of their fellow citizens were being neglected and even abused. Despite the abstinence of many voters who felt left out or underrepresented under the new constitution, Khomieni or merely his regime men stuffed the ballot boxes in favor of the Constitution’s approval and the Referendum was passed. There was now a new Iranian Constitution.

KHOMEINI ACQUIRES ENEMIES—ATTEMPTED ASSASSINATION OF AYATOLLAH SHARIATMADARI

Ayatollah Khomeini found himself in a bad situation when an attempted assassination was made on the life of Ayatollah Shariatmadari. Ayatollah Shariatmadari escaped harm, but his young bodyguard was slain. Vast and passionate demonstrations followed Azerbaijan and Qom in support of Shariatmadari. Khomeini’s Guard opened fire on the demonstrators, killing some and wounding others. In Tabriz, the capitol of Azarbaijan, a similar episode occurred, but the people fought back and a civil war erupted. Residents took over radio and television stations and occupied the governmental buildings. They broadcast commentary derogatory to the new dictatorship by saying among other things, that Khomeini was a worse tyrant than even the Shah. Demonstrators tore down Khomeini’s pictures displayed on the neighborhood streets and chanted “Down with Khomeini, down with Khomeini!”

Khomeini was a man seen by many as having a very arrogant visage although possessing a very timid disposition. He asked Shariatmadari to meet with him regarding the uprisings in Qom and Azarbaijan. The meeting was the most bitter between the two they had ever known—they argued for hours. When Shariatmadari emerged from the meeting, he implored his followers for a calm return to work. The citizens however, refused to resume their posts. They considered Khomeini a murderer and continued to fight against his new regime.

Kurdestan and Bluchestan were two of the most troublesome areas for Khomeini to manage. In Kurdestan, people were fed up with the massacres instigated or exacerbated by the Revolutionary Guard and swept the Guard out of their province. In Bluchestan, all the guards fled for fear of their lives and residents there began to manage their own governmental affairs. After the departure of the Revolutionary Guard from Kurdestan and Bluchestan, Khomeini sent his army to the areas and proclaimed that martial law would be imposed again for the first time in a year. A year earlier, Khomeini had pledged never again to impose martial law on the citizens of his country, but here he was reneging on that pledge.

MARTIAL LAW: MILITARY RULE IN THE ISLAMIC REPUBLIC OF IRAN

When martial law is in effect, the rights and privileges of citizens are subject to curtailment by the military at any time. The military commander can arrest anyone he wants to without probable cause to believe a crime had been committed and on very little if any evidence against the arrestee. During martial law periods, all justice courts in Iran were suspended indefinitely and the military courts would step in to stem the flood of litigation. Expediency of the military court enabled them to all the cases that were ongoing, and provide consistency for crimes related to the Revolution, of which most of the military under Khomeini had taken part. To prevent assembly of anti-government demonstrators, martial law in Iran prohibited the gathering of more than three persons at any one time in any one place.

After the Shah was deposed, Khomeini sympathized with the people who had suffered because of martial law, but when the time came for strict enforcement in his own regime, he utilized the Shah’s classic dictatorial methods to quell social unrest. Khomeini’s interests opposed those of the Bluchestanians. Fighting between the Bluchestainians and Khomeini’s forces broke out and Khomeini’s soldiers prevailed. After that battle, the country was calm albeit perhaps due to fear of Guard reprisals and crack-downs.

The internal strife in Iran was growing worse. Khomeini and his advisors were desperately looking for a new situation that would rid them of their opposition; or at least silence them. Khomeini and his council decided to create a social environment so that anyone who continued with public protests could be labeled and indicted as an American intelligence agent and tried in military court. This was the reason behind the seizure of the American Embassy in Tehran. Gunmen, in the guise of students, took over the U.S. Embassy and captured over fifty of its staff and held them hostage. The Shah’s trip to the United States for an operation and treatment for his cancer came at an opportune moment for the Ayatollah. It gave him the chance to confiscate the U.S. Embassy and a number of its citizens while the Shah was in the United States, giving him leverage now bargaining with the American government. After the embassy seizure, it was said that Islamic “students” had captured the hostages in the American Embassy on their own initiative. As the next few days passed and information was gathered, Khomeini’s position in the matter was seen as favoring the incursion and occupation of the Embassy as a matter of somehow a legitimate Iranian interest in its control over the espionage of foreign powers. It wasn’t long before Khomeini openly condoned the action of the students as well as the holding of the American hostages it now considered spies. Perhaps the Regime had found evidence of espionage at the Embassy or more simply, information was found at the American Embassy compound which the Khomeini-led government could use as leverage to bargain with in dialogues with American President Jimmy Carter.

BAZARGAN RESIGNS

As a statement of his protest and non-alliance against Khomeini’s position regarding the American hostages, Prime Minister Bazargan gave the Ayatollah his resignation. Bazargan had asked to be relieved of his post earlier, but the Imam would not previously accept it. After the seizure of the Embassy, Khomeini felt obligated and/or was strategically appropriate to allow Bazargan to resign during the hostage crisis. The resignation diversified the defense, or deflected American opposition in that an opposing stance was now acknowledged by the Islamic Republic of Iran with the acceptance of Bazargan’s resignation and all its overtones. Although Bazargan may have been a minor player in Iran’s government after the Republic decided to take and keep hostages, it happened to be a splendid time to make such a change in prime ministers in order to draw the world’s attention toward Iranian diplomacy and away from the hostages. The clergy wanted to keep Bazargan in office because he was able to assuage the public into accepting the Islamic Republic. Bazargan had been the Ayatollah’s token politician and since he held nothing more than an influential office of in Iran’s government, it would have been obvious to the world that if he kept his post during the hostage crisis he was merely acting as a “front man” for the Ayatollah. The only real power Bazargan held was influential, which in his case did not include leverage. Since the clergy sided with the “students” who took the U.S. Embassy, there was little likelihood the clerics would reverse themselves on that decision any time soon.

In his first statement after the hostage crisis, President Carter did not condemn Khomeini’s action (perhaps due to foundation of espionage claims?). The U.S. admittedly needed Iranian oil and did not want to spoil its chances in future oil trades because of any pre-mature statements that could upset the Iranian government or its people. Carter’s advisors did not evaluate the condition in Iran as well as they might have. Carter’s “turn the other cheek” reading of the Bible showed his hand to the adversary. Perhaps leaders and military advisors that followed learned to read “turn the other cheek” as ‘go back to center of gravity after the slap’. Neither did President Carter condemn or denounce with harsh words the dreaded action of the “students”. I Carter wasn’t going to do anything about it, Khomeini certainly wasn’t. Carter’s reticence reinforced Khomeini’s resolve to continue along the same, stubborn lines of Islamic Republic progress. He knew after the first Carter statement on the hostages, the United States would not act with violence. [Perhaps Reagan would have, had the hostages not been freed after he was elected to replace Carter as President of the United States in 1980].

***

In Iran, Bani Sadr was chosen as the new foreign minister. Sadr was known as a moderate politician and did not always reiterate the extremist line of most clergymen. Khomeini was dissatisfied with Sadr because he did not always agree with him—the Grand Ayatollah. As a result, Khomeini fired Sadr and appointed Ghobazadeh to be the new prime minister. Before Sadr, Iran did not have an active prime minister post-Revolution. The Revolutionary Guard managed all major political affairs whether an extreme version or lax version of martial law was in place under the supreme leader.

KHOMEINI CLAIMS SHAH CONSPIRING WITH U.S.; UNITED NATIONS DOCKET ON HOSTAGE CRISIS; KHOMEINI RELEASES SELECTED GROUP OF HOSTAGES BACK TO THE UNITED STATES

Khomeini and his inner circle claimed the U.S. sent the Shah to New York to arrange another coup whereby he would return to Iran as a victorious King. This claim did not hold up under scrutiny because it was needless for the Shah to make a stop-over in New York if he were actually coming back to Iran. When the issue was brought up at a meeting of the United Nations in reference to the Americans held hostage in Iran, Iranian Foreign Minister Ghobazadeh declared he would not attend the UN Session. Knowing that the U.S. would demand answers pertaining to the hostages, why they were abducted, their prospects and physical condition, Ghobazadeh claimed the United Nations was controlled by the United States and that it would be unwise for him to attend the scheduled Session. Soon after, Khomeini freed some of the hostages to go back to the United States, mostly women and African-American embassy staff. Khomeini used this ploy to ease world-wide tension over the situation and to display to the world Islam does not discriminate, but respects blacks and women. It seemed to many however, that Khomeini was discriminating against white, Anglo-Saxon men.

President Carter’s strategy regarding the hostages was to proceed step by step in negotiations with Khomeini and the Revolutionary Guard. When he found his threats ineffective, Carter declared the United States would impose economic sanctions against Iran. These “sanctions” did not include an embargo of food and medicine, the two most vital imports Iran received from the United States.

Iran did not need any imported commodities except food and medicine. Iran did not want machinery, cars, factories, guns or coca-cola because it was still auditing materials they already possessed. Thus, Iran felt no pressure from Carter’s economic sanctions, especially when other countries trading with both the United States and Iran did not take the sanctions seriously. During the embargo, Iran bought wheat (I suppose wheat may have been regulated under the sanctions) and other supplies from US allies, who in turn bought more when needed by Iran, from the United States. In effect, the sanctions only created a longer albeit illegitimate convoy of American product to Iran, but did not cut them off. On the contrary, more non-American hands were getting the grease.

PRESIDENT JIMMY CARTER’S ADMINISTRATIVE POLICY TOWARD IRAN

Khomeini was particularly cautious in his diplomatic attacks of America in general and President Carter in particular. He knew the geographical distance between the United States and Iran was prohibitive of an American incursion, but did not want to provoke the American military. Khomeini also knew Carter had religious scruples, was a “tea-toteler” and had been a commander of a ship in the Navy. He also knew inflation would spiral out of control for both nations if a war broke out between them, but the United States had more to lose in that regard. Iran is protected by natural barriers of land surrounding the Persian Gulf, and with many of its allies within close proximity, any kind of military action in the Gulf would be difficult for the United States to coordinate (at that time).

Without realizing all the consequences of their action, the U.S. Government deported some 2,000 Iranian students who were unable to pay tuition at American schools. President Carter went on to state that all Iranian students who were not presently enrolled in a school on American soil should be deported. What happened as a result of this policy was that most of the students who couldn’t pay their tuition to American schools were anti-Khomeini and sent back to Iran whereas the students who could pay were pro-Khomeini, just how the Ayatollah had wanted it. The consequences of Carter’s tuition pay or leave policy included pro-Khomeini forces left in the United States allowed to blend in with unsuspecting university students who established new organizations and funded existing ones to support the broadcast of propaganda to their members through tape-recorded messages sent by telephonic means. These pro-Khomeini “students” in the United States threatened to terrorize and assassinate high-ranking government officials if military action was initiated against Iran.

Deporting Iranian students and visitors continued in the United States during the Carter Presidency. It fact, one state’s Senate approved a bill that prevented 3,000 Iranian students from continuing their studies at their state subsidized universities. The representative from the state who delivered the proposal reasoned publically that if Iranian students go back home, they will act as disruptors to the Khomeini regime and reforms will take place due to the anti-Khomeini sentiment thrown into the mix. The representative tied returning Iranian students to Iran with a magical tit-for-tat whereby the hostages would be released; Voila! This kind of American medina-naivete foreign policy back-fired as it always had in its dealings with Iran. The United States did not foresee the tendency of the deported Iranian students who may have been sympathetic toward the American position, and may have even wanted to become naturalized citizens, to feel hostility not toward Khomeini, but toward their former American hosts. Some of these students may have invested a great deal in their education abroad and had nothing to show for it but a few photographs of the “States”, and now they had to face Khomeini for “de-programming”.

Why do Iranians demonstrate against America? Because the clergymen told them that America disrupts Iran’s political system and brings poverty and dictatorship wherever they go. A little psychology taken in secondary school would be enough to know that if one increases pressure on the Iranian people, they would feel that the United States is no longer their associate, but their adversary. The pain of the sanctions would be real to the deported returning to Iran as it was to those already living under them. Generally speaking, distance and tension bring division between countries. If Iranian students were immersed in American culture, they would have more to say about America than only what Ayatollah Khomeini or his followers told them about the United States of America. By the immersion of foreign students into American Universities, the spiritual, political and cultural influence of the controlled and insulated environment could play a role in diplomacy with the United States once the student returns to his or her home country. As far as Iranians who studied in the United States in the late 1970’s were concerned, the osmosis value of allowing them to continue study indefinitely until they paid their tuition fees outweighed the cost of deporting them to a hostile Iran. In regard to “reform” in Iran, the author ‘M’ said, “A change of attitude of an extremely changeable people could conceivably occur.”

[If the United States cut their communication with Iran, the Soviets would have opened their gates to Iranian students, and in a brief period of time, the USSR would have expert propagandists in Iran telling the students who to fear—the Americans. Just when the United States gave the order to deport Iranian students, Russia declared they would accept 20,000 Iranian students who wanted to study free of charge. If Iran fell under increased Soviet influence, who would the Americans have to blame but themselves?]

Khomeini’s regime was pleased that by deporting anti-Khomeini students from American schools, the Islamic organizations within the U.S. could operate unchallenged by their anti-Khomeini counter-parts. Islamic propagandists in the United States could begin operations on a large-scale and without opposing Iranian voices, they could be that much more persuasive and influential (scary) to the American leadership to come.

INVASION OF AFGHANISTAN BY THE UNION OF SOVIET SOCIALIST REPUBLICS (U.S.S.R)

In the midst of these events, Russian troops stormed through Afghanistan and occupied its territory. The reason for the invasion was that guerilla warfare was taking place in various provinces of Afghanistan and the USSR alleged the uprisings were stirred up and led logistically by American undercover agents.

Reaction to the invasion by the United States included deploying naval ships in the Persian Gulf. This alone was not a strong enough signal to Russia in that the U.S. would like to be in the Persian Gulf anyway due to the hostage crisis, so it did little if anything to alter the dilemma in Afghanistan. American officials thought that the Afghani government would send the Russians back to the USSR, but the communist propaganda was so persuasive, no request of assistance for aid from the U.S. was made by Afghanistan. Because the Afghanis did not revolt outright against the Soviets, the Russians were confident of their position in Afghanistan immediately after the occupation began.

The United States wanted to take advantage of the Soviet invasion by proposing to help Iran, if need be, against a Russian invasion. Immediately after the American proposal to Iran for contingent support, the clergymen, along with Khomeini, refused the offer. The White House administrators had again not studied up on the situation correctly. Under the circumstances, with daily demonstrations taking place against the American government in Iran, it turned out to be ridiculous that the United States should propose to “help” Iran against the Soviets. It would have been more logical, albeit not “polite”, had the U.S. been silent until Iran may have requested their assistance, but the Wall Street “option” mentality prevailed on the East Coast at the time, and the U.S. wanted to capitalize on selling one to Iran in the guise of a security pact. As it happened, the clergy got a hold of the missive and started to tear the image of “America” apart. This was their grand opportunity to rail against the Imperialist Americans, saying “It [the United States] is so forward that they cannot rest from their foreign policy of aggression.” Iranian diplomats repeatedly declared they were not threatened by the Russians, and would act independently of any third party allies in Afghanistan or in a possible alliance with Afghanistan guerrillas should the Soviets cross into Iranian territory.

AZERBAIJAN UPRISING AGAINST THE AYATOLLAH KHOMEINI BASED ON THEOLOGY?

Followers of Khomeini and Shariatmadari fought against each other in the province of Azerbaijan. Khomieni’s Revolutionary Guard overcame Shariatmadari’s followers, and the survivors from Shariatmadari’s side of the fight were put on trial. A religious judge sentenced more than ten of the anti-Khomeini reactionaries to death. The mass execution infuriated the people of Azerbaijan, and demonstrators gathered from the suburbs to the Capitol of Tabriz to object to the capital sentences. When Khomeini’s Guard opened fire on the crowd, the people became angrier. They raided banks and governmental buildings and then set fire to them afterwards. With smoke-filled streets, and all of the surrounding buildings ablaze, the Guard fled with their machine guns in hand back to their bases. The natives took over the television and radio stations and began broadcasting propaganda against Ayatollah Khomeini and his regime. This was a serious defeat and an outrage in the eyes of Ayatollah Khomeini. Army divisions stationed in Azerbaijan “flipped” and joined protesters in chanting “Down with Khomeini” due to the injustices they attributed to the Imam.

RIVALRY BETWEEN AYATOLLAH KHOMEINI AND AYATOLLAH SHARIATMADARI GETS POINTED

After the course of a few days, the army was called in from all parts of the country by Khomeini to settle the rebellion in Azerbaijan. When the situation was well under control, the regime summoned the officers who had joined in the Azerbaijan revolt to appear before the clergymen in Tehran. The officers had thought they were being transferred to a more stable post when they were summoned, as it was customary to transit to Tehran before being re-assigned. Once they arrived in the Capitol however, they discovered that their situation was grave. They were accused of planning a coup d’etat against Ayatollah Khomeini with the American government. Later, they were arraigned and subsequently found guilty by a ulama (priest) and sentenced to death. The execution of various individuals aligned with anti-Khomeini groups, especially dissenting military sergeants and officers within the groups, escalated rapidly during Khomeini’s feud with Shariatmadari.

Propaganda from Khomeini’s regime continued to be printed and spoken more frequently in Iran. Clergymen who were formerly Khomeini supporters sent letters and telegrams to Ayatollah Shariatmadari asking him to dissolve the Islamic People’s Party (which was at odds with Khomeini’s government). Shariatmadari was supported by more than three million members, most actively in the provinces of Azerbaijan and Qom. The clergymen who followed Khomeini persisted in regarding the members of the Islamic Peoples Party as agents of “America” and Israel.

The clergy’s letters and remarks were printed daily in the newspapers, including satirical responses added like captions from Shariatmadari. Dari’s response to the clergymen’s allegations that the Islamic People’s Party caused the unrest in Tabriz was a complete denial. Shariatmadari followed up the clergymen’s accusation by alleging the clergymen were the ones that caused the rebellion. Dari claimed the reason for the rebellion was that the clergymen, in their ambition to control Iranian politics, ignored people’s inalienable rights. He asked the clergy, “If two million members of the IPP were all foreign agents, it was a shame that the clergy failed to direct these people in a manner befitting to God.” He asked the clergymen to withdraw from their hooliganistic behavior and regain their composure as theologians.

REBELLION IN BANDAR LENGA, SOUTHERN IRAN

In Bandar Lenga, another seaport to the south of Iran on the Persian Gulf, more demonstrations broke out against Ayatollah Khomeini. The Revolutionary Guard opened fire on the people, and battles ensued for some weeks afterward. After about one hundred of the inhabitants were killed, the people of Bandar Lenga were defeated by Khomeini’s Army. Though anti-Khomeini protests in various parts of the country were being treated with severity, the essential force behind the resistance movement was tamped down but not extinguished. Revolutionaries with their own visions of leadership were waiting in the wings for the proper opportunity to show their discontent for Khomeini’s regime.

SELECTION OF A PRESIDENT AND A NEW SAVAK

Khomeini ordered the election of a president for Iran. About 1,000 candidates applied for the position, so the Revolutionary Council organized a new SAVAK to be utilized by the clergy to investigate the backgrounds and political tendencies of each of the candidates. Khomeini used many of the officers who were not executed in the purges to renovate the organization. These officers were members of SAVAK that worked under the Shah in the former regime, so they knew how to structure such an investigative agency. The new SAVAK investigated the backgrounds of the candidates and delivered their report to the decision-making council. This council in turn handed the list to Khomeini, and the unacceptable candidates who were eliminated in the process were members of the Mohahedin Khalq (a radical Socialist political party), the Iranian National Front and popular “independents”. The citizens of Azerbaijan, Gonbad, Khuzestan, Kurdestan, Bluchestan and the coastal provinces were upset with the clergymen’s nominations as could be expected.

Foreign Minister Ghobazadeh, aspiring to be President, falsely declared to the people that the Panamanian government had arrested the Shah at his request. He said that following the election, he would go to Panama and personally escort the Shah back to Iran. Although Ghobazadeh’s statements were debunked by the British Broadcasting Company (BBC) as fraudulent, Ghobazadeh, as acting Superintendent of both radio and television broadcasting in Iran, censored the BBC reports from broadcast by Iranian media until after the Presidential election.

Bani Sadr was chosen as the new President of Iran despite Ghobazadeh’s attempts to deceive the public with such outrageous bravado. In his first speech after the election, Bani Sadr said that his administration would focus on an increase in national production, controlling inflation and negotiations leading to the release of the American hostages. He added that he would bring order to an Iranian government which had descended into chaos as a result of the ineptitude of numerous managers and statisticians who led the country after the Shah was deposed. Sadr believed the students should return to the classroom while he worked toward achieving release of the hostages.

KHOMEINI’S VETO POWER

Khomeini kept the students at the US Embassy to guard the American hostages, contrary to Sadr’s wish list. Sadr was incapable of political or military retaliation against the Ayatollah because Khomeini had power to veto any presidential decision under the new Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Iran. Khomeini was almost glad that Sadr sought to free the hostages by executive order because he could publically veto Sadr’s order and look like a powerful winner. It is interesting to note that before the dispute over whether the “students” should return to school, which ended with the Khomeini veto, candidate Ghobazadeh had declared that the students who were occupying the US Embassy were communist and should be driven out of the compound.

Though Khomeini declared repeatedly before the presidential election that order would be restored in the country, the election of Sadr did not change the essential structure of the Islamic Republic of Iran, but made the president either a ceremonial figurehead or a mere puppet of the hierarchy of power under the new Constitution. Sadr was restrained from making any decisions by himself without running it by the Revolutionary Council, the Imam Committees and if necessary, Khomeini himself first. Khomeini’s ministers, chosen by the Revolutionary Council and Imam Committees, had State-sanctioned militias at their disposal, so Sadr could only use his rhetoric to influence them. The administrative committees working as agents of the Ayatollah Khomeini did not obey Sadr’s orders nor did they respect his unwelcome requests. On the contrary, in the end, the President was subordinant to them since they reported to the “big boss”, Supreme Leader Khomeini. The bureaucratic decision-making
groups became another buffer between the Iranian President and the Ayatollah Khomeini.

During this time, Khomeini was being influenced by communist organizers. He was attracted to the Soviets because of their common opponent, the United States. Since Iran was at odds with the United States, Khomeini had to look to the Soviet Union for military support. To stabilize his government, Khomeini arranged for a tumultuous event to occur in Iran. He ordered universities to transform themselves into Islamic schools that prepared students for the priesthood. He objected to the present educational system in Iran based in large part upon Western secular values and perspectives. Giving examples of the subjects of physics, chemistry and mathematics, Khomeini advocated the incorporation of neglected courses such as religion and jurisprudence to give balance to a heretofore Westernized curriculum. The universities merely prepared students for an “irreligious life” Khomeini said, unless their education was highly tempered with an Islamic foundation. He claimed the sciences premised their proofs upon an agnostic denial of divine creation and the Resurrection of the chosen after death; thus, were false teachings. He believed that schools should no longer be co-educational but that only males should attend the universities. Women, he said, were meant to wear veils and be kept separate from the men in order for them to stay at home with their matronly chores.

Khomeini sent his messages to the students through President Bani Sadr. In the beginning, Sadr was given no significant authority other than to convey Khomeini’s statements to the public through appropriate channels. One particular message stated that if students did not obey the Ayatollah, Khomeini’s followers would come out to the universities to exact punishment upon them. Dissenting students replied that they would follow the dictates of their national Iranian heritage regardless of Ayatollah Khomeini’s threats and would refuse to obey the “medieval customs” of the invading Moslems in the Seventh Century A.D. Following an organized student refusal to follow Ayatollah Khomeini, vagrant Khomeini supporters attacked them with clubs, stones and knives at colleges around the nation.

The Revolutionary Guard commended the action of the loyalists who supported the Islamic Republic at the universities affected. During the first day of fighting, students were killed at each revolting campus and dozens of others suffered injuries. Despite the violent clashes, the student population of “Greater Iran” as a whole resisted the Khomeini advocates’ attacks with cohesive solidarity. Yet, every day, groups or gangs rushed onto selected institute and university campuses and attacked students attending there. One of the most severe attacks incurred at the hands of Khomeini loyalists occurred at Tehran Technical University: twenty-two people were killed and three hundred injured. At Gilan University in Rasht, five students were shot to death by Khomeini’s Guard and approximately one thousand were injured in a single day.

In Shiraz, the situation was even worse. Students in this city began a counter-revolution against the Ayatollah Khomeini. Khomeini’s regime did not have the reins on the radical youth parties which had overthrown the Shah’s regime and now some wanted a pay-off on their terms. These groups established Ayatollah Khomeini as the supreme dictator of Iran, but they were not of his fold [see, Salon de Khomeini (French for “House of Khomeini”)]. They were only used by the clergy as stepping stones until Khomeini established his legitimate Revolutionary Guard, rendering the radical communist students redundant pests or at best, underworld gangs to be subsequently used as needed. One thing was becoming apparent, the communist youth gangs were esteemed as expendable.

During the first days of the above-described attacks at the campuses, the United States severed all relations with Iran. Japan and common market countries in Europe quickly followed the American lead and refused to negotiate with Iran. The withdrawal of trade and negotiations actually benefitted the Khomeini regime in that he was able to accuse his opponents of conspiring with the United States in a plot to overthrow the Iranian government. The timing of the American response played into the Ayatollah’s theory of a conspiracy. It was a logical inference to draw. Khomeini was able to use fear and tactics such as these to unite the country against a common enemy: in this case the United States of America.

THE KURDESTAN CONFLICT

The people of Kurdestan would not hear of the Ayatollah’s antics and began to violently oppose his regime in words and actions. Khomeini continued to label all opposing fronts and political movements agents of the USSR, the United States or Israel. Japan recommended that President Carter avoid all military action in Iran because it could move Khomeini closer to the Soviets. In April of 1978, Iran had begun economic negotiations with Soviet Russia and East Germany.

On April 29, 1980, after Iran’s negotiations with the Soviets was announced, U.S. President Jimmy Carter authorized a rescue mission to recover the American citizens held hostage at the U.S. Embassy in Tehran. The mission was to involve eight helicopters that were to land 200 miles south-east of Tehran in the open desert. When one of the choppers was lost in a sandstorm, another had a mechanical breakdown and a third collided in mid-air with another aircraft, the mission was aborted by U.S. Officials and/or military advisors and/or other officers. The helicopters returned to their respective bases, some presumably in Cairo, Egypt, others to their aircraft carrier the U.S.S. Nimitz which was then stationed in the Persian Gulf.

On July 27, 1980, the long-sought after Shah of Iran died in his hospital bed at Maadi Military Hospital near Cairo, despite surgeons’ attempts to control his cancer and excessive bleeding. According to one source, reporter Barbara Walters, the Shah’s American doctor Michael DeBakey said the cause of the Shah’s death was infection. The Shah’s infectious resistance was low because of the chemo-therapy treatments necessary to arrest his spreading cancer. As far as Khomeini and his collaborators were concerned, the death of the Shah would not expedite the release of the American hostages. There were many other factors involved in the hostage crisis that prevented the Shah’s death from being a simple solution to the problem.

The Iranian “students” holding the Americans captive in Iran demanded certain conditions be met before any moves to release the hostages would be made. Among these requests was the return of the Shah’s investments that he had made in the United States before his departure from Iran in 1978. The Iranian reactionaries also wanted apologies from the White House for the alleged crimes perpetrated in whole or in part while the Shah was in power. Many of the radical reactionaries also demanded a ransom be paid for the fifty-two hostages remaining in the country after the fine or “sanction” was set by an Islamic Court. The court could decided the magnitude of the fine to match the severity of the accused’s crime. When the Shah left Iran, there was no organized “information central” in Tehran or anywhere else in the country for Western news sources to coordinate its activities.

It is claimed that the United States was engaging in secret investigations of the emerging Khomeini administration after the Shah’s fall from power. The reactionaries (aka radicals) holding the hostages at the U.S. Embassy in Tehran claimed the American hostages were not “diplomats” but foreign agents (aka “spies”) actively engaged in the destabilization and overthrow the Khomeini regime.

The reason Khomeini and his “students” seized the American Embassy in Tehran and captured Americans within the compound was not solely for the purpose of getting the Shah extradited back to Iran. The American election was approaching and if Iran could influence the election, the victor would “owe one” to them, albeit only in a sub-text sort of “owe”. There are other matters undisclosed to the general public at large which kept the American hostages confined to Iran. Why would the United States stage a rescue mission to free the hostages if only 60% of them were expected to return home alive if the mission had been a success? One might think President Carter and the Pentagon knew more about the politically tense situation in Iran than the journalists or the Pentagon never would have tried to rescue the hostages with the risks so high, or would they?

The hostages were released once Ronald Reagan was inaugurated on January 20, 1981 as the 40^th President of the United States of America.

###End of Text### #AnAccountofM #Iran197819791980+

[To be edited in Installment 78].

PHOTO: Pres. #Rouhani during Hajj rituals in 1979. #Saudi_Arabia
pic.twitter.com/NPqF8ucBfh

Thousands of Iraqi Shiites answer cleric’s call to arms, mobilize to fight Sunni militants “Nothing comes from violence, nothing ever could.” Sting “Fragile” http://politi.co/1nDtcYZ.

Location where the text, above was told and written down: San Diego, CA:

*Interlude*9:31 PM – 14 Jun 2014

 12 Unlikely Steps to Outrageous Productivity http://www.inc.com/marla-tabaka/12-unlikely-steps-to-outrageous-productivity.html … via @Inc Realize might get misunderstood on twitter: #140characters.

@Inc That’s why it’s taken me 33 years to ghostwrite this book…but now it’s no longer ghost-written, I’m involved in storytelling.

@Inc Re: scheduling doing productive things you don’t like doing (in my case almost anything other than #tweeting).

From @raftofwater #twitter feed, June 18, 2014 11:00 am PDT

Ratings for #Iran in several Middle Eastern nations have declined sharply in recent years. http://pewrsr.ch/1iazMrb 
pic.twitter.com/t0k5E2c9EN

NEW report from @pewglobal finds Iran’s global image remains overwhelmingly negative. http://pewrsr.ch/1iazMrb 
pic.twitter.com/lkXB19ivgg

Thousands of Iraqi Shiites answer cleric’s call to arms, mobilize to fight Sunni militants http://politi.co/1nDtcYZ12 Unlikely Steps to Outrageous Productivity http://www.inc.com/marla-tabaka/12-unlikely-steps-to-outrageous-productivity.html … via @Inc

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Picture, below, courtesy of #UTSanDiego on #twitter

UTSanDiego ‏@UTsandiego
1m

Yep, San Diego’s sunsets have been magnificent lately. http://utsd.us/1rIwqiZ 
pic.twitter.com/DQOCh79Rip

ReservationofRights copyright #UTSanDiego (#onlineversion) 06-03-2014

***

Copyright ‘M’ As told to John Rubens (July 7, 1980, 1981); [author’s working title 1980: Iran Rises Against Godfather, later entitled, The Iranian Revolution: Iran’s Struggle with a New Father, Copyright M, as told to and edited by John Rubens (1980, 1981) (title also by M.]

Compilation Copyright ‘M’, John Rubens (1980; 1981, online 2014); Recent titles by John Matthew Rubens (2014): The Iranian Revolution 1978—Islamic Fatherhood Revisited; The Iranian Revolution 1978—Islamic Fatherhood Questioned?; The Iranian Revolution 1978: Islamic Fatherland Questioned?(2014)].

Research notes to be incorporated or edited later

[1] See Herbert Marcuse Theory of the Dialectic; an expanding balloon needs an escape for gas or will burst, from Social Philosophy Professor (Jean?) Michel lectures, Schiller College; Universite de Strasbourg, Strasbourg France, 1978-1979, 1983). [In 1969, Marcuse wrote An Essay on Liberation celebrating liberation movements such as those in Vietnam, which inspired many radicals](from Wikipedia online 05-17-2014).

I found these balloons at my doorstep later in the day I wrote footnote [1], above. Ever see The Prisoner starring Patrick McGoohan? Then I found a similar bag with two more from the garbage pail area. These six must have blown over to my door in the breeze. Still, strangely prescient. I put them in my wife’s Cadillac to take to the kids at work and three of them popped in the heat the next afternoon. The three that remained found their way to a cute Russian-American boy with his father and a joyful smile my wife Lucia later told me.

Classic Mother Angelica was on #EWTN last night [May 27, 2014] and she mentioned being a Roman Catholic is more than loving your neighbor, it’s about becoming Christ so you can give that to others. You are the bread of the communion. She said not to get caught up in societal “balloons” that are not God. If the balloons are not part of God, they are by implication, at best a distraction not to amuse or lose oneself in for more than a moment before moving on to union with Him. From twitterpost, date, period and “potential” added: Catholicism more than loving your neighbor
#MotherAngelica on #EWTN. Last night’s re-broadcast [05272014] mentioned how “balloons” a potential pitfall not Jesus.

[2] Care of: EWTNonline: Don’t get trapped or lost solely in one’s own psyche

In his daily homily Pope Francis explained that it takes more than intellectual assent to truly get to know Jesus – we must also develop a personal relationship of joy through prayer and works.

“Ideas by themselves do not lead anywhere and those who pursue the path of their own ideas end up in a labyrinth from where they can’t get out again!” the Pope stated in his May 16 daily Mass.

Addressing those present with him in the chapel of the Vatican’s Saint Martha guesthouse, the Pope explained that getting to know Jesus is the most important work in our lives, and warned that just studying about him or having an idea is not enough.

Noting how often times those who pursue their own ideas end up trapped in them, the pontiff pointed out that “It’s for this reason that heresies have existed from the very beginning of the Church.”

“Heresies are this: trying to understand with our minds and with only our personal light who Jesus is,” he observed, adding that “A great English writer wrote that a heresy is an idea that’s gone crazy.”

“That’s right! When they are ideas by themselves they become crazy…This is not the right path!”

Going on, Pope Francis said that in order to really get to know Jesus there are three doors that we must open, naming the first as “praying to Jesus.”

“You must realize that studying without prayers is no use. We must pray to Jesus to get to know him better” he noted, explaining that “the great theologians did their theology while kneeling.”

“Pray to Jesus! By studying and praying we get a bit closer… But we’ll never know Jesus without praying. Never! Never!”

Pope Francis went on to say that the second door we need to open is that of “celebrating Jesus,” because “Prayer on its own is not enough, we need the joy of celebration.”

“We must celebrate Jesus through his Sacraments, because these give us life, they give us strength, they nourish us, they comfort us, they forge an alliance with us, they give us a mission,” the pontiff observed, adding that “Without celebrating the Sacraments, we’ll never get to know Jesus.”

“This is what the Church is all about: celebration” he repeated, stating that “the third door is imitating Jesus. Take the Gospel, what did he do, how was his life, what did he tell us, what did he teach us and try to imitate him.”

Entering these doors “means entering into the mystery of Jesus,” the Bishop of Rome continued, “and it’s only in this way that we can get to know him and we mustn’t be afraid to do this.”

Bringing his reflections to a close, Pope Francis encouraged attendees to think “about how the door leading to prayer is proceeding in our life,” warning that “prayer from the heart is not like that of a parrot!”

“How is prayer of the heart? How is the Christian celebration in my life proceeding? And how is the imitation of Jesus in my life proceeding? How must I imitate him?” he asked.

“Do you really not remember!” the Pope chastised, explaining that “The reason is because the Book of the Gospel is full of dust as it’s never opened!”

In opening the bible and reading it “you will discover how to imitate Jesus” the pontiff observed, so “Let’s think about how these three doors are positioned in our life and this will be of benefit to everybody.”

Following Mass Pope Francis canceled his morning meetings and appointments due to having a minor cold, but is expected to be present for all of his engagements over the weekend with the exception of his visit to a Roman shrine, which was postponed so that he can prepare for his upcoming pilgrimage to the Holy Land.

[3] Word used by Peggy Noonan in Wall Street Journal online op-ed column regarding authority to liberate Nigerian Schoolgirls: online.wsj.com/news/column/Declarations

May 16, 2014 · America has forgotten how to exercise power without swagger. … Peggy Noonan @Peggynoonannyc; Peggy … as the story of the kidnapped girls …(from google search online 05-19-2014)

[4]
See, The Communist Manifesto (1848) by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels

[5] Catch- 22 (1961), novel by Joseph Heller wherein the protagonist wanted to get out of active military duty under a theory of being insane but one could only plead insanity if one was sane (aka “damned if you do and damned you don’t”).

[6] See “salon” {Fr.} signifying a House or Party of Thought in culture and politics commonly used in 19^th Century French Literature. For example “Salon de Khomeini (Khomeini Party), Salon de INF, Salon des Etudiantes.”

[7]
Compare the stories of the Joseph (see Genesis 41:41 et seq.) and Moses in pertinent part: Exodus 12: 40-42 et seq.).

[8] See Esther 9:32, for an example of a writing instituting a legal record with religious significance after bloodshed: “And the decree of Esther confirmed these matters of Purim; and it was written in the book (emphasis added) [“book”, above, may refer to the ” the chronicles of the kings of Media and Persia” see Esther 10:2]; “It is written, My house shall be called the house of prayer; but ye have made it a den of thieves.” Matthew 21:13; See also, Isaiah 56: 7-8 in pertinent part: “[M]ine house shall be called an house of prayer for all people. The Lord God which gathereth the outcasts of Israel saith, Yet will I gather others to him, beside those that are gathered unto him. See also John 10:16 “And other sheep I have, which are not of this fold: them also I must bring, and they shall hear my voice; and there shall be one fold, and one shepherd “(King James Version, Holy Bible). “As for God, his way is perfect: the word of the Lord is tried: he is a buckler to all those that trust in him.” Psalm18:30 (KJV); compare also theory of quantum mechanics “folding space” as explained in Brian Greene’s book The Elegant Universe (1999) and Visions: How Science Will Revolutionize the 21^st Century (1998) by Michio Kaku. [Thanks to my youngest brother Steve, who was reading Visions for a class at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles and gave me his copy when he had finished—hard cover baby].

[9] See Matthew 4: 19; Mark 1:17 [The New Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible, James Strong, LL.D., S.T.D. (1995)].

[10] The Prince by Niccolo Machiavelli (16^th Century work at the end of chapter 18): “In the actions of all men, and especially of princes, where there is no court to appeal to, one looks to the end. So let prince win and maintain his state: the means will always be judged honorable, and will be praised by everyone.” Philosophy beta (online edited Mar 30 ’12 at 15:08). Although it is disputable whether Khomeini had a court to appeal to due to the concept of “clean hands” in legal equity, at the point in time of Khomeini’s “diplomatic tactics” to defend the State against those who would diminish it in Khusistan, “the end justifies the means” is not entirely to be dismissed as a defense to some of Khomeini’s acts of State to maintain order while tamping down Revolutionary fervor.

[11] See, Utopia (1516) by Sir Thomas More (Saint Thomas More for Roman Catholics); a novel about an imaginary island seeking an ideal political and cultural system for its inhabitants and workforce.

[12] See, Catch- 22 (1961), a novel by Joseph Heller wherein the protagonist wanted to get out of active military duty under a theory of being insane but one could only plead insanity if he was sane.

[13] Holy Bible, Book of Mark 2:22, “And no man putteth new wine into old bottles: else the new wine doth burst the bottles, and the wine is spilled, and the bottles will be marred: but new wine must be put into new bottles.” [King James Version]

[(14a)] Edmund Burke, 19^th Century English rugby player and poet.

[@raftofwater tweet to President Rouhani of Iran 06-14-2014 22:46 pdt @drRouhani Dear Dr: Heard on @FoxNews your government has sent 2000 troops to Iraq to support the recent threat. Thank you for #engagement.]

Regarding the justification of Desert Shield and Desert Storm: Some were intimidated while others thought it was a good idea to do.

Hillary Clinton has shown resourcefulness in exposing our need to negotiate with the Taliban, but if she is double-crossed or the negotiations do not dictate the result of an “action” I expect she might say: “Let the chips fall as they may.” On ABC News tonight, June 7, 2014, I saw an interview of Hillary Clinton by Diane Sawyer. In it, Hillary said she would say what she felt and “let the chips fall!” which sounds more circumspect than “Let the chips fall as they may.” As Mother Theresa’s poem about charity exhorts, “Do it Anyway”. I would vote for Hillary.

Saw a History channel documentary starring, among others, John McCain, Colin Powell and Donald Rumsfeld with my wife recently. I was “intimidated” by Rumsfeld (and former boss #43, VP Cheney) post-911. Couldn’t help thinking when Rumsfeld was explaining Adolf Hitler’s charismatic leadership style on the television documentary he was also describing to some extent his own (Hitler’s decision to invade another sovereign was allowed because “good men did nothing”)[(A)]. Paraphrasing Rumsfeld’s words from the interview in pertinent part, a strategic Nazi military incursion was allowed to proceed from the Fatherland at the outset of the Second World War in Europe circa 1938 because “some were intimidated” while others “thought it was a good idea”). Anecdotally, I read half a dozen defense and policy journals including, but not limited to The International Herald Tribune, Defense News, Foreign Affairs and Foreign Policy Journal while
in “extras holding” during down time on television and film sets from 1998-2003. As a result of my study, I was personally hoping against “boots on the ground” in Iraq. Despite my bias, I continued to respect Donald Rumsfeld’s opinions although “intimidated” by the uber (German for “utmost”) Defense Secretary until he resigned. Once he resigned, I got angry and no longer considered him “my better” (except maybe in wrestling).

John Kerry was came across very well as U.S. Secretary of State in his address to a diplomatic corps on May 21, 2014.]

Was the video game “SimCity” developed by someone of Iranian descent? I played it for about 18 hours in Menlo Park when my youngest brother showed it to me on his console. I played it a couple more times for about an hour and half-hour respectively and haven’t played since [@raftofwater tweet of June 27, 2014: Who designed the “#SimCity” video game? Whoever it was could see how public outcry would be more fierce, directed and devastating in 21stC. Reddit SimCity favorited your Tweet

3h:

Who designed the “#SimCity” video game? Whoever it was could see how public outcry would be more fierce, directed and devastating in 21stC.]

#twitter is to #copyright what #KareemAbdulJabbar was to the #NBA.

At 55, slow down. If you’re on foot, you can pace your purchases by day. One need not coordinate ones errands to save gas or you’ll #gasout {#twitterpost by John Rubens 07-07-2014}.

Catholic Sisters are a plus #Ayatollah.

“And he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers, lest I come and smite the earth with a curse.” Malachi 4:6

Women don’t suck, they blow me over.

Sigmund Freud: #law of the flesh and psyche; Carl Jung: #collectiveunconscious , A Dangerous Method
#SundanceTVOnDemand.

Have we not all one father? Hath not one God created us? Why do we deal treacherously every man against his brother, by profaning the covenant of our fathers? [Malachi 2:10 KJV; modified with capital letters beginning a sentence].

Call No Man Your Father on Earth for One is Your Father Which is in Heaven [Matthew 23:9 KJV].

From Twitter (brackets added and typeset changed from twitter mode in editing):

Khamenei.ir ‏@khamenei_ir
1m

Ayatollah Khamenei: We trust the negotiating team; they will not allow encroaching on the nation’s rights. #Iran
pic.twitter.com/pGnGAXdeSE

Farsi.Khamenei.ir ‏@Khamenei_irFa
47s

دشمن از تحریم‌ها برای تحقیر ملت و فشار روی مردم استفاده می‌کند. پیوند #علم، #صنعت و #کشاورزی تحریم‌ها را بی‌اثر می‌کند.

Translated from Persian by Bing

Sanctions for contempt of the enemy of the nation and the pressure on people. Link #علم, #صنعت and #کشاورزی the sanctions are ineffective.

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6:41 PM – 2 Jul 2014 · Details

@Khamenei_irAr
6m

ستقام خلال أيام شهر رمضان ما عدا يوم الجمعة صلاة الظهر بإمامة الإمام الخامنئي في حسينية الإمام الخميني الواقعة في شارع فلسطين الجنوبي. [Translation follows]:

Translated from Arabic by Bing

During Ramadan days except Friday prayer Imam Imam Khamenei Imam Khomeini Hosseinieh Ershad’s located on Palestine Street South.

Khamenei.ir ‏@khamenei_ir
3m

Then the US president shamelessly says that: to prevent terrorism we cooperate with Israel!

@khamenei_ir [From John Rubens] Dear Ayatollah, why “shamelessly”? Are you suggesting it is a movement (discernment in Jesuit faith in Jesus) toward brutality?

[From @khamenei.ir] Which terrorists?!The Palestinian who’s been driven out of his homeland?! No! The most wicked #terrorists of the world is fake Israeli govt.

@khamenei_ir [From John Rubens] Native Americans driven out by settlers and immigrants who followed? Do you forgive us for a stained history in blood? #slavery

Compilation copyright Ayatollah Khamenei and John Rubens

May 14, 2014

Ayatollah Khamenei tweet received 06-07-2014 [handle:@Khamenei.ir]:

 A #military attack is no longer a US priority; they realized that they faced loss in #Iraq & #Afghanistan. Now they look for other options.

• Retweet 1
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6:51 PM – 7 Jun 2014 · Details

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Reply to @khamenei_ir

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 John Matthew Rubens ‏@raftofwater
33s

@khamenei_ir Adept intelligence. We have two political celebrity parties turning to Ronald Reagan as a neo-monarch #MoonChildfrom2planets.

Compilation copyright June 7, 2014

@Khamenei.ir; John Rubens

Law of Sharia [from Wikipedia]:

According to Jan Michiel Otto, Professor of Law and Governance in Developing Countries at Leiden University, “Anthropological research shows that people in local communities often do not distinguish clearly whether and to what extent their norms and practices are based on local tradition, tribal custom, or religion. Those who adhere to a confrontational view of sharia tend to ascribe many undesirable practices to sharia and religion overlooking custom and culture, even if high-ranking religious authorities have stated the opposite.” Otto’s analysis appears in a paper commissioned by the Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs.^{[73] [From Wikipedia online 05-13-2014 under search “Sharia law definition”]}

More Twitter posts:

@GWBLibrary George W. Bush may be defended or profiled in Psalm 75 as the one who as God wills it, sets up horns and cuts off. Compr #Yazid [Copyright John Rubens 06-04-14]

1. Galatians 4 Paul says He took Eve out of Adam’s Rib and Jesus out of Mary. Flesh and @Faith4Hillary Copyright John Rubens May 14-16, 2014 Retweeted by Recovering Liberal

   John Betts ‏@JohnFromCranber
   1h
   

   Bill Clinton Wonders Why No Ones Worried Over Diplomats Murdered Under Bush http://dailycaller.com/2014/05/14/bill-clinton-defends-hillary-on-benghazi-video/ … … Bush Didn’t Lie About a Video! #tcot
   

• RT ‏@RT_com
  4m
  

  Gitmo detainees fight destruction of force-feeding footage http://on.rt.com/ljab32 
  

• #EzraKlein wonders why insecure Ivy League Grads #1 fish to secure by employers.
• margaret brennan ‏@margbrennan
  29m
  

  Here at Hatzor, US & Israeli troops will conduct a joint military exercise to counter missile & rocket threats #Iran
  pic.twitter.com/59aONxkYsK
  

Iranians perhaps love their leaders like fathers…aye, and therein lies the rub: criticize loved ones + Freud & Shakespeare = #OedipusComplex.

E. Wilson ‏@SheThrives11
11h

The writing of Maya Angelou played a big part in why I studied English lit in undergrad.

***

On Kidnapping of Nigerian Girls 05-16-14:

The kidnapper in Nigeria does not appear to be torturing the children, but under those robes, one cannot really tell… Well paid babysitter

[May 5, 2014: Cinco De Mayo Los Angeles: Correction: Supreme Leader Khamenei, President Hassan Rouhani. {Re: following tweet from Ayatollah Khamenei received by retweet (RT) via Margaret Brennan of #BloombergNews today: “Around 1979 during Friday prayers,I talked about Irish #freedom fighters & #BobbySands that a street in #Iran bears his name.” From Khamenei’s official #twitterpage: “Follow for regular updates and news about Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei, Iran’s Supreme Leader.” Thank you for the corrections.}]

[O4-29-2014: Tweet received from President Hassan Rouhani : “Today, the world is witness to how we are engaging with the international community with a voice of reason. #ConstructiveEngagement.” Back to the Future (1985) A Film by Robert Zemeckis, starring Christopher Lloyd and Michael J. Fox #UniversalPictures]. Tweet from President Rouhani received June 8, 2014: دکتر
#روحانی
در
پیامی
برگزاری
موفقیت
آمیز
انتخابات
ریاست
جمهوری
و
پیروزی
#بشاراسد
در
این
انتخابات
را
به
دولت
و
ملت
این
کشور
تبریک
گفت (asked for English translation from three sources but to date have not received one). If anyone can inform me of the translation of the Farsi above, I’d appreciate it. Direct Message (DM) me @raftofwater on twitter for your submission. Thank you.

[See also: Accounts by Principal for Occidental Petroleum from Wikipedia: Occidental Petroleum Corporation (Oxy) is a California-based oil and gas exploration and production company with operations in the United States, the Middle East, North Africa, and South America. Its headquarters is in Westwood, Los Angeles California^[4][5] but the company has announced it will move to Houston in 2014 or 2015.^{[6] Wikipediaonline 2014]}

[The Iran–Contra affair [#IranContra] (Persian: ایران–کنترا‎, Spanish: caso Irán-Contra), also referred to as Irangate,^[1]
Contragate^[2] or the Iran–Contra scandal, was a political scandal in the United States that came to light in November 1986. During the Reagan administration, senior administration officials secretly facilitated the sale of arms to Iran, the subject of an arms embargo.^[3] Some U.S. officials also hoped that the arms sales would secure the release of several hostages and allow U.S. intelligence agencies to fund the Nicaraguan
Contras. Under the Boland Amendment, further funding of the Contras by the government had been prohibited by Congress.

The scandal began as an operation to free the seven American hostages being held in Lebanon by a group with Iranian ties connected to the Army of the Guardians of the Islamic Revolution. It was planned that Israel would ship weapons to Iran, and then the United States would resupply Israel and receive the Israeli payment. The Iranian recipients promised to do everything in their power to achieve the release of the U.S. hostages. The plan deteriorated into an arms-for-hostages scheme, in which members of the executive branch sold weapons to Iran in exchange for the release of the American hostages.^[4][5] Large modifications to the plan were devised by Lieutenant Colonel Oliver North of the National Security Council in late 1985, in which a portion of the proceeds from the weapon sales was diverted to fund anti-Sandinista and anti-communist rebels, or Contras, in Nicaragua.^[6][7]

While President Ronald Reagan was a supporter of the Contra cause,^[8] the evidence is disputed as to whether he authorized the diversion of the money raised by the Iranian arms sales to the Contras.^[4][5][9] Handwritten notes taken by Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger on December 7, 1985, indicate that Reagan was aware of potential hostage transfers with Iran, as well as the sale of Hawk and TOW missiles to “moderate elements” within that country.^[10] Weinberger wrote that Reagan said “he could answer to charges of illegality but couldn’t answer to the charge that ‘big strong President Reagan passed up a chance to free the hostages'”.^[10] After the weapon sales were revealed in November 1986, Reagan appeared on national television and stated that the weapons transfers had indeed occurred, but that the United States did not trade arms for hostages.^[11] The investigation was impeded when large volumes of documents relating to the scandal were destroyed or withheld from investigators by Reagan administration officials.^[12] On March 4, 1987, Reagan returned to the airwaves in a nationally televised address, taking full responsibility for any actions that he was unaware of, and admitting that “what began as a strategic opening to Iran deteriorated, in its implementation, into trading arms for hostages”.^[13]

Several investigations ensued, including those by the U.S. Congress and the three-person, Reagan-appointed Tower Commission. Neither found any evidence that President Reagan himself knew of the extent of the multiple programs.^[4][5][9] Ultimately the sale of weapons to Iran was not deemed a criminal offense but charges were brought against five individuals for their support of the Contras. Those charges, however, were later dropped because the administration refused to declassify certain documents. The indicted conspirators faced various lesser charges instead. In the end, fourteen administration officials were indicted, including then-Secretary of Defense
Caspar Weinberger. Eleven convictions resulted, some of which were vacated on appeal.^[14] The rest of those indicted or convicted were all pardoned in the final days of the presidency of George H. W. Bush, who had been vice-president at the time of the affair.^[15]]

[“Iran-Contra Affair” and “Shariatmadari” courtesy of and special thanks to Wikipedia online 05-02-2014; Wikipedia Sources. See also Michael M. J. Fischer. Iran: From Religious Dispute to Revolution. Wisconsin: University of Wisconsin Press, 2003.

Moojan Momen Shi’i Islam Yale University Press 1986

Shaul Bakhash, Reign of the Ayatollahs, ISBN 0-465-06887-1

Nikki Keddie, Modern Iran] {credits related to “The Iran-Contra affair” courtesy of Wikipedia}

#Refreshment is a spinning top’s pause [koan]. #ThePausethatRefreshens. Didn’t Coke already think of that? Not Lord Coke, Coca-Cola Co. Inc.

Re:
A Spinning Top, Polarities and the Axis of Pull in International Relations & Domestic Finance

#relationshipdiametrics

From Wikipedia 05-16-2014 Search: “Alger Hiss Trial”, Anthony Summers on “Nixon tapes”, date(s) not stated, but presumably post-trial [Hiss had two trials]:

Schmahl had worked for either the OSS or army intelligence during the war, then joined the Central Intelligence Group, which operated between the closedown of the OSS and the inception of the CIA. After his stint for the Hiss side, Schmahl defected to the prosecution team.^[77]

(see also
Anthony Summers, The Arrogance of Power: The Secret World of Richard Nixon (New York, London: Penguin-Putnam Inc, 2000), p. 77).

***

Current California Education Finance Documents and Nutrition Reimbursement Rates

From California Dept of Education website: See Telephone # below for more information.

I googled: education finance and nutrition and clicked on CA Dept of Education:

2014-15 CNP Reimbursement Rates

[Child Nutrition Program meal reimbursement rates.]

Summer Food Service Program

Reimbursement Rates for
January 1, 2014, through December 31, 2014

Total (Combined) Reimbursement

Includes operating and administrative components.

Questions:   Nutrition Services Division | 800-952-5609

Download Free Readers

CA Dept. of Education Website:

My tweet of paraphrase of description of its State and Federal mission:

The Child and Adult Care Food Program (CACFP) is a CA and federally funded program that provides funding to care centers. See also
#sponsoredcare.

Personal Fitness ‏@YouLoveMyCurves

Anyone who wants to lose weight & get that bikini body FAST needs this! Thank me later http://sIim.me/tfBhMh 
pic.twitter.com/9C2Fi3kZJ0

• Retweets 35
• Favorites 77
• 

5:36 PM – 15 May 2014

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@YouLoveMyCurves
@OFFICIALALEXJAY I put some elements of your RT in the research appendix of the book #AnAccountofM
https://johnrubens.wordpress.com

 Now welcoming #MedalofHonor recipient @USArmy Sgt #KyleWhite to the #NYSE: pic.twitter.com/MfEB19Yv21
#ThankYou
#SOT
@CMOHfoundation

Above pictured, Kyle White; below, Lance Corporal William Kyle Carpenter pictured as Medal of Honor recipients 2014 for gallantry and recovery.

CBS This Morning        ✔ @CBSThisMorning

Medal of Honor: Another Veteran named Kyle, Lance Corporal Carpenter, dove in front of a grenade to save fellow Marine http://cbsn.ws/1sqG760 
pic.twitter.com/YFpiBPx1vE

9:21 PM – 20 May 2014 · Details

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Reply to @NYSEEuronext @USArmy @CMOHfoundation

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 John Matthew Rubens ‏@raftofwater
42s

@NYSEEuronext
@USArmy
@CMOHfoundation THANK YOU 4 UR BRAVERY; courage to go forward (edited for grammar).

 Pope Francis walks political tight-rope in Holy Land http://nbcnews.to/1nAATOr 

6:55 PM – 23 May 2014 · Details

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 John Matthew Rubens ‏@raftofwater
30s

@NBCNews Thank you Francis. I pray I pray for you more.

 @Rouhani_ir
3m 06-12-2014

در گفتگوی تلفنی با نخست وزیر #عراق: دولت ج ا ایران اجازه نخواهد داد که حامیان تروریست‌ها با صدور تروریسم امنیت و ثبات این کشور را برهم بزنند

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 John Matthew Rubens ‏@raftofwater
1m

@Rouhani_ir Can anyone translate this for me in my book #AnAccountofM? Is Ali Rowghani of Twitter related to you Mr. President?

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  • President Rouhani of Iran felicitates championship of #Iranˈs #taekwondo team in Asian Tournament.
    

  @drRouhani okay, I’m jealous. I challenge you to arm wrestle! Table-tennis?
  

 Pres. Hassan Rouhani ‏@drRouhani
4m

هنأ الرئیس حسن #روحانی ، قائد الثورة الاسلامیة والشعب الایرانی بفوز المنتخب الایرانی للتایکواندو ببطولة اسیا.

 Bloomberg News ‏@BloombergNews
4m

South Koreans filling their gas tanks for less as the won surges to best in world http://bloom.bg/1k2My9s 

 Retweeted by Geoffrey Pyatt

US Mission to NATO ‏@USNATO
9m

Чёрное море: Ракетный крейсер класса «Тикондерога» ВМС США “Велла Галф” проходит через Чёрное море pic.twitter.com/qaOo3ICgBC

I don’t know what the Russian sentence means above, but it challenges me to know more.

Rolling Stones Rock Tel Aviv Despite Pink Floyd’s Pleas http://mashable.com/2014/06/04/rolling-stones-tel-aviv-concert-pink-floyd/#:eyJzIjoidCIsImkiOiJfeXI0YzFmOGFiOThnenEwcCJ9 … via @mashable “Peace brothers and sisters. Peace.” Mick Jaggar exhorts humanity from the #Altamont Speedway Concert stage following an altercation ending in mortality in the late 1960’s.

TdAmeritrade notice re: TWTR: 06-12-2014 @11:16 PDT: COO Ali Rowghani resigns COO post to serve CEO Dick Costello as a “strategic advisor”. No COO position will be refilled.

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The Frankfurt School and the dialectic of containment and liberation over the threshold [like the synapse of society].

DICK CHENEY: I forgive you John.

ME: Thanks Mr. Cheney.

Speculative Fiction

John Rubens

The Laureate of Young People reminds me of #RobertFrost Contemporary yet https://www.google.com/search?q=poignant&oq=poignan&aqs=chrome.0.0i433i512j0i131i433i512j69i57j0i433i512l2j0i131i433i512j0i512l2j0i131i433i512j0i512.4366j1j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8.

https://www.google.com/search?gs_ssp=eJzj4tTP1TdIKTcvqTJg9OJJTyyqVEhPzSvOSS0CAGUeCFk&q=gary+gensler&oq=gary&aqs=chrome.1.69i59j46i39i650j69i57j0i67i650j46i131i433i512l2j0i67i650j46i433i512l2j46i512.2450j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

Doug Padilla @ newsman.com, Nomar Garciaparra, Joe Davis, SportsNetLA, Dodgers and John Rubens
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