Target Iran

[ianrcrane]

The New Pearl Harbour - Act 2

(Originally posted under 'Campaigning', in response to a posting by Moeen Yaseen).

On Page 25 of his book titled 'The Grand Chessboard' Zbigniew Brzezinski states, "The public supported America's engagement in World War II largely because of the shock effect of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour."

The issue here is that the events of December 7, 1941 were undoubtedly a shock to the American Public .... but as we now know, Franklin D. Roosevelt was desperate to bring America into the Second World War and deliberately set about baiting the Japanese into attacking the Pacific fleet, anchored in Pearl Harbour.

Page 51 of the document published by PNAC in September 2000 titled, Rebuilding America's Defenses' states, "Further the process of transformation (America establishing global military dominance), even if it brings about revolutionary change, is likely to be a long one, absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event - like a new Pearl Harbour"

The Pathocracy in Washington has already used this script to brilliant effect with the execution of wars on Afghanistan and Iraq. The legacy of 9/11 is in plain site. Fortunately, it is becoming increasingly apparent to the American public that the war in Iraq is not going as well as G.W. would have them believe. Consequently, the NeoCon Cabal is well aware that the American public are unlikely to support an attack on Iran ........despite all the column/inches being devoted to the Iranian quest for atomic weapons. We also know that the cry of WMD is a cover for the real issue of the Iranian Oil Bourse, which is scheduled to start trading in Euros on March 21st.

The Cabal are also alert to the fact that the majority of Europeans are not supporters of the war in Iraq and definitely do not support the US in its aggressive posturing towards Iran.

So how to change this?

Setting off a limited nuclear device in the US and blaming it on the Iranians might stir up sufficient support in the US, for Bush to then order the troops into Iran but as he himself has said, " .......fool me once .....!"

Even if the American people do get fooled again, the main problem with this scenario is that it doesn't engage the Europeans.

So how about this for an alternative? Let's run some cartoons in the European press which will really piss-off the Muslims; let's make sure that that the cartoons are sent to every Muslim leader and every Muslim fundamentalist and make sure that all 1.3 billion Muslims knows that these cartoons emanated from DENMARK. The US (& the UK), can distance themselves from the stupidity of the DANES. Then with whipped up fervour spreading around the Muslim world, a few attacks on various Danish Embassies, then the Cabal can sneak in a 'Big One' at a Danish Embassy in say France or Germany or even the UK (nailing NATO and the EU in one fell swoop), blame it on the Iranians and ....... Bob's yer uncle ........... World War * III!!

Alternatively, everyone takes a pace back and realises that someone is taking the piss ......... just like Saddam & Khomeni paused for breath & stopped bombing the nonsense out of each other in 1988 ......... once they realised that the US was feeding them both with sufficient weaponry to annihilate each other!

This is a time for true leadership. The European Media along with National & EU leaders need to be offering unequivocal apologies for any offence that has been caused and acknowledging that such crass insensitivity is both unfortunate and regrettable.

Meanwhile, the leaders of Muslim Nations & Muslim communities within non-Muslim nations are being tested to the extreme. The temptation will be to get caught up in the fervour and antagonism of the moment ..... but perhaps now is the time to take a look and see who is manipulating whom!

The events of Pearl Harbour & 9/11 have presented the global community with an opportunity to see through the Machiavellian manipulations of the Cabal. See through it and start to play them at their own game............ or fall for it; Hook, Line & Sinker!

For all those who call themselves 'Leaders', now is the time to demonstrate that the mantle is deserved.

There are many of us who dream of, and aspire towards, an era of Global Tolerance; ending the Political Ponerology that masquerades under the guise of 'Freedom & Democracy'.

Moeen, if you believe it to be appropriate, please feel free to distribute this within the Muslim Community.

With much love, hope & humility in my heart,


Ian R. Crane

[Sinclair]

I watched Newsnight on Friday night & they featured a short video clip of 'demonstations' (I think it was outside the Danish Embassy in London).

They clip focussed on one of the placards that were being held up. It read:
Europe - Take some lessons from 9/11

Ir was also noticeable that the placards had all the same handwriting. See http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b294/poskonig1/RegentsPark.jpg

Also Gavin Estler, while questioning a commentator via videolink related the 'chant' that apparently had been made, which was along the lines of :

Denmark you will pay
7/7 is on its way

From what I can gather, the cartoons were published in September 2005 and apparently 12 artists were commissioned to produce the cartoons.

Something is not quite right about this & your explanation,Ian, makes sense.

[Sinclair]

I just found this link, which provides a detailed background to the Danish Cartoon debacle. I would urge all to read it.

http://blog.reidreport.com/2006/02/who-incited-riots.html

An excerpt:

[sr4470]

Interesting stuff....had a feeling there was more to this cartoon saga than meets the eye, just didnt know the details.

[brian]

MPs should be made aware of this.

Sideshows on Iran's frogmarch to the UN

By Kaveh L Afrasiabi

Early last week, Europe instantly rejected, without pause for breath, an Iranian offer of a two-year moratorium on uranium enrichment, thus setting its seal on a major international crisis.

Iran's "six-point" proposal was submitted by the Iranian delegation headed by Javad Veidi to the EU-3 (Germany, France and Britain) in Brussels on January 30. Instead of giving it careful consideration, the EU-3 diplomats rejected it as old news, devoid of anything new, and then, rather disingenuously, went on to blame Iran for "lack of progress".

Thus John Sawers, London's negotiator, was quoted by the BBC as saying, "To be frank, we didn't detect anything new in their approach."---

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/HB07Ak01.html

[alkmyst]

Juggernaut Gathering Momentum, Headed For Iran

From link below:

[Sinclair]

The 'Clash of Civilisations' is heading our way - the 'Danish Cartoon Debacle' , the arrest of Abu Hanza (who, incidentally, has been arrested & 'de-arrested' before' - see http://www.spy.org.uk/cgi-bin/mt32/mt-search.cgi?IncludeBlogs=8&search =abu+hamza) & the upcoming War on Iran ('Clash of Civilisations') are all related & are being enacted out in a timetable to coincide with the strike on Iran just in time before the establishment of the Iranian Oil Bourse.

The UK TV & Newspapers are cranking up the 'Anti-Muslim' spring, preparing the ground for an offence. There will no doubt be a 'false flag' event, linked to Iranian factions, to get the public behind a strike on Iran.

The article below sheds some more light on the background to the 'Danish Debacle'.
==============================================
Note: Embedded links are at the original article at http://kurtnimmo.com/?p=211

Flemming Rose and the Straussian Art of Provocation
Tuesday February 07th 2006, 3:24 pm

As suspected, and claimed on this blog over the weekend, the inflammatory anti-Muslim cartoons published in the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten were a deliberate provocation designed to outrage and incite Muslims and thus engender support in Europe and America for the manufactured “clash of civilizations” engineered by the Straussian neocons. As Christopher Bollyn writes for the American Free Press, the neocon operative behind the cartoon scheme is Flemming Rose, cultural editor of Jyllands-Posten, who has “has clear ties to the Zionist Neo-Cons.” Rose “traveled to Philadelphia in October 2004 to visit Daniel Pipes, the Neo-Con ideologue who says the only path to Middle East peace will come through a total Israeli military victory. Rose then penned a positive article about Pipes, who compares ‘militant Islam’ with fascism and communism,” Bollyn reveals.

Daniel Pipes is one of the more virulent and hateful of the Straussian neocons, famous for his racist and xenophobic statement that Muslim immigrants are “brown-skinned peoples cooking strange foods and not exactly maintaining Germanic standards of hygiene,” an attitude straight out of the Nazi school of racial hyperbole (a philosophy embraced by no small number of Jabotinsky Likudites and their fellow travelers among the traitorous Straussian neocons).

Bollyn continues:

“Agents of certain persuasion” are behind the egregious affront to Islam in order to provoke Muslims, Professor Mikael Rothstein of the University of Copenhagen told the BBC. The key “agent” is Flemming Rose, the cultural editor of JP, who commissioned cartoonists to produce the blasphemous images and then published them in Denmark’s leading morning paper last September….

Rose told the international paper owned by The New York Times that “he would not publish a cartoon of Israel’s Ariel Sharon strangling a Palestinian baby, since that could be construed as ‘racist.’”

As Daniel Pipes and his ilk have repeatedly demonstrated, it is not racist to characterize Arabs and Muslims as “brown-skinned peoples” suffering from bad hygiene, although it is a crime to take the apartheid state of Israel to task for murdering Palestinian children. But then, as Lenni Brenner has documented, the followers of Ze’ev Jabotinsky—and his political creation, the reactionary Likud Party in Israel—are not only well versed in fascism, but murderous racism as well.

As for the unapologetic stance of the Danes in regard to publishing the cartoons, Bollyn comments:

There is clearly a more sinister reason why the Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen refuses to issue a formal apology as demanded by Arab and Muslim governments. The hard-line position taken by Rasmussen, an ally in the “war on terror,” has more to do with advancing the “clash of civilizations” than defending free speech in Europe….

There is a deeper reason behind the publication of the offensive cartoons. Given the unapologetic position taken by the Danish government and the editors it appears very likely that tension with Islamic nations will increase and the international crisis will deepen. This is, after all, exactly what the global planners behind the “clash of civilizations” want.

The completely predictable reaction among Muslims sets the stage for violence and “false-flag” terror attacks as Europeans prepare to host the Olympics in Turin, Italy. The Turin-based La Stampa irresponsibly published the cartoons on Feb. 1, two days after Milan’s Corriere della Sera.

The anti-Islamic cartoon scandal is no laughing matter. If and when a terror attack does occur and the cartoons and angry Muslims are blamed for being the cause, the reason they were published will become clear. Europeans will become increasingly polarized and hostility to Islam will grow.

Of course, as the Straussian neocons prepare the next phase of their total war against Islam master plan—attacking Iran and possibly soon after Syria—tacit support from Europe will be a plus, especially after the false flag Gladio-like terror attacks in Madrid produced undesirable results (the Spanish people rejected José María Aznar, a neocon toady and grandson of a prominent fascist journalist).

So if terror attacks do indeed occur during the Olympics in Turin, we can point an accusatory finger quite naturally in the direction of the Straussian neocons, linked to Operation Gladio terrorism through Michael Ledeen, who is connected to Francesco Pazienza and the P2 Masonic Lodge responsible for the CIA-NATO sponsored Strategy of Tension terrorism campaign in Italy (an Italian criminal court convicted Pazienza in 1985 of political manipulation, forgery, and the protection of criminals and terrorists, among other offenses, in relation to the Gladio bombing of a Bologna train station, killing more than 80 people; see Jeff Wells’ Rigorous Intuition).

“One of P-2’s specialties was the art of provocation,” writes Mark Zepezauer. “Leftist organizations like the Red Brigades were infiltrated, financed and / or created, and the resulting acts of terrorism, like the assassination of Italy’s premier in 1978 and the bombing of the railway station in Bologna in 1980, were blamed on the left. The goal of this ’strategy of tension’ was to convince Italian voters that the left was violent and dangerous—by helping make it so.”

In the same way, the Straussian neocons, taking a page from the P-2 provocation playbook, are attempting to convince Europeans and Americans that Muslims are “violent and dangerous” by “helping make it so,” as Bollyn’s revelations about Flemming Rose’s role in the inflammatory publication of the anti-Muslim cartoons in Jyllands-Posten and other newspapers make obvious.
==============================================

[xmasdale]

As for Iran, he doesn't know Ahmadinedjad, but knows people of his party,
that also today are in power. Old group of opponants of Iran-Iraq war, very
attached to their iranian identity and oposed to the colonial anglo-saxon
model. The express themselves with a lot of religious references not always
with integrity. There ar no mollah's [among them]. They are on a high-speed rally against
Bush - opening their petroleum [bourse] in Gold or Euro's before being attacked, and
provoking an economic crisis that will overthrow the States. They are
counting a lot on the Russions to win time and Poutin seems to have given
them his consent. All this is a dangerous game since Bush will have to stop
it - only way of doing that is by war.

(He wrote an analysis on the subject in French and in Spanish - not English
yet.)




Concernant l’Iran, je ne connais pas personnellement Ahmadinedjad, mais je
connais bien des membres de sa confrérie, qui sont tous aujourd’hui aux
commandes du pays. C’est un groupe d’anciens combattants de la guerre
Iran-Irak très attachés à l’identité iranienne et opposés au modèle colonial

anglo-saxon. S’ils s’expriment avec beaucoup de références religieuses, il
ne sont pas pour autant intégristes. Il n’y a aucun mollah parmi eux.

Ils sont persuadés d’être engagés dans une course de vitesse contre Bush :
ouvrir leur bourse pétrolière en or et en euro avant d’être attaqués, et
provoquer la crise économique qui balayera les Etats-Unis. Ils comptent
beaucoup sur la Russie pour gagner du temps et Poutine semble leur avoir
donné des gages. Tout ça est un jeu très dangereux car Bush va
nécessairement prendre une initiative pour les stopper. Et cette initiative
ne peut être que la guerre.

J’ai écris une analyse détaillée sur le sujet. Elle est disponible en
français et espagnol, mais pas encore en anglais.
http://www.voltairenet.org/article134908.html

Thierry

[ian neal]

This bulletin from MediaLens FYI

Ian

MEDIA LENS: Correcting for the distorted vision of the corporate media

February 9, 2006


MEDIA ALERT: IRAN - THE MEDIA FALL INTO LINE


Writing in the Guardian last month, Timothy Garton Ash observed:

“Now we face the next big test of the west: after Iraq, Iran.”

Garton Ash thus blithely ignored the fact that every last scrap of evidence coming out of Iraq has pointed to only one conclusion - that Iraq’s “big test” was in fact the West’s big lie. Iraq was offering a threat to precisely no one outside its own borders.

Nevertheless, Garton Ash warned: “we in Europe and the United States have to respond. But how?” (Timothy Garton Ash, ‘Let's make sure we do better with Iran than we did with Iraq,’ The Guardian, January 12, 2006)

The Guardian’s Polly Toynbee joined the propaganda chorus demonising Iran:

“Now the mad mullahs of Iran will soon have nuclear bombs, are we all doomed?... Do something, someone! But what and who?” (Toynbee, ‘No more fantasy diplomacy: cut a deal with the mullahs,’ The Guardian, February 7, 2006)

Gerard Baker provided the answer in the Times:

“The unimaginable but ultimately inescapable truth is that we are going to have to get ready for war with Iran”. (Baker, ‘Prepare yourself for the unthinkable: war against Iran may be a necessity,’ The Times, January 27, 2006)

Why might this be?

“If Iran gets safely and unmolested to nuclear status, it will be a threshold moment in the history of the world, up there with the Bolshevik Revolution and the coming of Hitler.”

Readers will recall near-identical propaganda ahead of the assault on Iraq. Baker continued with some fearsome predictions:

“Iran, of course, secure now behind its nuclear wall, will surely step up its campaign of terror around the world. It will become even more of a magnet and haven for terrorists... Imagine how much more our freedoms will be curtailed if our governments fear we are just one telephone call or e-mail, one plane journey or truckload away from another Hiroshima. ”

This is the same Gerard Baker who wrote in the Financial Times in February 2003 that “victory [in Iraq] will quickly vindicate US and British claims about the scale of the threat Saddam poses”.

Baker was positively gleeful:

“I cannot wait to hear what the French, Russians and Germans have to say when the conquering troops begin to uncover the death factories Mr Hussein has been hiding from inspectors for 12 years... And do not be shocked if allied liberators discover all kinds of connections between Baghdad and terrorism around the world”. (Baker, ‘Defeating prejudice with persuasion,’ Financial Times, February 20, 2003)

A year later, Baker had airbrushed his own justification for war from history:

“Saddam Hussein asked for the benefit of the doubt. But that was not something a wise leader could possibly have given him. His actions had shown again and again the threat he represented. This threat lay not in vats of chemicals or nuclear centrifuges but in his ambitions.” (Baker, ‘Freedom from fear is a worthy goal,’ Financial Times, March 18, 2004)

In his February 2003 article, Baker had predicted: “it will become clear, even to the most rabid of anti-Americans just how much better off Iraqi people will be without their current president. The lifting of the yoke of Saddam Hussein will be an act of humanity far greater than the unseating of the Taliban.” (Baker, op. cit)

The New York Times’ Paul Krugman describes the current state of Iraq sans “yoke”:

“In fact, reconstruction has failed. Almost three years after the war began, oil production is well below prewar levels, Baghdad is getting only an average of 3.2 hours of electricity a day, and more than 60 percent of water and sanitation projects have been canceled. So now, having squandered billions in Iraqi oil revenue as well as American taxpayer dollars, we have told the Iraqis that from here on in it is their problem.” (Krugman, ’State of delusion,’ New York Times, February 3, 2006)

According to the Los Angeles Times, America's would-be Marshall Plan in Iraq “is drawing to a close this year“ with “much of its promise unmet and no plans to extend its funding”. (Cited, ibid)

Baker is a signatory to the Statement of Principles posted at the website of The Henry Jackson Society. Patrons include mild-mannered neoconservatives like former US assistant secretary of defence Richard Perle, William Kristol, editor of the Weekly Standard, and James Woolsey, former director of the CIA. Other signatories include former head of MI6, Sir Richard Dearlove, Colonel Tim Collins, Oliver Kamm, Andrew Roberts and Jamie Shea.

The Society declares that it: “Supports a ‘forward strategy’ to assist those countries that are not yet liberal and democratic to become so. This would involve the full spectrum of our ‘carrot’ capacities, be they diplomatic, economic, cultural or political, but also, when necessary, those ‘sticks’ of the military domain.” (http://www.henryjacksonsociety.org/)

Serbia, Afghanistan and Iraq know all about the “’sticks’ of the military domain”.

Four of the Society’s eight “Principles” refer to military intervention and military power - another notes that “only modern liberal democratic states are truly legitimate”.

Everyone else, we can presume, is fair game.


Ten Years From A Bomb

When officialdom targets a new ‘deadly threat’, journalists often embarrass themselves in their rush to be ‘on side‘. The January 20, 2005, BBC 1 Lunchtime News saw diplomatic correspondent James Robbins declare that US relations with Iran were "looking very murky because of the nuclear threat". (BBC1, 13:00 News, January 20, 2005)

Four days later, Robbins responded to Media Lens emailers:

“I accept that it would have been better to have said ‘alleged nuclear threat‘. I am sorry that my wording was not as precise as it could have been.” (Email to Media Lens, January 24, 2005)

Similarly, in a front-page article this week, the Guardian reported that Iran's foreign minister had threatened immediate retaliation over a move to refer its "nuclear weapons activities" to the United Nations security council. A correction was printed in the paper two days later:

“We should have said ‘nuclear activities‘, not ‘nuclear weapons activities‘.” (Corrections and clarifications, The Guardian, February 7, 2006)

Although Iran has removed the seals it put in place at its nuclear fuel research sites, experts say it is at least a decade away from being able to produce a nuclear bomb. Consider the current media hysteria in light of the basic facts below.

Atomic weapons can be produced in two ways - either by using highly enriched uranium, or plutonium. Iran is known to have produced reconstituted uranium, "yellow cake", at its conversion facility at Isfahan. However, according to a September 2005 report by The International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), this material is contaminated and not currently useable. If Iran were able to overcome the problem of purification, it would then need to enrich the uranium.

Whereas uranium used in nuclear reactors requires only a small amount of enrichment, weapons-grade uranium must be highly enriched. This can be done using gas centrifuges, of which Iran has 164 installed at its plant at Natanz. But this constitutes just 20 per cent of the number required to produce a bomb. Frank Barnaby, of UK think tank The Oxford Research Group, comments:

"They don't currently have enough centrifuges working - so far as we know - to produce significant amounts of highly-enriched uranium or even enriched uranium. They would need a lot more." (Sarah Buckley and Paul Rincon, ‘Iran “years from nuclear bomb“,' www.bbc.co.uk, January 12, 2006)

Given these and other problems, the IISS believes it would take Iran at least a decade to produce enough high-grade uranium to make a single nuclear weapon. Dr Barnaby agrees:

"The CIA says 10 years to a bomb using highly enriched uranium and that is a reasonable and realistic figure in my opinion."

Alternatively, Iran could use plutonium to produce a bomb. But the IISS notes that Iran would need to build a reprocessing plant suited to the fuel used in its Bushehr nuclear reactor - an extremely challenging technical task. Iran is also constructing a heavy-water research reactor at Arak. But, again, this will not be ready until at least 2014, and probably later, according to the IISS.

The West’s hypocrisy and double standards could hardly be clearer but they are off the media agenda. The United States is estimated to be in possession of no less than 10,600 nuclear warheads. Its leading ally in the region, Israel, also has nuclear weapons, as do Russia, Pakistan, India and China. Britain has recently sold nuclear-capable bombers to India, while the United States has sold nuclear-capable bombers to Pakistan. Iran’s is indeed a “tough neighbourhood”.

The media never mention the military coup organised by Britain and the United States to overthrow the democratically elected government of Iran in 1953 to secure the country’s oil. No mention is made of the massive military support subsequently sent to the Shah dictatorship before it was overthrown in 1979. Britain and America were thus directly responsible for a country that had the "highest rate of death penalties in the world, no valid system of civilian courts and a history of torture" which was "beyond belief". It was a society in which "the entire population was subjected to a constant, all-pervasive terror", according to Amnesty International. (Martin Ennals, Secretary General of Amnesty International, cited in an Amnesty Publication, Matchbox, Autumn 1976)

All of this is waved away as inconsequential by journalists. Objections to military action are usually raised on grounds of possible negative consequences for the West. The likely cost in lives to the Iranian people is rarely even discussed.

Last month, the journalist Felicity Arbuthnott described the cataclysm generated by the US-UK 'liberation' of Iraq:

“For Iraq watchers, the daily carnage of liberation, the searing, wailing grief of the bereaved, bombed, bereft, haunt. Neighborhoods, evocative ancient homes reduced to rubble by the 'liberators', the surviving, bewildered, standing on shattered bricks, mortar, toys, belongings, liberated even from home's secure warmth.

“In the distorted horrors of today's Iraq, many never make it home: disappeared, kidnapped, shot by the occupying forces for driving, walking, and playing, in familiar venues. Iraqi lives are the earth's cheapest. 'Government' or occupying troops kill 'insurgents' (even if baby or toddler ‘insurgents’) and few questions are asked.” (Felicity Arbuthnott, ‘Death of Humanity,’ PalestineChronicle.com, January 18, 2006)

Despite even this, despite everything that has happened, Western journalists are once again falling obediently into line as the British and American governments begin the long, arduous process of demonising another oil-rich target.


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[brian]

John Pilger

Iran: the next war

http://www.newstatesman.com/graphics/ns/images/spacer.gif

[Sinclair]

It has been in the news media lately that Britain will be sending a shed load of troops to Afghanistan soon. We are told that it is to deal with the Taliban (remember them?), Drug Warlord & insurgents...

Interesting then that there is going to be a major military exercise in a hypothetical Afghanistan very soon.

Quote from here

[Sinclair]

I just came across this speech from Republican(!) Congressman Ron Paul of Texas , at the excellent blog http://wakeupfromyourslumber.blogspot.com/.

Read the comments at the blog to get an idea of the scope & affect of the speech - he really spelt out the whole US OilDollar Hegemony topic.

Here's a cut+paste from the Wakeupfromyourslumber blog:

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Thursday, February 16, 2006
Rep. Ron Paul CLEANS House

In a stunning speech last night before the House, Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas) finally gave the US government the formal and thorough thrashing it deserves for wreaking decades of economic destruction at home and abroad through a corrupt and debased fiat DOLLAR backed by a massive military industrial complex.

He detailed everything that's wrong with US economic and foreign policy in a single speech. Here are some highlights:

The truth now is he who prints the money makes the rules . . . [i.e.,] compel foreign countries to produce and subsidize the country with military superiority and control over the monetary printing presses.

[P]rinting paper money is nothing short of counterfeiting. . .

. . . [It's the] perfect system for obtaining perpetual wealth for the country that issues the de facto world currency.

The one problem [is that] such a system destroys the character of the counterfeiting nation's people just as was the case when gold was the currency, and it was obtained by conquering other nations.

* * *

[E]lite money managers, with especially strong support from U.S. authorities, struck an agreement with OPEC to price oil in U.S. dollars exclusively for all worldwide transactions.

This . . . in essence “backed” the dollar with oil. In return, the U.S. promised to protect the various oil-rich kingdoms in the Persian Gulf against threat of invasion or domestic coup. This arrangement helped ignite the radical Islamic movement among those who resented our influence in the region.

The arrangement . . . allowed us to export our monetary inflation by buying oil and other goods at a great discount as dollar influence flourished.

* * *

The agreement with OPEC in the 1970s to price oil in dollars has . . . created a universal demand for the dollar, and soaks up the huge number of new dollars generated each year.

* * *

In November 2000 Saddam Hussein demanded Euros for his oil. His arrogance was a threat to the dollar; his lack of any military might was never a threat.

At the first cabinet meeting with the new administration in 2001, as reported by Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill, the major topic was how we would get rid of Saddam Hussein-- though there was no evidence whatsoever he posed a threat to us. This deep concern for Saddam Hussein surprised and shocked O’Neill.

* * *

In 2001, Venezuela’s ambassador to Russia spoke of Venezuela switching to the Euro for all their oil sales. Within a year there was a coup attempt against Chavez, reportedly with assistance from our CIA.

* * *

Now, a new attempt is being made against the petrodollar system. Iran, another member of the “axis of evil,” has announced her plans to initiate an oil bourse in March of this year. Guess what, the oil sales will be priced Euros, not dollars.

* * *

Iran, like Iraq, has zero capability to attack us. But that didn’t stop us from turning Saddam Hussein into a modern day Hitler ready to take over the world. Now Iran, especially since she’s made plans for pricing oil in Euros, has been on the receiving end of a propaganda war not unlike that waged against Iraq before our invasion.

* * *

The dollar’s importance is obvious, but this does not diminish the influence of the distinct plans laid out years ago by the neo-conservatives to remake the Middle East. Israel’s influence, as well as that of the Christian Zionists, likewise played a role in prosecuting this war. Protecting “our” oil supplies has influenced our Middle East policy for decades.

* * *

Everything possible is done to prevent the fraud of the monetary system from being exposed to the masses who suffer from it. If oil markets replace dollars with Euros, it would in time curtail our ability to continue to print, without restraint, the world’s reserve currency.


You can bet I was one happy camper watching this last night.

Read the whole thing or watch the video at his site. There's also an official copy in the congressional record for those who need it.

Though we have our differences regarding the effect of returning to a gold standard, I am forever grateful to him for doing what no other member of congress has done to date - striking at the ROOT of the problem - our corrupt and debased monetary system.

Rep. Ron Paul took on the whole corrupt and grotesque establishment singlehandedly. The man is amazing and deserves an avalanche of acknowledgement and praise for his quite possibly death-defying efforts. Please, take some time out to show your support.

And, if you care about your family, your friends, and your country, please, spread the word about this speech.

This is quite possibly the biggest break we're ever going to get. Thanks to Ron Paul, the corruption of the US monetary system is now official record.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Excellent stuff & current - a good speech to refe to/quote in a media e-mail, as excellently suggested by Noel & TRUTH here

[paul wright]

The main purpose of the British troops is to protect the poppy fields and their products for the west against unaffiliated profiteers

[sr4470]

[Sinclair]

From here

The Laboratoire européen d’Anticipation Politique Europe 2020, LEAP/E2020, now estimates to over 80% the probability that the week of March 20-26, 2006 will be the beginning of the most significant political crisis the world has known since the Fall of the Iron Curtain in 1989, together with an economic and financial crisis of a scope comparable with that of 1929. This last week of March 2006 will be the turning-point of a number of critical developments, resulting in an acceleration of all the factors leading to a major crisis, disregard any American or Israeli military intervention against Iran. In case such an intervention is conducted, the probability of a major crisis to start rises up to 100%, according to LEAP/E2020.

An Alarm based on 2 verifiable events

The announcement of this crisis results from the analysis of decisions taken by the two key-actors of the main on-going international crisis, i.e. the United States and Iran:

- on the one hand there is the Iranian decision of opening the first oil bourse priced in Euros on March 20th, 2006 in Teheran, available to all oil producers of the region;

- on the other hand, there is the decision of the American Federal Reserve to stop publishing M3 figures (the most reliable indicator on the amount of dollars circulating in the world) from March 23, 2006 onward.

These two decisions constitute altogether the indicators, the causes and the consequences of the historical transition in progress between the order created after World War II and the new international equilibrium in gestation since the collapse of the USSR. Their magnitude as much as their simultaneity will catalyse all the tensions, weaknesses and imbalances accumulated since more than a decade throughout the international system.

All the signs are pointing to this.

I am gonna recommend (AGAIN), the Webster Tarpley audios here

[ianrcrane]

3 strong quakes kill at least 66 in western Iran

At least 1,200 injured in temblors; 200 villages damaged or flattened


Full story: www.msnbc.msn.com/id/12088339/?GT1=7850#storyContinued

I refer you to the opening article in this thread .......... it would seem that Justin might have been on to something!

The epicentre of the earthquakes is identified Khorramabad (or Khorram Abad), the capital of the province of Lorestan. Coincidentally, Lorestan lies immediately to the north of Khuzestan, the major oil bearing region of Iran!

What's the betting that the US offers to send in a whole bunch aid teams ........... who will probably have something other than aid on their agenda!

Good call, Justin.

Ian R. Crane

[sr4470]

I surmise the US\UK have been in Iran for a while. The bombings in Khuzestan looked highly suspicious, and there were drones being shot down not so long ago.

[TonyGosling]

Iran and the Shah: What Really Happened
by James Perloff May 12, 2009
https://thenewamerican.com/iran-and-the-shah-what-really-happened/

Iran and the Shah: What Really Happened
In September 2007, US News & World Report stated: “Amid deepening frustration with Iran, calls for shifting Bush administration policy toward military strikes or other stronger actions are intensifying.” And in June 2008, President-to-be Barack Obama declared: “The danger from Iran is grave, it is real, and my goal will be to eliminate this threat.”

However, suppose a progressive, pro-Western regime ruled Iran, representing no threat? War discussions would be unnecessary. Yet many forget that, until 30 years ago, exactly such a regime led Iran, until it was toppled with the help of the same U.S. foreign policy establishment recently beating war drums.

Meet the Shah

From 1941 until 1979, Iran was ruled by a constitutional monarchy under Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, Iran’s Shah (king).



Although Iran, also called Persia, was the world’s oldest empire, dating back 2,500 years, by 1900 it was floundering. Bandits dominated the land; literacy was one percent; and women, under archaic Islamic dictates, had no rights.

The Shah changed all this. Primarily by using oil-generated wealth, he modernized the nation. He built rural roads, postal services, libraries, and electrical installations. He constructed dams to irrigate Iran’s arid land, making the country 90-percent self-sufficient in food production. He established colleges and universities, and at his own expense, set up an educational foundation to train students for Iran’s future.

To encourage independent cultivation, the Shah donated 500,000 Crown acres to 25,000 farmers. In 1978, his last full year in power, the average Iranian earned $2,540, compared to $160 25 years earlier. Iran had full employment, requiring foreign workers. The national currency was stable for 15 years, inspiring French economist André Piettre to call Iran a country of “growth without inflation.” Although Iran was the world’s second largest oil exporter, the Shah planned construction of 18 nuclear power plants. He built an Olympic sports complex and applied to host the 1988 Olympics (an honor eventually assigned Seoul), an achievement unthinkable for other Middle East nations.

Long regarded as a U.S. ally, the Shah was pro-Western and anti-communist, and he was aware that he posed the main barrier to Soviet ambitions in the Middle East. As distinguished foreign-affairs analyst Hilaire du Berrier noted: “He determined to make Iran … capable of blocking a Russian advance until the West should realize to what extent her own interests were threatened and come to his aid…. It necessitated an army of 250,000 men.” The Shah’s air force ranked among the world’s five best. A voice for stability within the Middle East itself, he favored peace with Israel and supplied the beleaguered state with oil.

On the home front, the Shah protected minorities and permitted non-Muslims to practice their faiths. “All faith,” he wrote, “imposes respect upon the beholder.” The Shah also brought Iran into the 20th century by granting women equal rights. This was not to accommodate feminism, but to end archaic brutalization.

Yet, at the height of Iran’s prosperity, the Shah suddenly became the target of an ignoble campaign led by U.S. and British foreign policy makers. Bolstered by slander in the Western press, these forces, along with Soviet-inspired communist insurgents, and mullahs opposing the Shah’s progressiveness, combined to face him with overwhelming opposition. In three years he went from vibrant monarch to exile (on January 16, 1979), and ultimately death, while Iran fell to Ayatollah Khomeini’s terror.

Houchang Nahavandi, one of the Shah’s ministers and closest advisers, reveals in his book The Last Shah of Iran: “We now know that the idea of deposing the Shah was broached continually, from the mid-seventies on, in the National Security Council in Washington, by Henry Kissinger, whom the Shah thought of as a firm friend.”

Kissinger virtually epitomized the American establishment: before acting as Secretary of State under Republicans Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford, he had been chief foreign-affairs adviser to Nelson Rockefeller, whom he called “the single most influential person in my life.” Jimmy Carter defeated Ford in the 1976 presidential election, but the switch to a Democratic administration did not change the new foreign policy tilt against the Shah. Every presidential administration since Franklin D. Roosevelt’s has been dominated by members of the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), the most visible manifestation of the establishment that dictates U.S. foreign policy along internationalist lines. The Carter administration was no exception.

Nahavandi writes:

The alternation of parties does not change the diplomatic orientation of the United States that much. The process of toppling the Shah had been envisaged and initiated in 1974, under a certain Republican administration…. Numerous, published documents and studies bear witness to the fact, even if it was not until the beginning of the Carter administration that the decision was made to take concerted action by evoking problems related to human rights.

The Shah’s destruction required assembling a team of diplomatic “hit men.” Du Berrier commented:

When the situation was deemed ripe, U.S. Ambassador William Sullivan — the man reputed to have toppled the pro-American government of General Phoumi Nosavan in Laos — was sent to urge the Shah to get out. In December Mr. George Ball, an instant “authority on Iran,” was sent as a follow-up with the same message.

Sullivan (CFR), a career diplomat with no Middle East experience, became our ambassador to Iran in 1977. The Shah recalled:

Whenever I met Sullivan and asked him to confirm these official statements [of American support], he promised he would. But a day or two later he would return, gravely shake his head, and say that he had received “no instructions” and therefore could not comment…. His answer was always the same: I have received no instructions…. This rote answer had been given me since early September [1978] and I would continue to hear it until the day I left the country.

The other key player du Berrier named, George Ball, was a quintessential establishment man: CFR member, Bilderberger, and banker with Lehman Brothers Kuhn Loeb. The Shah commented: “What was I to make, for example, of the Administration’s sudden decision to call former Under Secretary of State George Ball to the White House as an advisor on Iran? I knew that Ball was no friend.”

Writes Nahavandi:

George Ball — that guru of American diplomacy and prominento of certain think-tanks and pressure groups — once paid a long visit to Teheran, where, interestingly, the National Broadcasting Authority placed an office at his disposal. Once installed there, he played host to all the best-known dissidents and gave them encouragement. After he returned to Washington, he made public statements, hostile and insulting to the Sovereign.

Joining the smear was U.S. Senator Ted Kennedy, whose role Nahavandi recalled in a 1981 interview:

But we must not forget the venom with which Teddy Kennedy ranted against the Shah, nor that on December 7, 1977, the Kennedy family financed a so-called committee for the defense of liberties and rights of man in Teheran, which was nothing but a headquarters for revolution.

Suddenly, the Shah noted, the U.S. media found him “a despot, an oppressor, a tyrant.” Kennedy denounced him for running “one of the most violent regimes in the history of mankind.”

At the center of the “human rights” complaints was the Shah’s security force, SAVAK. Comparable in its mission to America’s FBI, SAVAK was engaged in a deadly struggle against terrorism, most of which was fueled by the bordering USSR, which linked to Iran’s internal communist party, the Tudeh. SAVAK, which had only 4,000 employees in 1978, saved many lives by averting several bombing attempts. Its prisons were open for Red Cross inspections, and though unsuccessful attempts were made on the Shah’s life, he always pardoned the would-be assassins. Nevertheless, a massive campaign was deployed against him. Within Iran, Islamic fundamentalists, who resented the Shah’s progressive pro-Western views, combined with Soviet-sponsored communists to overthrow the Shah. This tandem was “odd” because communism is committed to destroying all religion, which Marx called “the opiate of the masses.” The Shah understood that “Islamic Marxism” was an oxymoron, commenting: “Of course the two concepts are irreconcilable — unless those who profess Islam do not understand their own religion or pervert it for their own political ends.”

For Western TV cameras, protestors in Teheran carried empty coffins, or coffins seized from genuine funerals, proclaiming these were “victims of SAVAK.” This deception — later admitted by the revolutionaries — was necessary because they had no actual martyrs to parade. Another tactic: demonstrators splashed themselves with mercurochrome, claiming SAVAK had bloodied them.

The Western media cooperated. When Carter visited Iran at the end of 1977, the press reported that his departure to Teheran International Airport had been through empty streets, because the city was “all locked up and emptied of people, by order of the SAVAK.” What the media didn’t mention: Carter chose to depart at 6 a.m., when the streets were naturally empty.

An equally vicious campaign occurred when the Shah and his wife, Empress Farah, came for a state visit to America in November 1977. While touring Williamsburg, Virginia, about 500 Iranian students showed up, enthusiastically applauding. However, about 50 protestors waved hammer-and-sickle red flags. These unlikely Iranians were masked, unable to speak Persian, and some were blonde. The U.S. media focused exclusively on the protesters. Wrote the Shah: “Imagine my amazement the next day when I saw the press had reversed the numbers and wrote that the fifty Shah supporters were lost in a hostile crowd.”

On November 16, the Shah and Empress were due to visit Carter. Several thousand Iranian patriots surrounded the White House bearing a huge banner saying “Welcome Shah.” However, as Nahavandi reports:

The police kept them as far away as possible, but allowed a small number of opponents [again, masked] to approach the railings … close to where the Sovereign’s helicopter was going to land for the official welcome. At the exact moment, when courtesies were being exchanged on the White House lawn, these people produced sticks and bicycle chains and set upon the others…. Thus, the whole world was allowed to see riotous scenes, on television, as an accompaniment to the arrival of the Imperial Couple.

Terror at Home

Two major events propelled the revolution in Iran. On the afternoon of August 19, 1978, a deliberate fire gutted the Rex Cinema in Abadan, killing 477 people, including many children with their mothers. Blocked exits prevented escape. The police learned that the fire was caused by Ruhollah Khomeini supporters, who fled to Iraq, where the ayatollah was in exile. But the international press blamed the fire on the Shah and his “dreaded SAVAK.” Furthermore, the mass murder had been timed to coincide with the Shah’s planned celebration of his mother’s birthday; it could thus be reported that the royal family danced while Iran wept. Communist-inspired rioting swept Iran.

Foreigners, including Palestinians, appeared in the crowds. Although the media depicted demonstrations as “spontaneous uprisings,” professional revolutionaries organized them. Some Iranian students were caught up in it. Here the Shah’s generosity backfired. As du Berrier pointed out:

In his desperate need of men capable of handling the sophisticated equipment he was bringing in, the Shah had sent over a hundred thousand students abroad…. Those educated in France and America return indoctrinated by leftist professors and eager to serve as links between comrades abroad and the Communist Party at home.

When the demonstrations turned violent, the government reluctantly invoked martial law. The second dark day was September 8. Thousands of demonstrators gathered in Teheran were ordered to disperse by an army unit. Gunmen — many on rooftops — fired on the soldiers. The Shah’s army fired back. The rooftop snipers then sprayed the crowd. When the tragedy was over, 121 demonstrators and 70 soldiers and police lay dead. Autopsies revealed that most in the crowd had been killed by ammo non-regulation for the army. Nevertheless, the Western press claimed the Shah had massacred his own people.

The Shah, extremely grieved by this incident, and wanting no further bloodshed, gave orders tightly restricting the military. This proved a mistake. Until now, the sight of his elite troops had quieted mobs. The new restraints emboldened revolutionaries, who brazenly insulted soldiers, knowing they could fire only as a last resort.

Khomeini and the Media Cabal

Meanwhile, internationalist forces rallied around a new figure they had chosen to lead Iran: Ruhollah Khomeini. A minor cleric of Indian extraction, Khomeini had denounced the Shah’s reforms during the 1960s — especially women’s rights and land reform for Muslim clerics, many of whom were large landholders. Because his incendiary remarks had contributed to violence and rioting then, he was exiled, living mostly in Iraq, where Iranians largely forgot him until 1978.

A shadowy past followed Khomeini. The 1960s rioting linked to him was financed, in part, by Eastern Bloc intelligence services. He was in the circle of the cleric Kachani Sayed Abolghassem, who had ties to East German intelligence. Furthermore, in 1960, Colonel Michael Goliniewski, second-in-command of Soviet counter-intelligence in Poland, defected to the West. His debriefings exposed so many communist agents that he was honored by a resolution of the U.S. House of Representatives. One report, declassified in 2000, revealed, “Ayatollah Khomeini was one of Moscow’s five sources of intelligence at the heart of the Shiite hierarchy.”

Nevertheless, as French journalist Dominique Lorenz reported, the Americans, “having picked Khomeini to overthrow the Shah, had to get him out of Iraq, clothe him with respectability and set him up in Paris, a succession of events, which could not have occurred, if the leadership in France had been against it.”

In 1978, Khomeini, in Iraq since 1965, was permitted to reside at Neauphle-le-Château in France. Two French police squads, along with Algerians and Palestinians, protected him. Nahavandi notes:

Around the small villa occupied by Khomeini, the agents of many of the world’s secret services were gathered as thickly as the autumn leaves. The CIA, the MI6, the KGB and the SDECE were all there. The CIA had even rented the house next door. According to most of the published witness-statements, the East Germans were in charge of most of the radio-transmissions; and, on at least one occasion, eight thousand cassettes of the Ayatollah’s speeches were sent, directly to Teheran, by diplomatic bag.

Foreign-affairs analyst du Berrier reported:

French services quickly verified that Libya, Iraq and Russia were providing money. Young Iranians, members of the Tudeh (communist) Party, made up Khomeini’s secretariat in France. Working in cooperation with the French Communist Party they provided couriers to pass his orders and tapes into Iran. Their sympathizers in Britain turned the BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation) into a propaganda organ.

Journalists descended in droves on Neauphle-le-Château; Khomeini gave 132 interviews in 112 days, receiving easy questions as their media organs became his sounding board. Nahavandi affirms that, within Iran “the Voice of America, the Voice of Israel and, especially, the BBC virtually became the voice of the revolution, moving from criticism, to overt incitement of revolt, and from biased reporting, to outright disinformation.”

Khomeini’s inflammatory speeches were broadcast; revolutionary songs aired on Iranian radio. One journalist, however, stunned Khomeini by bucking the trend: intelligence expert Pierre de Villemarest, hero of the French Resistance in World War II, anti-communist, and critic of the CFR. Interviewing Khomeini, de Villemarest asked:

How are you going to solve the economic crisis into which you have plunged the country through your agitation of these past few weeks?… And aren’t you afraid that when the present regime is destroyed you will be outpaced by a party as tightly-knit and well organized as the [communist] Tudeh?

Khomeini didn’t reply. The interpreter stood, saying, “The Ayatollah is tired.” De Villemarest registered his concern with the French Ministry of the Interior, but reported, “They told me to occupy myself with something else.”

Ending the Shah’s Rule

Iran’s situation deteriorated. As Western media spurred revolutionaries, riots and strikes paralyzed Iran. The Shah wrote:

At about this time, a new CIA chief was stationed in Teheran. He had been transferred to Iran from a post in Tokyo with no previous experience in Iranian affairs. Why did the U.S. install a man totally ignorant of my country in the midst of such a crisis? I was astonished by the insignificance of the reports he gave me. At one point we spoke of liberalization and I saw a smile spread across his face.

The Carter administration’s continuous demand upon the Shah: liberalize. On October 26, 1978, he freed 1,500 prisoners, but increased rioting followed. The Shah commented that “the more I liberalized, the worse the situation in Iran became. Every initiative I took was seen as proof of my own weakness and that of my government.” Revolutionaries equated liberalization with appeasement. “My greatest mistake,” the Shah recalled, “was in listening to the Americans on matters concerning the internal affairs of my kingdom.”

Iran’s last hope: its well-trained military could still restore order. The Carter administration realized this. Du Berrier noted: “Air Force General Robert Huyser, deputy commander of U.S. forces in Europe, was sent to pressure Iran’s generals into giving in without a fight.” “Huyser directly threatened the military with a break in diplomatic relations and a cutoff of arms if they moved to support their monarch.”

“It was therefore necessary,” the Shah wrote, “to neutralize the Iranian army. It was clearly for this reason that General Huyser had come to Teheran.”

Huyser only paid the Shah a cursory visit, but had three meetings with Iran’s revolutionary leaders — one lasting 10 hours. Huyser, of course, had no authority to interfere with a foreign nation’s sovereign affairs.

Prior to execution later by Khomeini, General Amir Hossein Rabbi, commander-in-chief of the Iranian Air Force, stated: “General Huyser threw the Shah out of the country like a dead mouse.”

U.S. officials pressed the Shah to leave Iran. He reflected:

You cannot imagine the pressure the Americans were putting on me, and in the end it became an order…. How could I stay when the Americans had sent a general, Huyser, to force me out? How could I stand alone against Henry Precht [the State Department Director for Iran] and the entire State Department?

He finally accepted exile, clinging to the belief that America was still Iran’s ally, and that leaving would avert greater bloodshed. These hopes proved illusions.

A factor in the Shah’s decision to depart was that — unknown to most people — he had cancer. U.S. Ambassador William Sullivan (CFR) assured the Shah that, if he exited Iran, America would welcome him. Despite the pleadings of myriad Iranians to stay, he reluctantly left. However, shortly after reaching Cairo, the U.S. ambassador to Egypt effectively informed him that “the government of the United States regrets that it cannot welcome the Shah to American territory.”

The betrayed ruler now became “a man without a country.”

Iran’s Chaotic Descent

On February 1, 1979, with U.S. officials joining the welcoming committee, Ayatollah Khomeini arrived in Iran amid media fanfare. Although counter-demonstrations, some numbering up to 300,000 people, erupted in Iran, the Western press barely mentioned them.

Khomeini had taken power, not by a constitutional process, but violent revolution that ultimately claimed hundreds of thousands of lives. Numerous of his opponents were executed, usually without due process, and often after brutal torture. Teheran’s police officers — loyal to the Shah — were slaughtered. At least 1,200 Imperial Army officers, who had been instructed by General Huyser not to resist the revolution, were put to death. Before dying, many exclaimed, “God save the King!” “On February 17,” reported du Berrier, “General Huyser faced the first photos of the murdered leaders whose hands he had tied and read the descriptions of their mutilations.” At the year’s end, the military emasculated and no longer a threat, the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan. More Iranians were killed during Khomeini’s first month in power than in the Shah’s 37-year reign. Yet Carter, Ted Kennedy, and the Western media, who had brayed so long about the Shah’s alleged “human rights” violations, said nothing. Mass executions and torture elicited no protests. Seeing his country thus destroyed, the exiled Shah raged to an adviser: “Where are the defenders of human rights and democracy now?” Later, the Shah wrote that there was

not a word of protest from American human rights advocates who had been so vocal in denouncing my “tyrannical” regime! It was a sad commentary, I reflected, that the United States, and indeed most Western countries, had adopted a double standard for international morality: anything Marxist, no matter how bloody and base, is acceptable.

Exile

The Shah’s personal tragedy wasn’t over. He stayed briefly in Egypt and Morocco, but did not wish to impose risks on his hosts from Muslim extremists. Eventually he welcomed Mexican President Lopes Portillo’s hospitality.

However, in Mexico the Shah received an invitation from CFR Chairman David Rockefeller, who used influence to secure permission for the Shah to come to America for medical treatment. Rockefeller sent a trendy Park Avenue MD to examine the Shah, who agreed — against his better judgment — to abandon his personal physicians and fly to New York for treatment. In October 1979, he was received at the Rockefeller-founded Sloan-Kettering Memorial Hospital for cancer treatment. Here the Shah experienced a fateful delay in spleen surgery that some believe accelerated his death.

The Shah’s admission to the United States had another outcome. Partly in retribution, on November 4, 1979, Iranians took 52 hostages from the U.S. embassy in Teheran. (According to Nahavandi, Soviet special services assisted them.) This embarrassed Jimmy Carter, who had done so much to destroy the Shah and support Khomeini. The seizure made the Shah a pawn.

While in New York, Mexico inexplicably reversed its welcome, informing the Shah that his return would contravene Mexico’s “vital interests.” One can only guess at the hidden hands possibly influencing this decision.

Carter faced a dilemma. Iran wanted the Shah’s return — for a degrading execution — in exchange for the American hostages. However, a direct trade might humiliate the United States.

Therefore, Panama was selected as intermediary. Following treatment in New York, the Shah was informed he could no longer remain in America, but Panama would welcome him. In Panama, however, the Shah and Empress were under virtual house arrest; it was apparent that it would only be a matter of time before the Shah would be sent to Iran in exchange for the hostages. A special cage was erected in Teheran. Khomeini’s followers envisioned parading him in the streets before final torture and bloody execution.

However, Anwar Sadat, the Egyptian president and the Shah’s friend, discerned the scheme, and sent a jet to Panama, which escorted the Shah and Empress safely to Egypt.

Mohammad Reza Pahlavi died on July 27, 1980. His last words: “I wait upon Fate, never ceasing to pray for Iran, and for my people. I think only of their suffering.” In Cairo, a grand funeral honored him. Three million Egyptians followed the procession.

Anwar Sadat who, like the Shah, advocated a peaceful Middle East, and defied the American establishment by saving the Shah from infamous death, did not survive much longer himself. The following year, Muslim extremists assassinated him under circumstances remaining controversial.

The Issues

Why did the American establishment, defying logic and morality, betray our ally the Shah? Only the perpetrators can answer the question, but a few possibilities should be considered.

Iran ranks second in the world in oil and natural-gas reserves. Energy is critical to world domination, and major oil companies, such as Exxon and British Petroleum, have long exerted behind-the-scenes influence on national policies.

The major oil companies had for years dictated Iranian oil commerce, but the Shah explained:

In 1973 we succeeded in putting a stop, irrevocably, to sixty years of foreign exploitation of Iranian oil-resources…. In 1974, Iran at last took over the management of the entire oil-industry, including the refineries at Abadan and so on…. I am quite convinced that it was from this moment that some very powerful, international interests identified, within Iran, the collusive elements, which they could use to encompass my downfall.

Does this explain the sudden attitude change toward Iran expressed by Henry Kissinger, beginning in the mid-seventies? Kissinger’s links to the Rockefellers, whose fortune derived primarily from oil, bolsters the Shah’s view on the situation. However, other factors should be considered.

Although the Shah maintained a neutral stance toward Israel, during the 1973 Yom Kippur War, he allowed critical supplies to reach Egypt, enabling it to achieve a balance of success, and earning Sadat’s undying gratitude, but wrath from influential Zionists. Did this impact the West’s attitude change in the mid-seventies?

We should not overlook that the Shah opposed the powerful opium trade, now flourishing in the Middle East.

Finally, the Shah was a nationalist who brought his country to the brink of greatness and encouraged Middle East peace. These qualities are anathema to those seeking global governance, for strong nations resist membership in world bodies, and war has long been a destabilizing catalyst essential to what globalists call “the new world order.”

What is the solution to modern Iran? Before listening to war drums, let us remember:

It was the CFR clique — the same establishment entrenched in the Bush and Obama administrations — that ousted the Shah, resulting in today’s Iran. That establishment also chanted for the six-year-old Iraq War over alleged weapons of mass destruction never found. Therefore, instead of contemplating war with Iran, a nation four times Iraq’s size, let us demand that America shed its CFR hierarchy and their interventionist policy that has wrought decades of misery, and adopt a policy of avoiding foreign entanglements, and of minding our own business in international affairs.