Here is something I noticed.

Huffingpost carries the following story: “Iran Protests: Hundreds Of Thousands March, Tear Gas Fired”

Click the story. Read the first paragraph, “Clashes between Iranian police and hundreds of thousands of protesters wracked central Tehran on Monday as security forces beat and fired tear gas at opposition supporters hoping to evoke [...]]]>

Protests

Here is something I noticed.

Huffingpost carries the following story: “Iran Protests: Hundreds Of Thousands March, Tear Gas Fired”

Click the story. Read the first paragraph, “Clashes between Iranian police and hundreds of thousands of protesters wracked central Tehran on Monday as security forces beat and fired tear gas at opposition supporters hoping to evoke Egypt’s recent popular uprising.”

Notice the hyperlink for “hundreds of thousands”? This means it is sourced from another article. Go on, read the article.

Now try to tell me where in the article it says “hundreds of thousands”. I only see “tens of thousands”. Added one tiny zero in the process of linking from a source.

Makes you wonder if the second article sourced ITS source, would it say “thousands”? And so on?

A document detailing the propaganda attacks on Iran from an internal document.

Source

TCN Concept Paper 3-5-11CONCEPT NOTE TAASH COMMUNICATIONS NETWORK [TCN]: VIRTUAL SANCTUARY FOR IRANIAN CIVIL SOCIETY

For Internal Use Only: Not for Distribution

BACKGROUND/JUSTIFICATION: Among the lessons learned from the revolutions in Egypt and Tunisia is the value and affect of [...]]]>

An Example of Anti-Iranian Propaganda Media

A document detailing the propaganda attacks on Iran from an internal document.

Source

TCN Concept Paper 3-5-11CONCEPT NOTE TAASH COMMUNICATIONS NETWORK [TCN]: VIRTUAL SANCTUARY FOR IRANIAN CIVIL SOCIETY

For Internal Use Only: Not for Distribution

The Democracy Council, in response to requests from prominent activists and organizations representing the Green Movement and other emerging sectors of civil society to collaboratively develop and deploy a “virtual sanctuary” for reform – minded Iranians to communicate, inform, network, organize, and advocate with each other and the larger Iranian society as well as the outside world. Currently, a significant amount of digital networking and content is produced by organizations affiliated with the Green Movement and independent civil society organizations (CSOs) in and outside Iran. However, distribution and leveraging of such content is limited by: 1. Technology available to CSOs, 2. Unaccommodating regional distribution platforms, internet, web and satellite based, 3. Lack of resources or skills to circumvent censorship and security regimes, 4. Lack of shared practices and resources. TCN will provide solutions to these four issues. In addition, CSOs and activists will merge their communications’ operations into the TCN platform to facilitate immediate
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FOR INTERNAL USE ONLY: NOT FOR DISTRIBUTION

and leveraged impact in Iran and the Persian-speaking world. For example, TCN will leverage the databases, mailing lists, and informal and formal marketing and advocacy operations through the single branded portal. These individual CSOs and independent producers would continue to manage their networking and marketing operations through the larger platform.

Taash Communications Network (TCN), developed by the Democracy Council (the Council) in collaboration with the leading representatives from the Green Movement, will help to meet this demand by providing the first robust, multilevel (internet, web, mobile, and satellite broadcast) communications channel for regionally produced progressive (uncensored) content and communications. TCN will operate as branded technological distribution portal (platform) made available to independent content and communications produced by and for progressive and reform – minded Iranians. TCN will be the Facebook, twitter, NPR, and C-Span of Persian media under one roof with a focus on social and political issues concerning the Iranian public inside the country, in the region, and abroad. It will be a uniting factor that is demand-driven (commercially sustainable). TCN will not produce content but provide technical services for the benefit of Iranian civil society.

FOR INTERNAL USE ONLY: NOT FOR DISTRIBUTION

SUMMARY PROGRAM DESCRIPTION: Developed in coordination with prominent civil society figures in Iran, including representatives of the Green Movement, TCN would serve as a secure, robust, multilevel communications platform by which civil society members can deliver Persian content through:

• Interactive Website

• Advanced online (e.g. social networking) and mobile tools to secure unfettered access, availability, and interactivity to the content.

• Branded Persian Language video broadcast platform

TCN would be owned by the nonprofit TCN Foundation registered in a European country, such as Denmark. The foundation’s mission would be to make available an independent, branded Persian language communications platform that is available for high-quality user-generated programming. TCN will serve as an independent distribution platform without production activities and distributing largely “homegrown” content. TCN would not produce or fund any content itself. Content will be broadly through independently produced user-generated local and regional programming. These contents will be supplemented by the purchase of Persian rights to acquisition of online or TV entertainment programming, with progressive themes from Hollywood to Bollywood. TCN will be an independently-owned multi layer open platform for progressive, reform-minded or “edgy” programming without censorship. A number of civil society organizations and other groups, such as prominent figures in the Green Movement have already expressed an interest and are committed in producing programming and content for distribution by many different TCN platforms. For example, TCN has received written expressions of support and pledges to produce content from a broad spectrum of independent individuals and organizations, such as:

• Mohsen Sazegara, a leading dissident and one of the original founders of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard

• Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan

• Shideh Rezaei, co-founder of Iran-Rooyan

• Ahmad Batebi, Human Rights Activists

• Mohammad Sadeghi Esfahlani, founder and administrator of Mir Hossein Mousavi’s and Zahra Rahnavard’s Supporters’ Network on Facebook

This informative, educational, and entertaining medium will actively engage, inform, inspire, and link Iranians without censorship. To meet the demand of the target market, foreign films, generally illegal in Iran for containing progressive themes, would be acquired and dubbed to augment the original programming. Such content would be distributed and made accessible through multiple mediums: a secure website that contains social networking applications, and utilizes mobile and circumvention tools, and a robust satellite broadcast channel. TCN would work collaboratively with local and regional CSO’s to design and deploy a strategic audience acquisition program leveraging new technologies and viral techniques. Each independent producer would manage their own networking and advocacy component as a back end to their own regular internet or TV programming. TCN provides the technical background to ensure high penetration, distribution, and secure accessibility.
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FOR INTERNAL USE ONLY: NOT FOR DISTRIBUTION

Market research shows that TCN can be financially self-sustaining after three years.

TECHNICAL OPERATIONS:

Website Integration: TCN’s main focus would be its robust and secure, but yet user friendly and dial-up compatible website. Due to frequent jamming problems inside Iran, many young activists and users are turning to the internet for content. As a result, TCN will maintain a very active online presence – serving as a virtual sanctuary to further distribute and reintroduce censored content. The TCN website will be a state of the art all inclusive program – a virtual sanctuary for content solicitation, delivery, and dissemination (see attached detailed security program). The content on the website will be downloadable and compressed for the slow bandwidth inside Iran. Other features will include secure links to other sites, small size audio only files of the programs for transfer via Bluetooth inside Iran, and a “blog of blogs” which aggregate and reintroduce censored blogs and news.

TCN will serve as a proprietary social media platform linked to secure applications such as Twitter, Facebook, and Orkut which will be maintained by the content producers. As an interactive channel, users will be able to upload user-generated content in the form of text, audio, or video gathered by secure FTP drop-boxes and secondary research. Each submission will be vetted and its accuracy confirmed before being broadcast. A digital voice recorder on the website could also record audience comments and feedback. These comments and feedback are also broadcast on a special program and are used to modify and improve the shows. To facilitate interaction and networking in a secure environment, the website will utilize and distribute circumvention tools to bypass government filters. Downloadable tools, techniques and procedures such as: VPNs, Proxy servers, Anonymizers, IP Hiding tools, Voice to Text, Microblogging via SMS, JAVA applications, bulk SMS services, and third party anti-filter software, such as Psiphon, and Peacefire, will be available on the website. Each time any of the products are utilized, it will bring the user first to TCN’s website and then their website of choice. The initial distribution of anticensorship products will happen through trusted networks and vetted mailing lists. In return, each user who is given the software will refer one trusted friend for product download and the practice will continue. With this method, in a very short period of time a vast network of trusted users will be built. All these users will be connected to the website the moment they open their software copy to bypass the filtering in Iran. Online Security: In order to sustain TCN as a virtual strategic communications hub, we will add various layers of security and robustness to assure confidentiality, integrity and availability of the platform and the content it supports. The website will help ensure these core precepts of information security are being directed to a select group of end users dedicated to fostering an open interaction. These steps will include the following life-cycle and risk management steps: Confidentiality: a) We are extending our platform to a trusted network of end users; b) Discreet communication will be facilitated through the use of encrypted proxy servers and Haystack software. Integrity: a) Analytics of cyber forensics end user logs will ensure the integrity and allow for continuing vetting; b) By extending these programs through our secure servers we will be able to authenticate users who will serve as local distributors, thereby providing a multiplier effect.
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FOR INTERNAL USE ONLY: NOT FOR DISTRIBUTION

Mobile: Due to the increasing use of mobile devices inside Iran, a mobile application for iPhone and Android will be developed for TCN to maximize audience interaction and utilize all existing platforms. By utilizing these interactive applications, users will be able to read the latest news and listen to the most updated content on the website. Specially compressed files of high profile and important programs and interviews will also be distributed by these applications. The mobile apps will allow the users to rank each story and also send user-generated content in different formats to TCN’s secure servers. TCN’s Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube accounts will also be linked to these applications. Users of the TCN app will have the ability to securely chat with each other inside the country. Satellite Broadcast Channel: Affiliations with various satellite channel operators will allow TCN immediate limited access to existing satellite broadcast channels with a footprint covering Iran and the larger MENA region. TCN operations would be marketed and users driven from satellite broadcasts and selected content would be distributed via the affiliated satellite networks. The second phase of TCN operations would be a satellite channel that will be at the disposal of all TCN contributors. The W3A satellite, owned by Eutelsat operates at position 7E, a comparatively higher orbit that makes it less vulnerable to interference. Other channels on W3A include: BBC Persian, Voice of America Persian, Channel One TV and Simay-Azadi Iran National TV. The uplink/transmission facility will be located in a secure European location, such as the one currently used by the Democracy Council in Slovenia. The programming will be delivered via a minimum 3Mbps ASI MPEG 2 signal generated at a playout facility in Culver City (Los Angeles), CA. The signal will ride from our Culver City TOC on GlobeCast’s Backbone Network (GBN) to a GlobeCast point of presence (PoP) in Paris. GlobeCast will provision a local circuit loop to bring the signal to Telehouse 2 (24/7 operational team on site), also in Paris, were it will be interconnected to a third party network to Rambouillet, France. In Rambouillet, the signal will be inserted into a multiplexed platform on Eutelsat W3A located at 7.0º east as free to air signal. Transponder A1 has a downlink frequency of 10,721 MHz and has a European – Middle East focused beam. Neighboring Channels on W3A at 7.0° east, TP A1, Europe B beam are: BBC Persia, Simay-Azadi Iran National TV, Rang-A-Rang TV, Voice of America Persia, Pars TV, GunAZ TV, and Persian 1. Marketing: TCN’s marketing and messaging program is twofold. First, the groups producing the programming and other civil society organizations would engage in a massive viral marketing campaign drawing upon their own networks. Second, TCN would deploy a technology-based strategic marketing campaign through email, satellite broadcast, instant messaging, online advertising, and SMS. Email Marketing: We estimate that TCN would be launched with a secondary distribution network of over three million email addresses in Iran. In addition to benefitting from the marketing efforts of those producing original programming, various civil society actors have already pledged to distribute marketing materials through their existing networks. Examples of such multipliers who would be available include: VOA-PNN hosts, Arash Aalaei and Hamed Behravan, and Human Rights Activists in Iran (HRA). In addition to organizations inside and outside of Iran, Voice of America’s Persian News Network (PNN) sends out Proxy and anti filter website addresses to its list serve on a daily and weekly basis. TCN would be able to access this list serve, which contains more than 160,000 Email addresses.
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FOR INTERNAL USE ONLY: NOT FOR DISTRIBUTION

Persian Language Satellite Channel Marketing: Approximately twenty million listeners tune in to VOA PNN every day. Hamed Behravan and Arash Aalaei will publicize TCN on their daily and weekly shows. An opportunity to promote TCN on other opposition channels also exists.

Instant Message Marketing: One of the most popular Internet activities inside Iran is online chatting. By utilizing various instant messaging services such as Yahoo Messenger, AIM, ICQ, MSN Messenger, Facebook IM, Skype IM, and G-chat, TCN will have a constant presence in the most popular chat-rooms.

Online Ad Based Marketing: Managers of such popular websites as Iranian.com and Gooya.com indicated that they would allow TCN banner advertisements and hyper links.

SMS Marketing: By utilizing bulk SMS servers, information about TCN and its proxies can be widely distributed. Civil society actors and users would be encouraged to forward the texts to those in their databases.

CONTENT & PROGRAMMING: Programming on TCN will consist of progressive user-generated original programming as well as foreign content dubbed or translated into Persian. All original content will be produced by and for Iranians and provided free of cost to TCN. Civil society actors expressing support for TCN and an interest in producing programs, include but are not limited to; representatives of the Green Movement, hosts of existing VOA-PNN shows, student activists, Mohsen Sazegara, MirHossein Mousavi and Zahra Rahnavard’s Facebook Administrator, Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan, Zirzamin.se, Abdolkarim Soroosh, Akbar Ganji, Sanaz Asadi, Iran Rooyan (women’s right group), Nazanin AfshinJam, well-known and respected women’s right activist, and Human Rights Activists in Iran (HRA). We anticipate that additional programs and content will be produced once the target audience is aware that independent uncensored distribution platforms are available. The following is a sample of programs from independent producers who have already expressed an interest in producing content for distribution on TCN.

WORKING TITLE How to bypass filtering

SYNOPSIS An in depth explanation of methods used in bypassing internet filtering inside Iran. This program which will be available in multiple formats such as audio, video, and script, will teach the Iranian user how to securely surf the web and bypass the filtering inside Iran. This program will teach the Iranian user how to use the latest social media tools to gain information and spread any crucial news from inside the country. It will teach the Iranian user how to build a network of trusted activist in the region and how to take steps to assure anonymity. This educational program will be available in multiple formats and on multiple platforms.
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What is Social Media

FOR INTERNAL USE ONLY: NOT FOR DISTRIBUTION

Profiles: Daily Life in Iran

Weekly magazine show featuring examples of challenges facing average Iranians, such as: drugs, prostitution, crime, economy, etc. This program will be available in multiple formats such as online magazine, mobile applications, audio only, and a weekly video shows.

YouTube Compilation

Weekly hosted show of edited YouTube clips with progressive themes. These clips will be available on TCN’s YouTube channel and its mobile application. The videos will be specifically compressed for the Iranian user with low bandwidth. Weekly talk show hosted by prominent green movement activists and leaders providing information and highlighting activities of the Green Movement. The content will be available in multiple formats for different distribution platforms. Weekly magazine-style format of exposés on corruption in Iran. Different minority organizations and ethnic groups will produce shows covering their own disadvantages inside Iran. These shows will cover problems unique to a minority group. This section of TCN will bring minority voices, demands, problems, and concerns under one roof in an organized manner. Weekly talk and magazine show covering issues of interest to 18-25 year olds and highlighting what problems they face inside Iran. It will be an interactive medium for the students to discuss progressive ideas in secure chat-rooms and via secure mobile applications. As a well-known leader of the Green Movement, Sazegara has already established his daily YouTube show. Within this show he gives updates on the Green Movement and encourages them to continue their civil resistance and push for reform. In many cities all around the world including New York, Washington DC, Boston, Hamburg, and Paris, multiple non-united organizations that are supporting the Green Movement are functioning under the name of “Where is My Vote?” These
7

Green Movement Today

Corruption Exposed Minority in Iran

University Student Show

Mohsen Sazegara

Where is My Vote

FOR INTERNAL USE ONLY: NOT FOR DISTRIBUTION

Iran Civil Society online

Zirzamin show

Science and Tech show Dr. Soroosh show

The Ganji show

Addiction show

Sanaz Metal

Anti propaganda

Human Rights Activists in Iran (HRA)

organizations have their own unique activity in support of the Green Movement. Occasionally all of these groups hold unified gatherings around the world in support of the movement inside Iran. The daily show will be produced by one of these groups per day. Tavaana.org is a website dedicated in promoting democracy and freedom for the Iranian people, led by Mariam Memarsadeghi in Washington DC. The TV version of the website will have the same goal. Zirzamin.se is the biggest Iranian underground music hub that is based in Sweden. Many Iranian artists inside Iran, who never get to pass the regime’s Islamic guidance and culture censorship, send their music to this website hoping that they get heard. Zirzamin will not only promote these anonymous Iranian artists, but also features prominent Iranian musicians. A fast paced visually pleasing technology show consisting of several segments that will bring the latest to the Iranian audience. Dr. Soroosh is one of the most well-known philosophers in modern Iran. He is a relentless advocate of separation of religion and state. It was because of his lectures at Tehran university and writings about a secular government that he had to flee Iran. One of the most famous Iranian dissidents, Mr. Ganji spent many years in Evin prison. He is also an advocate of separation of religion and state. As a pioneer in civil disobedience, Mr. Ganji promotes not violent political movements. Addiction is by far Iran’s most alarming social dilemma. This weekly show will highlight the drug addiction problem inside Iran and what the government is doing to fight it. Hard Rock is one of the most popular genres of music inside Iran. Sanaz Metal is a well-known hard rock promoter in the US who hosts numerous TV shows. The Iranian government utilizes many mediums to spread propaganda against the west and especially the USA. This show will do a fact check on the entire claim in Iranian media. Claims by Iranian officials will also face TCN “facto-meter.” It will be available on all TCN platforms. HRA is one of the most active organizations inside
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FOR INTERNAL USE ONLY: NOT FOR DISTRIBUTION

Open Mic

International community and the Green Movement

Iran, documenting and reporting human rights violation cases in the country. Many well-known dissidents are active members of this organization. HRA’s representatives regularly present their documents on international gatherings. All documents would be available for download and would have a special section on TCN’s mobile application. Open Mic will feature emerging Iranian scholars from around the world. This program will give a voice to those who believe they have something to say and are trying to change the world, one step at a time. All voices can gather in chatrooms and paltalks to securely exchange ideas. All conversations will be available in various digital formats for download or streaming. This weekly show will feature the international activities in support of the Green Movement.

TCN will seek to obtain the Persian-language licenses and dub foreign programming, particularly popular Arab and Western produced entertainment, such as films, talk shows, documentaries, novels, and sociopolitical textbooks, training manuals, and articles. These contents will contain progressive or stimulating themes not widely available within Iran, such as social issues, women’s rights, the environment, tolerance, etc.

ORGANIZATIONAL DESCRIPTION: The Democracy Council (DC), a 501c3 organization, was founded in 1999 on the belief that freedom of information, democracy and human rights are fundamental components of stable societies. The Council, A133 compliant, is managed by an independent Board of Directors and is audited by Bandari Beach Lim & Cleland, LLP. The Council enjoys a global reputation for successfully implementing programming in post-conflict situations and in closed societies. For example, the Council was primarily responsible for bringing over $700million of secreted assets back to the treasury of the Palestinian Authority. The Council has been the primary conduit for policy-makers to the internal leadership and groups which broadly comprise opposition elements and civil society organizations throughout the Middle East. Current programming aims to encourage the growth of civil society activism and reform through providing internal activists with the tools and platforms capable of offering citizens with alternative, independent sources of news and information. Ongoing activities include transfer of technology; training and mentoring of local CSOs; development and management of satellite broadcast content, programming, and broadcast technology; development and mentoring of a number of online news and information outlets, as well as providing an emergency fund for activists. The Council has implemented programming to support online social networking in Iran and currently maintains a strong network of internal activists, including the Green Movement, whose leaders have requested direct support from DC to develop its communications strategy and online capabilities. DC
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FOR INTERNAL USE ONLY: NOT FOR DISTRIBUTION

project staff includes the producers and hosts of VOA Persian News Network Technology shows with a focus on digital activism, and internet & mobile access. Their Facebook page attracts 500,000 hits per month inside Iran. In collaboration with VOA PNN, DC staff developed a Persian iPhone and Android application. Key Democracy Council Project Staff: Owen Kirby, Project Director and the Democracy Council Washington D.C. office director was a senior governance adviser for the Department of State in Kandahar Province, Afghanistan and as a senior adviser and director of political programs in the Department of State’s Office of the Middle East Partnership Initiative during the Bush administration. Michael Mylrea, Director of Cybersecurity: Has worked as cyber security and technology consultant at Good Harbor Consulting, U.S. Cyber Consequences Unit, Harvard Berkman Center, MIT Lincoln Lab, Office of the Secretary of Defense-Middle East Policy. He speaks Spanish, Arabic, Hebrew and Portuguese. He was a Fulbright Scholar; has two B.As from the University of Wisconsin; and an M.A. from The Fletcher School at Tufts. Dr. Larry Press, ICT Application Director: A long-term consultant to the Democracy Council and is a Professor of Information Systems at CSU Dominguez Hills. Dr. Pres, one of the foremost experts on internet access in developing countries, having conducted studies on Internet in Russia, Cuba, Chile, Nepal, Bangladesh, India, Singapore, and Vietnam. He taught at USC and worked for Rand Corp. & IBM. James Prince, Project Advisor and President of the Democracy Council. Hamed Behravan, Iran Program Manager: Has launched numerous progressive and youth targeting programs for voice of America Persian News Network and currently produces and hosts a popular tech show on information access and new media. He frequently trains his audience on use of social media, and digital tools to bypass censorship. He initiated and had a major role in the design of the first two way Persian mobile news application. Hamed has written several manuals on how to safely access and distribute information inside Iran. Mary Salih, Director of Satellite Operations draws upon fifteen years of international satellite broadcast experience including serving as Vice President for Globecast. She speaks Dari, Turkish, and English.

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BibiJon’s Iran’s  Image is a great site that has lots of information dismantling popular misconception about Iran, for example:

Who would have guessed that:

A report by Science-Matrix covers the last 30 years of global scientific growth and shows Iran’s scientific achievments. Report highlights:

“Notably, most of the growth is in two countries : growth rates (Growth Index, or GI in the figure) in Iran and Turkey increased 11 and 5.5 times faster, respectively, than output at the world [...]]]>

Iranian Scientists

A report by Science-Matrix covers the last 30 years of global scientific growth and shows Iran’s scientific achievments. Report highlights:

“Notably, most of the growth is in two countries : growth rates (Growth Index, or GI in the figure) in Iran and Turkey increased 11 and 5.5 times faster, respectively, than output at the world level from 1980–1994 to 1995–2009.”  “The response of Iran is radically different—after the Iraq–Iran war, the Islamic Republic experienced rapid growth in scientific production. In fact, Iran has demonstrated the fastest rate of growth of any country, including Brazil, Russia, India and China (the BRIC countries).”

“When examining the growth of research that has been conducted since 1990 at the Iran and world levels in inorganic and nuclear chemistry, nuclear and particle physics, and nuclear technology (engineering), the image becomes even clearer. Whereas output in these fields has increased by only 34% at the world level between 1990 and 2009, Iran’s scientific output has increased 84 times“

“It is important to note, however, that significant growth has also been seen in public health research (Table I), and a range of fields including obstetrics & gynaecology, immunology, psychology, fertility, information & library science, optics, gastroenterology, ophthalmology, dairy & animal science, marine biology & hydrobiology and biology generally,
haematology, otorhinolaryngology, and environmental sciences have also experienced growth (data not shown). The subfield of science studies is the only area where growth has been slower in Iran than at the world level. Hence, although the growth of science in Iran may be a cause for concern for the world, it has some positive signs for the Iranian population. In particular, Iranians’ quality of life may increase, if the knowledge that is being produced can be harnessed in astute and constructive ways.”

While doing business in Iran is globally ranked high, it is important to note that it has been doing significient positive changes to its procedures. One can only imagine the huge positive change Iran could do if foreign powers would improve their relationships with it.

The Doing Business in Iran article will have [...]]]>

Tehran, Economic Power

While doing business in Iran is globally ranked high, it is important to note that it has been doing significient positive changes to its procedures. One can only imagine the huge positive change Iran could do if foreign powers would improve their relationships with it.

The Doing Business in Iran article will have full details. For example, starting a business in Iran took 28 days in 2008, but was reduced to a mere 9 days in 2009. Global ranking went from 73 in 2008 to 48 in 2009!

Iran had four positive reforms, “In the Islamic Republic of Iran the process for dealing with construction permits was quickened with the introduction of e-service offices in Tehran, streamlining the process for obtaining location approvals, construction permits, and building completion certificates. In addition, the time needed to obtain water and electricity connections fell substantially. The tax burden on businesses was eased by converting the sales tax into a value added tax. Business start-up was simplified with the adoption of an electronic registration system. Trade times were shortened by the installation of scanners at the port of Shahid Rajaee and the reorganization of customs clearance offices to separate inspections of special goods (chemicals, petroleum) from those of general goods.”

Found this article to be interesting and republishing it here for your interest.

Iran’s Greens deserted By Ismael Hossein-zadeh

One year after his feverishly contested re-election, Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadinejad seems be to standing on firmer political ground than any other time during his time in office . Having withstood relentless destabilization plots, from within [...]]]>

Iranian Greens Riot

Found this article to be interesting and republishing it here for your interest.

Iran’s Greens deserted
By Ismael Hossein-zadeh

One year after his feverishly contested re-election, Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadinejad seems be to standing on firmer political ground than any other time during his time in office . Having withstood relentless destabilization plots, from within and outside Iran, his government is now more confident at home and more respected abroad.

On a broader scale, the Islamic Republic of Iran is in many ways stronger and more stable – notwithstanding the continued demonization of Ahmadinejad and Iran by the forces of global domination and their frustrated allies.

Even on economic grounds, where pressures of sanctions, sabotage and psychological warfare continue unabated, Iran has weathered the storm much better than expected. In its May 2010 

report on Iran, the International Monetary Fund points out that unemployment and inflation, though high, have started to fall.

The report notes that “In the past two years … inflation stood at 25.4 and 10.3 [percent] respectively: however in 2010 this rate will fall to 8.5 percent for the first time”. It predicts that Iran’s foreign exchange reserves will increase US$5 billion “and reach 88.5 [billion US$] in 2010″. The healthy accumulation of foreign exchange reserves stands in sharp contrast to depleted reserves and huge debts in many countries around the world.

Iran has been quite successful in extending transportation, communication and electrification networks to the countryside; providing free education and healthcare services for the needy; and reducing poverty and inequality. As I have pointed out previously:

Iran has also made considerable progress in scientific research and technological know-how. All the oppressive economic sanctions by US imperialism and its allies have not deterred Iran from forging ahead with its economic development and industrialization plans. Indeed, Iran has viewed imperialism’s economic sanctions and technological boycotts as a blessing in disguise: it has taken advantage of these sanctions and boycotts to become self-reliant in many technological areas.

For example, Iran is now self-sufficient in producing many of its industrial products such as home and electric appliances (television sets, washers and dryers, refrigerators, washing machines, and the like), textiles, leather products, pharmaceuticals, and agricultural products and processed food and beverage products (including refined sugar and vegetable oil). The country has also made considerable progress in manufacturing steel, copper products, paper, rubber products, telecommunications equipment, cement, and industrial machinery. Iran has the largest operational stock of industrial robots in West Asia.

Iran’s progress in automobile and other motor vehicle production has especially been impressive. Motor vehicles, including farming equipment, now count among Iran’s exports … Most remarkable of Iran’s industrial progress, however, can be seen in the manufacture of various types of its armaments needs. Iran’s defense industry has taken great strides in the past 25 years, and now manufactures many types of arms and equipment. Since 1992, Iran’s Defense Industries Organization (DIO) has produced its own tanks, armored personnel carriers, guided missiles, radar systems, military vessels, submarines, and a fighter plane … As of 2006, Iran had exported weapons to 57 countries, including NATO [North Atlantic Treaty Organization] members. [1]

In the international arena of geopolitical and diplomatic challenges, too, Iran has recently scored a number of important points and won important new allies. While the recent Iran-Brazil-Turkey agreement on nuclear fuel exchange has proven Iran’s willingness to reduce international tensions, it has also shown the US and its allies as being unreasonable by dismissing this important agreement.

Likewise, US opposition to international calls to hold Israel accountable for atrocities committed against the Gaza aid flotilla further exposed the arrogant attitude and unilateral foreign policies of the United States and its allies. They have also given further legitimacy and credibility to Iran’s arguments against US bullying. Iran is perhaps the only country in the Middle East that determines its own economic, political and military policies independently of foreign powers’ advisers, guidelines and dictates – something that many people in other countries in the region (and beyond) are envious about.

While the political standing of Ahmadinejad, as well as the economic and geopolitical status of Iran, seems to have improved since his June 2009 re-election, the political fortunes of his major adversaries – Mir Hossein Mousavi, Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, Mehdi Karroubi and Mohammad Khatami – have significantly declined and their ”Green” movement (modeled after the color-coded revolutions in a number of former Soviet republics such Georgia and Ukraine) is in disintegration. Rafsanjani, the “godfather” of the Greens, has been so discredited and weakened politically that he is forced to swallow his purported pride of power and independence and pay homage to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei as the undisputed leader.

Mousavi, Ahmadinejad’s main challenger, is also marginalized and the influence he had a year ago has evaporated. Political statements posted on his website, Kalemeh, are often ridiculed for being banal and hollow, not only by the government and Ahmadinejad supporters but also by many former supporters, who have gradually abandoned him.

The disintegration of the Green movement and decline in political fortunes of its leaders has been widely attributed to a government crackdown. While government suppression has occurred, it is not the main factor.

To begin with, the green movement ran a dishonest presidential campaign. Its candidate, Mousavi, ran for president but refused to submit to the will of the majority when it became clear that he had lost the election. This has led many observers to believe that his presidential campaign was more akin to a coup attempt – or, more accurately, coup-lite, versus traditional military coups – than a bona fide election campaign.

This explains why Mousavi declared victory even before the polls were closed. It also explains why he claimed that the election was stolen the moment he learned that he had lost at the ballot box.

Initially, many Iranians believed that Mousavi must have had evidence of “stolen election” to back his outlandish claim. That’s why in the immediate days following the poll they heeded his instructions and took to the streets in outrage. But as it turned out that the news of a stolen election was false, most of them, including many of his level-headed supporters, began to abandon him and his Green movement.

Professor Mohammad Marandi of Tehran University points out that when Mousavi “effectively accepted the support of the Western-funded Farsi media and the Western-based opposition, through his silence, many more [Iranians] became disillusioned and even disgusted … There is no doubt that today people are very angry with the foreign-backed Green movement and with the role that Western governments, through financial support and other forms of support have played in all this … None of my colleagues, who had voted for Mousavi, would vote for him again after what he did following the election. That doesn’t mean that they support President Ahmadinejad or that Mousavi has no supporters at all, but only a small minority support him now.” [2]

Mousavi could have saved some integrity had he sincerely apologized. Instead, he compounded that fault by ignoring all available evidence, stubbornly insisting that people’s votes must have been stolen without providing credible proof. Evidence refuting his claim includes not only a detailed and specific official account of the voting results, but also independent accounts by several prestigious polling organizations, including a few from the United States, that corroborate the authenticity of the official account [3].

Not only did Mousavi run a dishonest campaign, he also blamed Iran’s economic challenges and its chaotic diplomatic relations with Western powers largely on Ahmadinejad, thereby overlooking the fact that economic, political and military pressures on Iran, ruthlessly inflicted by the US and its allies, started not with

Characterizing Ahmadinejad’s foreign policies as “adventurous” and “confrontational”, Mousavi and his campaign managers faulted them for hostile military and economic pressures from abroad. By the same token, they sought “understanding” and “accommodation” with the US and its allies, presumably including Israel, in the hope of achieving political and economic stability.

Yet, as I pointed out in an earlier article on these issues:

US imperialism showed its most venomous hostility toward Iran during the presidency of Muhammad Khatami (1997-2005), while he was vigorously pursuing a path of friendship with the United States. While Khatami was promoting his “dialogue of civilizations” and taking conciliatory steps to befriend the US, including cooperation in the overthrow of the Taliban regime in the neighboring Afghanistan, George W Bush labeled Iran as a member of the “axis of evil”. This outrageous demonization was then used as a propaganda tool to justify calls for “regime change” in Iran. [4]

In the face of Khatami’s conciliatory gestures toward the United States, many Iranians were so outraged by its unfair and provocative attitude toward Iran that they began to question the wisdom of Khatami’s policy of trying to appease US imperialism. For the same reason, they also viewed Mousavi’s blaming of Ahmadinejad for the cruel demonization of Iran as either naive or unfair and disingenuous. Not surprisingly, most Iranians, including many of Mousavi’s former supporters and sympathizers, have come to question the honesty and integrity of his campaign.

An attractive feature of Mousavi’s initial campaign was his apparent promotion of democratic values and individual liberties. However, his purported advocacy of democracy sounded hollow as he cavalierly defied the will of the people by brazenly disregarding the results of the majority vote in favor of Ahmadinejad. Furthermore, it was obvious that, in light of his neo-liberal economic agenda, Mousavi’s vague utterances about individual liberty and human rights did not include the right to basic human needs such as food and shelter, or the right to affordable healthcare and public education.

Mousavi’s abstract, narrow and disingenuous promises of democratic rights resemble those of the leaders of other color-coded revolutions – for example, of Mikheil Saakashvili in Georgia and of Viktor Yushchenko in Ukraine. Had he succeeded in carrying out his Green revolution, his promises of democracy would have proven as empty as those of his counterparts in Georgia and Ukraine, who have been thrown out of office by the Georgian and Ukrainian people.

An important factor that has played a critical role in the decline of the Green movement has been its class character, its inability to relate or attract the masses of the lower-middle, poor and working classes. It is no secret that the Greens hail largely, though not exclusively, from the better-off and better-educated circles of the Iranian society.

Mousavi is obviously aware of this problem when he talks about the need to expand the ranks of his supporters beyond the middle and upper-middle classes. But class interests and alliances cannot readily be reconfigured through simple wishes or words. They are indeed beyond Mousavi, the person. They shaped the character and the dynamics of his campaign and the Green movement.

After 31 years living in a continuously revolutionary atmosphere, the Iranian people have become astute observers of political affairs. They easily recognized the market-friendly, neo-liberal nature of Mousavi’s economic agenda when they learned from his presidential campaign speeches how he characterized government spending on basic social needs as “handouts”, as “squandering” resources on gedaparvari (nurturing or promoting poverty/laziness).

This critique of Mousavi and other architects of the Green revolution should not be viewed as a defense of Ahmadinejad, or the Iranian government in general. Nor is it an aversion to opposing political views, or to criticism as such. It is rather a critique of unscrupulous, opportunistic and disingenuous politics, not of contrarian politics per se.

It is a truism that healthy and principled criticism is key to improvement, progress and perfection. It is also obvious that Ahmadinejad and the Islamic Republic of Iran can be criticized on many counts. Mousavi and other Green leaders could have played an important role in furthering individual liberties and democratic ideals in Iran were they not committed to the base objective of destabilizing and overthrowing the people’s duly-elected government.

By disrespecting the people’s votes with the huge lie that the election was stolen, by resorting to violent means in pursuit of regime change, by remaining relatively aloof from the Iranian grassroots, by seeking or accepting support from dubious political forces abroad, and by blaming Ahmadinejad for the imperialist-Zionist pressures on Iran, the Greens lost the credibility needed to play a positive role as a constructive opposition force. More than anything else, it is this unsavory political record that explains the failure of the Green movement.

Notes
1. Ismael Hossein-zadeh, “Reflecting on Iran’s Presidential Election,” Middle East Online, August 21, 2009.
2. Seyed Mohammad Marandi, “Green Movement Defeated,” insideIRAN.org, February 15, 2010.
3. For a disaggregated, province-by-province, city-by-city, and ballot box-by-ballot box account provided by the Interior Ministry of Iran, click here; and and for a number of expert analyses of the election result see, for example, (1) “Analysis of Multiple Polls Finds Little Evidence Iranian Public Sees Government as Illegitimate,” a comprehensive survey report issued by World Public Opinion, an international collaborative polling project that is initiated and managed by the Program on International Policy Attitudes at the University of Maryland; (2) “Post-Election Poll in Iran Shows Little Change in Anti-Regime Minority,” by Alvin Richman; (3) “Did Mahmud Ahmadinejad Steal the 2009 Iran Election?” by Eric Brill; (4) “Visualizations and Analysis of the 2009 Iranian Election,” by Thomas Lotze; (5) “A Rejoinder to the Chatham House Report on Iran’s 2009 Presidential Election Offering a New Analysis on the Result,” Reza Esfandiari and Yousef Bozorgmehr.
4. 1. Ismael Hossein-zadeh, “Reflecting on Iran’s Presidential Election,” Middle East Online, August 21, 2009.

In all of Time’s Person of the Year entries, there has been two Iranian entries. The first was Mohammed Mossadegh while the other has been Ayatollah Khomeini and it should be no surprise, that both have been negative. These two individuals have been one of the most [...]]]>

Ayatollah Khomeini - Time Person of the Year

In all of Time’s Person of the Year entries, there has been two Iranian entries. The first was Mohammed Mossadegh while the other has been Ayatollah Khomeini and it should be no surprise, that both have been negative. These two individuals have been one of the most loved figures in contemporary Iranian history, yet both have been instantly attacked by Time.

Some choice quotes from the article,

“The dour old man of 79 shuffles in his heel-less slippers to the rooftop and waves apathetically to crowds that surround his modest home in the holy city of Qum. The hooded eyes that glare out so balefully from beneath his black turban are often turned upward, as if seeking inspiration from on high—which, as a religious mystic, he indeed is.” -  The article starts by giving a negative physical image of Ayatollah Khomeini, combined with the dark image of the cover, making easier for the readers to dislike him.

“As the leader of Iran’s revolution he gave the 20th century world a frightening lesson in the shattering power of irrationality, of the ease with which terrorism can be adopted as government policy.” – The terrorism word! 

“ The Ayatullah even insisted, in an extraordinary interview with TIME, that if Americans wish to have good relations with Iran they must vote Jimmy Carter out of office and elect instead a President that Khomeini would find “suitable.”" – When I read this, I quickly went to read the Time’s interview. You’ll be amused to know that no such statement from the Ayatollah exists in the interview. The most he said was that the US should vote Carter out of office, but nothing was said that it should be replaced by someone he finds suitable. Given that suitable was in quotes, I expected there to be something like that, but no such thing exists in the interview.

“The revolution that he led to triumph threatens to upset the world balance of power more than any political event since Hitler’s conquest of Europe.” – And now  Hitler connections!

The article soon goes into describing the danger Khomeini represents to encouraging terrorism around the world, the negative effect it will have on oil and therefore western economies and people’s lives, and allowing the USSR to become more powerful in the middle east. In a sense, Ayatollah Khomeini is someone the Times reader should learn to fear and dislike.

The full article is copied below.

The dour old man of 79 shuffles in his heel-less slippers to the rooftop and waves apathetically to crowds that surround his modest home in the holy city of Qum. The hooded eyes that glare out so balefully from beneath his black turban are often turned upward, as if seeking inspiration from on high—which, as a religious mystic, he indeed is. To Iran’s Shi’ite Muslim laity, he is the Imam, an ascetic spiritual leader whose teachings are unquestioned. To hundreds of millions of others, he is a fanatic whose judgments are harsh, reasoning bizarre and conclusions surreal. He is learned in the ways of Shari’a (Islamic law) and Platonic philosophy, yet astonishingly ignorant of and indifferent to non-Muslim culture. Rarely has so improbable a leader shaken the world.

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Yet in 1979 the lean figure of the Ayatullah Ruhollah Khomeini towered malignly over the globe. As the leader of Iran’s revolution he gave the 20th century world a frightening lesson in the shattering power of irrationality, of the ease with which terrorism can be adopted as government policy. As the new year neared, 50 of the American hostages seized on Nov. 4 by a mob of students were still inside the captured U.S. embassy in Tehran, facing the prospect of being tried as spies by Khomeini’s revolutionary courts. The Ayatullah, who gave his blessing to the capture, has made impossible and even insulting demands for the hostages’ release: that the U.S. return deposed Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi to Iran for trial and no doubt execution, even though the Shah is now in Panama; that America submit to a trial of its “crimes” against Iran before an international “grand jury” picked by Khomeini’s aides. He claimed that Iran had every legal and moral right to try America’s hostage diplomats, an action that would defy a decision of the World Court, a vote of the U.N. Security Council and one of the most basic rules of accommodation between civilized nations. The Ayatullah even insisted, in an extraordinary interview with TIME, that if Americans wish to have good relations with Iran they must vote Jimmy Carter out of office and elect instead a President that Khomeini would find “suitable.”Unifying a nation behind such extremist positions is a remarkable achievement for an austere theologian who little more than a year ago was totally unknown in the West he now menaces. But Khomeini’s carefully cultivated air of mystic detachment cloaks an iron will, an inflexible devotion to simple ideas that he has preached for decades, and a finely tuned instinct of articulating the passions and rages of his people. Khomeini is no politician in the Western sense, yet he possesses the most awesome—an ominous—of political gifts: the ability to rouse millions to both adulation and fury.Khomeini’s importance far transcends the nightmare of the embassy seizure, transcends indeed the overthrow of the Shah of Iran. The revolution that he led to triumph threatens to upset the world balance of power more than any political event since Hitler’s conquest of Europe. It was unique in several respects: a successful, mostly nonviolent revolt against a seemingly entrenched dictator, it owed nothing to outside help or even to any Western ideology. The danger exists that the Iranian revolution could become a model for future uprisings throughout the Third World—and not only its Islamic portion. Non-Muslim nations too are likely to be attracted by the spectacle of a rebellion aimed at expelling all foreign influence in the name of xenophobic nationalism.Already the flames of anti-Western fanaticism that Khomeini fanned in Iran threaten to spread through the volatile Soviet Union, from the Indian subcontinent to Turkey and southward through the Arabian Peninsula to the Horn of Africa. Most particularly, the revolution that turned Iran into an Islamic republic whose supreme law is the Koran is undermining the stability of the Middle East, a region that supplies more than half of the Western world’s imported oil, a region that stands at the strategic crossroads of super-power competition.As an immediate result, the U.S., Western Europe and Japan face continuing inflation and rising unemployment, brought on, in part, by a disruption of the oil trade. Beyond that looms the danger of U.S.-Soviet confrontation. Washington policymakers, uncertain about the leftist impulses of Iran’s ubiquitous “students”—and perhaps some members of Iran’s ruling Revolutionary Council—fear that the country may become a new target of opportunity for Soviet adventurism. The Kremlin leaders in turn must contend with the danger that the U.S.S.R.’s 50 million Muslims could be aroused by Khomeini’s incendiary Islamic nationalism. Yet if the Soviets chose to take advantage of the turmoil in Iran as they have intervened in neighboring Afghanistan, the U.S. would have to find some way of countering such aggression.Khomeini thus poses to the U.S. a supreme test of both will and strategy. So far his hostage blackmail has produced a result he certainly did not intend: a surge of patriotism that has made the American people more united than they have been on any issue in two decades. The shock of seeing the U.S. flag burned on the streets of Tehran, or misused by embassy attackers to carry trash, has jolted the nation out of its self-doubting “Viet Nam syndrome.” Worries about America’s ability to influence events abroad are giving way to anger about impotence; the country now seems willing to exert its power. But how can that power be brought to bear against an opponent immune to the usual forms of diplomatic, economic and even military pressure, and how can it be refined to deal with others in the Third World who might rise to follow Khomeini’s example? That may be the central problem for U.S. foreign policy throughout the 1980s.The outcome of the present turmoil on Iran is almost totally unpredictable. It is unclear how much authority Khomeini, or Iran’s ever changing government, exerts over day- to-day events. Much as Khomeini has capitalized on it, the seizure of the U.S. embassy tilted the balance in Iran’s murky revolutionary politics from relative moderates to extremists who sometimes seem to listen to no one; the militants at the embassy openly sneer at government ministers, who regularly contradict one another. The death of Khomeini, who has no obvious successor, could plunge the country into anarchy.But one thing is certain: the world will not again look quite the way it did before Feb. 1, 1979, the day on which Khomeini flew back to a tumultuous welcome in Tehran after 15 years in exile. He thus joins a handful of other world figures whose deeds are debatable—or worse—but who nonetheless branded a year as their own. In 1979 the Ayatullah Ruhollah Khomeini met TIME’s definition of Man of the Year: he was the one who “has done the most to change the news, for better or for worse.”Apart from Iran and its fallout, 1979 was a year of turmoil highlighted by an occasional upbeat note: hopeful stirrings that offset to a degree the continuing victories of the forces of disruption. On a spectacular visit to his homeland of Poland and the U.S., Ireland and Mexico, Pope John Paul II demonstrated that he was a man whose warmth, dignity and radiant humanity deeply affected even those who did not share his Roman Catholic faith. Despite his rigidly orthodox approach to doctrinal issues, the Pope’s message of peace, love, justice and concern for the poor stirred unprecedented feelings of brotherhood.The election of Conservative Party Leader Margaret Thatcher as Prime Minister of Britain was perhaps the most notable sign that many voters in Europe were disillusioned with statist solutions and wanted a return to more conservative policies. At year’s end her government could claim one notable diplomatic success. Under the skillful guidance of Thatcher’s Foreign Secretary, Lord Carrington, leaders of both the interim Salisbury government and the Patriotic Front guerrillas signed an agreement that promised—precariously—to end a seven- year-old civil war and provide a peaceful transition to genuine majority rule in Zimbabwe Rhodesia. There were other indications of growing rationality in Africa, as three noxious dictators who had transformed their nations into slaughterhouses fell from power: Idi Amin was ousted from Uganda, Jean Bedal Bokassa from the Central African Empire (now Republic), and Francisco Macias Nguema from Equatorial Guinea.Southeast Asia, though, as it has for so long, endured a year of war, cruelty and famine. Peking and Moscow jockeyed for influence in the area. China briefly invaded Viet Nam and then withdrew, achieving nothing but proving once again that Communists have their own explosive quarrels. Hanoi’s Soviet- backed rulers expelled hundreds of thousands of its ethnic Chinese citizens, many of whom drowned at sea; survivors landed on the shores of nations that could not handle such onslaughts of refugees. In Cambodia, the Vietnamese-backed regime of Heng Samrin was proving little better than the maniacal Chinese- supported dictatorship of Pol Pot that it had deposed. Hundreds of thousands of Cambodians still faced death by starvation or disease as the year ended, despite huge relief efforts organized by the outside world.In the U.S., 1979 was a year of indecision and frustration. Inflation galloped to an annual rate of 13% and stayed there, all but impervious to attacks by the Carter Administration. The burden of containing inflation eventually fell on the shoulders of new Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker. His tough fiscal measures, including higher interest rates and a clampdown on the money supply, do promise to restrain price boosts—but only after a distressing time lag, and at the cost of making more severe a recession that the U.S. seemed headed for anyway in 1980. President Carter’s energy program at last began staggering through Congress, but a near disaster at Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania raised legitimate questions—as well as much unnecessary hysteria—about how safe and useful nuclear power will be as a partial substitute for the imported oil that the eruption in Iran will help make ever more costly. The conclusion of a SALT II agreement wit the Soviet Union—more modest in scope than many Americans had urged, but basically useful to the U.S.—led to congressional wrangling that raised doubts about whether the Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty will even be ratified in 1980. The SALT debate put a substantial strain on U.S.-Soviet relations, which were deteriorating for lots of other reasons as well.For much of the year, Carter appeared so ineffective a leader that his seeming weakness touched off an unprecedentedly early and crowded scramble to succeed him. Ten Republicans announced as candidates for the party’s 1980 presidential nomination; at year’s end, however, the clear favorite was the man who had done or said hardly anything, Ronald Reagan. On the Democratic side, Senator Edward Kennedy overcame his reservations and declared his candidacy, but early grass-roots enthusiasm about his “leadership qualities” dissipated in the face of his lackluster campaigning, his astonishing incoherence, and his failure to stake out convincingly different positions on the issues. At year’s end Carter was looking much stronger, primarily because his firm yet restrained response to Iran’s seizure of hostages led to a classic popular reaction: Let’s rally round the President in a crisis.None of these trends could match in power and drama, or in menacing implications for the future, the eruption in Iran. A year ago, in its cover story on 1978’s Man of the Year, Chinese Vice Premier Deng Xiaoping, TIME noted that “the Shah of Iran’s 37-year reign was shaken by week upon week of riots.” Shortly thereafter, the Shah fell in one of the greatest political upheavals of the post-World War II era, one that raised troubling questions about the ability of the U.S. to guide or even understand the seething passions of the Third World.Almost to the very end, the conventional wisdom of Western diplomats and journalists was that the Shah would survive; after all, he had come through earlier troubles seemingly strengthened. In 1953 the Shah had actually fled the country. But he was restored to power by a CIA-inspired coup that ousted Mohammed Mossadegh, the nationalist Prime Minister who had been TIME’s Man of the Year for 1951 because he had “oiled the wheels of chaos.” In 1963 Iran had been swept by riots stirred up by the powerful Islamic clergy against the Shah’s White Revolution. Among other things, this well-meant reform abolished the feudal landlord-peasant system. Two consequences: the reform broke up properties administered by the Shi’ite clergy and reduced their income, some of which consisted of donations from large landholders. The White Revolution also gave the vote to women. The Shah suppressed those disturbances without outside help, in part by jailing one of the instigators—an ascetic theologian named Ruhollah Khomeini, who had recently attained the title of Ayatullah and drawn crowds to fiery sermons in which he denounced the land reform as a fraud and the Shah as a traitor to Islam. (An appellation that means “sign of God.” There is no formal procedure for bestowing it; a religious leader is called ayatullah by a large number of reverent followers and is accepted as such by the rest of the Iranian clergy. At present, Iran has perhaps 50 to 60 mullahs generally regarded as ayatullahs.) In 1964 Khomeini was arrested and exiled, first to Turkey, then to Iraq, where he continued to preach against the idolatrous Shah and to promulgate his vision of Iran as an “Islamic republic.”The preachments seemed to have little effect, as the Shah set about building the most thoroughly Westernized nation in all of the Muslim world. The progress achieved in a deeply backward country was stunning. Petroleum revenues built steel mills, nuclear power plants, telecommunication systems and a formidable military machine, complete with U.S. supersonic fighters and missiles. Dissent was ruthlessly suppressed, in part by the use of torture in the dungeons of SAVAK, the secret police. It is still not clear how widespread the tortures and political executions were; but the Shah did not heed U.S. advice to liberalize his regime, and repression inflamed rather than quieted dissent.By 1978 the Shah had alienated almost all elements of Iranian society. Westernized intellectuals were infuriated by rampant corruption and repression; workers and peasants by the selective prosperity that raised glittering apartments for the rich while the poor remained in mud hovels; bazaar merchants by the Shah-supported businessmen who monopolized bank credits, supply contracts and imports; the clergy and their pious Muslim followers by the gambling casinos, bars and discotheques that seemed the most visible result of Westernization. (One of the Shah’s last prime ministers also stopped annual government subsidies to the mullahs.) Almost everybody hated the police terror and sneered in private at the Shah’s Ozymandian megalomania, symbolized by a $100 million fete he staged at Persepolis in 1971 to celebrate the 2,500 years of the Persian Empire. In fact, the Shah’s father was a colonel in the army when he overthrew the Qajar dynasty in 1925, and as Khomeini pointed out angrily from exile at the time of the Persepolis festival, famine was raging in that part of the country.But the U.S. saw the Shah as a stable and valuable ally. Washington was annoyed by the Shah’s insistence on raising oil prices at every OPEC meeting, yet that irritation was outweighed by the fact that the Shah was staunchly anti-Communist and a valuable balance wheel in Middle East politics. Eager to build up Iran as a “regional influential” that could act as America’s surrogate policeman of the Persian Gulf, the U.S. lent the Shah its all-out support. President Richard Nixon and Secretary of State Henry Kissinger allowed him to buy all the modern weapons he wanted. Washington also gave its blessing to a flood of American business investment in Iran and dispatched an army of technocrats there.The depth of its commitment to the Shah apparently blinded Washington to the growing discontent. U.S. policymakers wanted to believe that their investment was buying stability and friendship; they trusted what they heard from the monarch, who dismissed all opposition as “the blah-blahs of armchair critics.” Even after the revolution began, U.S. officials were convinced that “there is no alternative to the Shah.” Carter took time out from the Camp David summit in September 1978 to phone the Iranian monarch and assure him of Washington’s continued support.By then it was too late. Demonstrations and protest marches that started as a genuine popular outbreak grew by a kind of spontaneous combustion. The first parades drew fire from the Shah’s troops, who killed scores and started a deadly cycle: marches to mourn the victims of the first riot, more shooting, more martyrs, crowds swelling into the hundreds of thousands and eventually millions in Tehran. Khomeini at this point was primarily a symbol of the revolution, which at the outset had no visible leaders. But even in exile the Ayatullah was well known inside Iran for his uncompromising insistence that the Shah must go. When demonstrators began waving the Ayatullah’s picture, the frightened Shah pressured Iraq to boot Khomeini out. It was a fatal blunder; in October 1978 the Ayatullah settled in Neauphle-le-Chateau, outside Paris, where he gathered a circle of exiles and for the first time publicized his views through the Western press.Khomeini now became the active head of the revolution. Cassettes of his anti-Shah sermons sold like pop records in the bazaars and were played in crowded mosques throughout the country. When he called for strikes, his followers shut down the banks, the postal service, the factories, the food stores and, most important, the oil wells, bringing the country close to paralysis. The Shah imposed martial law, but to no avail. On Jan. 16, after weeks of daily protest parades, the Shah and his Empress flew off to exile, leaving a “regency council” that included Prime Minister Shahpour Bakhtiar, a moderate who had spent time in the Shah’s prisons. But Khomeini announced that no one ruling in the Shah’s name would be acceptable, and Iran was torn by the largest riots of the entire revolution. The Ayatullah returned from Paris to a tumultuous welcome and Bakhtiar fled. “The holy one has come!” the crowds greeting Khomeini shouted triumphantly. “He is the light of our lives!” The crush stalled the Ayatullah’s motorcade, so that he had to be lifted out of the crowds, over the heads of his adulators, by helicopter. He was flown to a cemetery, where he prayed at the graves of those who had died during the revolution.Khomeini withdrew to the holy city of Qum, appointed a government headed by Mehdi Bazargan, an engineer by training and veteran of Mossadegh’s Cabinet, and announced that he would confine his own role during “the one or two years left to me” to making sure that Iran followed “in the image of Muhammad.” It quickly became apparent that real power resided in the revolutionary komitehs that sprang up all over the country, and the komitehs took orders only from the 15-man Revolutionary Council headed by Khomeini (the names of its other members were long kept secret). Bazargan and his Cabinet had to trek to Qum for weekly lunches with Khomeini to find out what the Ayatullah would or would not allow.Some observers distinguish two stages in the entire upheaval: the first a popular revolt that overthrew the Shah, then a “Khomeini coup” that concentrated all power in the clergy. The Ayatullah’s main instrument was a stream of elamiehs (directives) from Qum, many issued without consulting Bazargan’s nominal government. Banks and heavy industry were nationalized and turned over to government managers. Many of the elamiehs were concerned with imposing a strict Islamic way of life on all Iranians. Alcohol was forbidden. Women were segregated from men in schools below the university level, at swimming pools, beaches and other public facilities. Khomeini even banned most music from radio and TV. Marches were acceptable, he told Italian Journalist Oriana Fallaci, but other Western music “dulls the mind, because it involves pleasure and ecstasy, similar to drugs.” Fallaci: “Even the music of Bach, Beethoven, Verdi?” Khomeini: “I do not know those names.”In power, Khomeini and his followers displayed a retaliatory streak. Islamic revolutionary courts condemned more than 650 Iranians to death, after trials at which defense lawyers were rarely, if ever, present, and spectators stepped forward to add their own accusations to those of the prosecutors; death sentences were generally carried out immediately by firing squad. An unknown but apparently large number of other Iranians were sentenced to life imprisonment. Khomeini preaches the mercy of God but showed little of his own to those executed, who were, he said, torturers and killers of the Shah’s who got what they deserved. Some were, including the generals and highest-ranking politicians, but the victims also included at least seven prostitutes, 15 men accused of homosexual rape, and a Jewish businessman alleged to be spying for Israel. Defenders of Khomeini’s regime argue with some justification that far fewer people were condemned by the revolutionary courts than were tortured to death by the Shah’s SAVAK, and that the swift trials were necessary to defuse public anger against the minions of the deposed monarch.As usually happens in revolutions, the forces of dissolution, once let loose, are not so easily tamed. Iran’s economy suffered deeply, and unrest in at least three ethnic areas—those of the Kurds, the Azerbaijanis and the Baluchis—presented continuing threats to Tehran’s, or Qum’s, control. Many Western experts believe Khomeini shrewdly seized upon the students’ attack on the U.S. embassy, which he applauded but claims he did not order, as a way of directing popular attention away from the country’s increasing problems. It gave him once again a means of presenting all difficulties as having been caused by the U.S., to brand all his opponents—believers in parliamentary government, ethnic separatists, Muslims who questioned his interpretations of Islamic law—tools of the CIA. When the United Nations and the World Court condemned the seizure, he labeled these bodies stooges of the enemy. It was Iran against the world—indeed, all Islam against the “infidels.”When Bazargan resigned to protest the capture of the hostages, the Ayatullah made the Revolutionary Council the government in name as well as fact. Then, during the holy month known as Muharram, with popular emotion at a frenzied height as a result of the confrontation with the U.S., Khomeini expertly managed a vote on a new constitution that turned Iran into a theocracy. Approved overwhelmingly in a Dec. 2-3 referendum, the constitution provided for an elected President and parliament, but placed above them a “guardian council” of devout Muslims to make sure that nothing the elected bodies do violates Islamic law. Atop the structure is a faqih (literally, jurisprudent), the leading theologian of Iran, who must approve of the President, holds veto power over virtually every act of government, and even commands the armed forces. Though the constitution does not name him, when it goes fully into effect after elections this month and in February, Khomeini obviously will become the faqih.How did the Ayatullah capture a revolution that started out as a leaderless explosion of resentment and hate? Primarily by playing adroitly to, and in part embodying, some of the psychological elements that made the revolt possible. There was, for example, a widespread egalitarian yearning to end the extremes of wealth and poverty that existed under the Shah—and the rich could easily be tarred as clients of the “U.S. imperialists.” Partly because of the long history of Soviet, British and then American meddling in their affairs, Iranians were and are basically xenophobic, and thus susceptible to the Ayatullah’s charges that the U.S. (and, of course, the CIA) was responsible for the country’s ills. Iranians could also easily accept that kind of falsehood since they had grown used to living off gossip and rumor mills during the reign of the Shah, when the heavily censored press played down even nonpolitical bad news about Iran. When Khomeini declared that the Americans and Israelis were responsible for the November attack by Muslim fanatics in Mecca’s Sacred Mosque, this deliberate lie was given instant credence by multitudes of Iranians.By far the most powerful influence that cemented Khomeini’s hold on his country is the spirit of Shi’ism—the branch of Islam to which 93% of Iran’s 35.2 million people belong. In contrast to the dominant Sunni wing of Islam, Shi’ism emphasizes martyrdom; thus many Iranians are receptive to Khomeini’s speeches about what a “joy” and “honor” it would be to die in a war with the U.S. Beyond that, Shi’ism allows for the presence of an intermediary between God and man. Originally, the mediators were twelve imams, who Shi’ites believe were the rightful successors of the Prophet Muhammad; the twelfth disappeared in A.D. 940. He supposedly is in hiding, but will return some day to purify the religion and institute God’s reign of justice on earth. This belief gives Shi’ism a strong messianic cast, to which Khomeini appeals when he promises to expel Western influence and to turn Iran into a pure Islamic society. The Ayatullah has never claimed the title of Imam for himself, but he has done nothing to discourage its use by his followers, a fact that annoys some of his peers among the Iranian clergy. Ayatullah Seyed Kazem Sharietmadari, Khomeini’s most potent rival for popular reverence, has acidly observed that the Hidden Imam will indeed return, “but not in a Boeing 747″—a reference to the plane that carried Khomeini from France to Iran.Iran and Iraq are the main Muslim states where the majority of the population is Shi’ite; but there are substantial Shi’ite minorities in the Gulf states, Lebanon, Turkey and Saudi Arabia. Khomeini’s followers have been sending these Shi’ites messages urging them to join in an uprising against Western influence. The power of Khomeini’s appeal for a “struggle between Islam and the infidels” must not be underestimated. In these and many other Islamic countries, Western technology and education have strained the social structure and brought with them trends that seem like paganism to devout Muslims. In addition, Muslims have bitter memories of a century or more of Western colonialism that kept most Islamic countries in servitude until a generation ago, and they tend to see U.S. support of Israel as a continuation of this “imperialist” tradition.With Khomeini’s encouragement, Muslims—not all of them Shi’ites—have staged anti-American riots in Libya, India and Bangladesh. In Islamabad, the capital of Pakistan, a mob burned the U.S embassy and killed two U.S. servicemen; the Ayatullah’s reaction was “great joy.” In Saudi Arabia, possessor of the world’s largest oil reserves, the vulnerability of the royal family was made starkly apparent when a band of 200 to 300 well- armed raiders in November seized the Sacred Mosque in Mecca, the holiest of all Islamic shrines, which is under the protection of King Khalid. The raiders appeared to have mixed religious and political motives: they seemingly were armed and trained in Marxist South Yemen, but were fundamentalists opposed to all modernism, led by a zealot who had proclaimed the revolution in Iran to be a “new dawn” for Islam. It took the Saudi army more than a week to root them out from the catacomb-like basements of the mosque, and 156 died in the fighting—82 raiders and 74 Saudi troopers. In addition, demonstrators waving Khomeini’s picture last month paraded in the oil towns of Saudi Arabia’s Eastern Province. Saudi troops apparently opened fire on the protestors and at least 15 people are said to have died.Such rumblings have deeply shaken the nerves, if not yet undermined the stability, of governments throughout the Middle East. Leaders of the House of Saud regard Khomeini as an outright menace. Egypt’s President Anwar Sadat denounced Khomeini as a man who is trying to play God and whose actions are a “crime against Islam [and] and insult to humanity.” Nonetheless, the Ayatullah’s appeal to Muslims, Sunni as well as Shi’ite, is so strong the even pro-Western Islamic leaders have been reluctant to give the U.S. more than minimal support in the hostage crisis. They have explicitly warned Washington that any U.S. military strike on Iran, even one undertaken in retaliation for the killing of the hostages, would so enrage their people as to threaten the security of every government in the area.The appeal of Khomeini’s Islamic fundamentalism to non- Muslim nations in the Third World is limited. Not so the wave of nationalism he unleashed in Iran. Warns William Quandt, senior fellow at the Brookings Institution: “People in the Third World were promised great gains upon independence [from colonialism], and yet they still find their lives and societies in a mess.” Historically, such unfulfilled expectations prepare the ground for revolution, and the outbreak in Iran offers an example of an uprising that embodies a kind of nose-thumbing national pride.Selig Harrison, senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, says the overthrow of Iran’s Shah “is appealing to the Third World as a nationalist revolution that has stood up to superpower influence. At the rational level, Third World people know that you cannot behave like Khomeini and they do not condone violation of diplomatic immunity. But at the emotional level, mass public opinion in many Third World countries is not unfriendly to what Khomeini has done. There is an undercurrent of satisfaction in seeing a country stand up to superpower influence.”The Iranian revolution has also had a dramatic impact in Western economies. 1979 was the year in which the world economy moved from an era of recurrent oil surpluses into an age of chronic shortages. Indeed, it was a year in which the frequent warnings of pessimists that the industrial nations had made themselves dangerously dependent on crude oil imported from highly unstable countries came true with a vengeance. For more than three centuries the industrial West had prospered thanks partly to resources from colonies or quasi-colonies. Now a great historical reversal was at hand.”If there had been no revolution in Iran,” says John Lichtblau, executive director of the Petroleum Industry Research Foundation, “1979 would have been a normal year.” The strikes that accompanied the revolution shut off Iranian production completely early in the year. Through output resumed in March, it ran most of the time at no more than 3.5 million bbl. a day—little more than half the level under the Shah. Khomeini made it clear that no more could be expected. In fact, Iranian output has dropped again in recent months, to around 3.1 million bbl. a day. Oil Minister Ali Akbar Moinfar says it will go down further because “at the new price levels, Iran will be able to produce and export less and still cover its revenue needs.”The cutback in Iran reduced supplies to the non-Communist world by about 4%. That was enough to produce a precarious balance between world supply and demand. Spot shortages cropped up, and the industrial West went through a kind of buyers’ panic; governments and companies scrambled to purchase every drop available, to keep houses warm and the wheels of industry turning, and to build stockpiles to guard against the all-too- real prospect of another shutdown in Iran or a supply disruption somewhere else.The lid came off prices with a bang. OPEC raised prices during 1979 by an average of 94.7%, to $25 a bbl.—vs. $12.84 a year ago and a mere $2 in 1970. Moreover, oil-exporting nations shifted a growing proportion of their output to the spot market, where oil not tied up under contract is sold for whatever price buyers will pay. Before the Iranian revolution, the spot market accounted for only 5% of the oil moving in world trade, and prices differed little from OPEC’s official ones. During 1979, anywhere from 10% to 33% of internationally traded crude bought by the industrial countries went through the spot market, and prices shot as high as $45 a bbl.The runaway price rises will fan inflation in the U.S., Western Europe and Japan. Affected are not only the price of gasoline and heating oil but also the cost of thousands of products made from petrochemicals—goods ranging from fertilizers and laundry detergents to panty hose and phonograph records. Oil price hikes will bear on apartment rents and the price of food brought to stores by gasoline-burning trucks. The price boosts act as a kind of gigantic tax, siphoning from the pockets of consumers money that would otherwise be used to buy non-oil goods and services, thus depressing production and employment. In the U.S., which imports about half its oil, a 1980 recession that would increase unemployment might happen anyway; the oil price increases have made it all but inevitable.At year’s end OPEC had almost come apart; at their December meeting in Caracas its members could not agree on any unified pricing structure at all. So long as supply barely equals demand, there will be leapfrogging price boosts; four countries announced 10% to 15% price hikes last Friday. In the longer run, the disunity could lead to price-cutting competition, but only if the industrial countries, and especially the U.S., take more drastic steps to conserve energy and reduce imports than any they have instituted yet—and even then OPEC might come back together. It is presumably not in the cartel’s economic or political self-interest to bankrupt its major customers, especially since many of OPEC’s member states have invested their excess profits in the West. Yet even moderate nations like Saudi Arabia, which have fought to keep price boosts to a minimum, argue that inflation price hikes will be necessary as long as oil prices are tied to a declining dollar.A still greater danger is that the producers may not pump enough oil to permit much or any economic growth in either the industrial or underdeveloped worlds. The producers have learned that prices rise most rapidly when supply is kept barely equal to, or a bit below, demand; they have good reason to think that oil kept in the ground will appreciate more than any other asset, and the Iranian explosion has demonstrated that all-out production, and the forced-draft industrialization and Westernization that it finances, can lead not to stability but to social strains so intense that they end in revolution. The result of a production hold-down could be a decade or so of serious economic stagnation. Oil Consultant Walter Levy sees these potential gloomy consequences for the West: “A lower standard of living, a reduction in gross national product, large balance of payments drains, loss of value in currencies, high unemployment.”Warns Mobil Chairman Rawleigh Warner: “The West can no longer assume that oil-exporting countries, and specifically those in the Middle East, will be willing to tailor production to demand. The safer assumptions is that the consuming countries will increasingly have to tailor their demand to production. And the factors that determine the ceiling in production are more likely to be political than economic or technical.”The West will be lucky if oil shortages are the worst result of Khomeini’s revolution. An even more menacing prospect is a shift in the world balance of power toward the Soviet Union.The Ayatullah is no friend of the Soviets. Far from it: while in his mind “America is the great Satan,” he knows, and has often said, that Communism is incompatible with Islam. Tehran mobs have occasionally chanted “Communism will die!” as well as “Death to Carter!”Indeed, Islamic fundamentalism could become a domestic worry to the Kremlin. Its estimated 50 million Muslims make the Soviet Union the world’s fifth largest Muslim state. (After Indonesia (123.2 million), India (80 million), Pakistan (72.3 million) and Bangladesh (70.8 million).) For the Kremlin, Muslims represent a demographic time bomb. By the year 2000, there will be an estimated 100 million Soviet Muslims, vs. about 150 million ethnic Russians. Most of the Muslims live in areas of Central Asia, bordering on Iran, that were subjugated by czarist armies only a little more than a century ago—Samarakand, for example, fell in 1868. The Soviets have soft- pedaled antireligious propaganda and allowed the Muslims to maintain mosques and theological schools. Consequently, the Azerbaijanis, Turkmen and other Muslim minorities in the U.S.S.R. could eventually become targets for Khomeini’s advocacy of an Islamic rebellion against all foreign domination of Muslims.Yet Moscow can hardly ignore the opportunity presented by Khomeini’s rise. An Iran sliding into anarchy, and a Middle East shaken by the furies of Khomeini’s followers, would offer the Soviets a chance to substitute their own influence for the Western presence that the Ayatullah’s admirers vow to expel. And the Middle East is an unparalleled geopolitical prize.Whoever controls the Middle East’s oil, or the area’s Strait of Hormuz (40 miles wide at its narrowest) between Iran and the Sultanate of Oman through which most of it passes, acquires a stranglehold on the world’s economy. The U.S.S.R. today is self-sufficient in oil, but it could well become a major net importer in the 1980s—and thus be in direct competition with the West for the crude pumped out of the desert sands. The warm-water ports so ardently desired by the Czars since the 18th century retain almost as much importance today. Soviet missile-firing submarines, for example, now have to leave the ice-locked areas around Murmansk and Archangel through narrow channels where they can easily be tracked by U.S. antisubmarine forces. They would be much harder to detect if they could slip out of ports on the Arabian Sea.The conflagration in Iran, and the threat of renewed instability throughout the region, could open an entirely new chapter in the story of Soviet efforts to infiltrate the Middle East. So far, the Soviet leaders have played a double game in the hostage crisis. Representatives of the U.S.S.R. voted in the United Nations and World Court to free the hostages. At the same time, to Washington’s intense annoyance, the Soviets have proclaimed sympathy for Iran’s anger against the U.S. The Kremlin apparently wants to keep lines open to Khomeini’s followers, if not to the Ayatullah himself, while it awaits its chance.Meanwhile, Moscow has been acting more brazenly throughout the entire region of crisis. Around Christmas, the U.S.S.R. began airlifting combat troops into Afghanistan, reinforcing an already strong Soviet presence. Last week the Soviet soldiers participated in a coup ousting a pro-Moscow regime that had proved hopelessly ineffective in trying to put down an insurrection by anti-Communist Muslim tribesmen. At week’s end, Washington charged that Soviet troops had crossed the border in Afghanistan in what appeared to be an outright invasion.Who or what follows Khomeini is already a popular guessing game in Tehran, Washington and doubtless Moscow. Few of the potential scenarios seem especially favorable to U.S. interests. One possibility is a military coup, led by officers once loyal to the Shah and now anxious to restore order. That might seem unlikely in view of the disorganized state of the army and the popular hatred of the old regime, but the danger apparently seems significant to Khomeini; he is enthusiastically expanding the Pasdaran militia as a counterweight to the official armed forces. A military coup might conceivably win the backing of the urban intelligentsia, which resents the theocracy and Washington analysts think that even some mullahs might accommodate themselves to it if they see no other way of blocking a leftist takeover. Whether such an uneasy coalition could fashion a stable regime is questionable.Another potential outcome is a takeover, swift or gradual, by younger clergymen in alliance with such Western-educated leaders as Foreign Minister Sadegh Ghotbzadeh. A government composed of those forces would be less fanatical than the Ayatullah but still very hard-line anti-U.S. Another possibility, considered by some analysts to be the most likely, would be an eventual confrontation between Khomeini’s religious establishment and members of the urban upper and middle classes, who applaud the nationalistic goals of the revolution but chafe under rigid enforcement of Islamic law—and have the brains to mount an effective opposition.A leftist takeover is the most worrisome prospect to Washington policymakers. The Mujahedin (Islamic socialist) and Fedayan (Marxist) movements maintain guerilla forces armed with weapons seized from the Shah’s garrisons during the revolution. Both groups disclaim any ties with the U.S.S.R., and some Iranian exiles believe a dialogue between them and moderate forces would be possible. However, they are very anti-Western. A third contender is the Tudeh (Communist) Party, which has a reputation of loyally following Moscow’s line. It is currently voicing all-out support of Khomeini because, its leaders disingenuously explain, any foe of America’s imperialism is a friend of theirs. In gratitude, the Ayatullah has permitted them to operate openly.Any of these potential scenarios might draw support from Iran’s ethnic minorities, whose demands for cultural and political autonomy—local languages in schools, local governing councils—have been rebuffed so brusquely by Khomeini’s government as to trigger armed rebellion. Iran, a country three times the size of France, was officially designated an empire by the Shah, and in one sense it is; its 35.2 millon people are divided into many ethnic strains and speak as many as 20 languages, not counting the dialects of remote tribes. The 4 million Kurds, superb guerilla fighters who live in the western mountains, have at times dreamed of an independent Kurdistan, and today have set up what amounts to an autonomous region. The Baluchis, a nomadic tribe of Sunni Muslims, boycotted the referendum on the Iranian constitution, which they viewed as an attempt to impose Shi’ism on them. The 13 million Azerbaijanis, a Turkic people, also boycotted the constitutional referendum and in recent weeks have come close to an open revolt that could tear Iran apart.Some Washington policy planners have toyed with the idea of encouraging separatism, seeking the breakup of Iran as a kind of ultimate sanction against Khomeini. But the hazards of doing this far outweigh the advantages; true civil war in Iran would be the quickest way of destroying whatever stability remains in the Middle East. The lands of the Azerbaijanis stretch into Turkey and the Soviet Union, those of the Kurds into Turkey and Iraq, those of the Baluchis into Afghanistan and Pakistan. Successful secessionist movements could tear away parts of some of those countries as well as of Iran, leaving a number of weak new countries—the kind that usually tumble into social and economic chaos—and dismembered older ones. All might be subject to Soviet penetration. Anarchy in Iran could also trigger a conflict with its uneasy neighbor, Iraq, which shelled border areas of Iran three weeks ago. The geopolitical stakes there would be so great that the superpowers would be sorely tempted to intervene.The options for U.S. policy toward Iran are limited. So long as the hostages are in captivity, Washington must use every possible form of diplomatic and economic pressure to get them released. The Carter Administration has all but said that military action may well be necessary if the hostages are killed. But if they are released unharmed, many foreign policy experts think that the U.S. would be well advised not to retaliate for the seizure but simply to cut all ties with Iran and ignore the country for awhile—unless, of course, the Soviets move in. Primarily because of the intimate U.S. involvement with the Shah, Iran has turned so anti-American that just about any Washington attempt to influence events there is likely to backfire; certainly none of Iran’s contending factions can afford to be thought of as pro-U.S. Iran needs a demonstration that the U.S. has not the slightest wish to dominate the country.The U.S. must try to contain the spread of Khomeini-inspired anti-Americanism in the Middle East. The best way to do that would be to mediate successfully the Egyptian-Israeli peace negotiations, to ensure that they will lead to genuine autonomy for the Palestinians of the West Bank and Gaza. The degree to which the Palestinians problem has inflamed passions even among Arabs who consider themselves pro-U.S. is not at all understood by Americans. Says Faisal Alhegelan, Saudi Ambassador to the U.S.: “All you have to do is grant the right of Palestinian self-determination, and you will find how quickly the entire Arab world will stack up behind Washington.”There are also some lessons the U.S. can learn that might help keep future Third World revolutions from taking an anti- American turn. First, suggests Stanley Hoffmann, Harvard professor of government, the U.S. should stop focusing exclusively on the struggle between the U.S. and Communism and pay more attention to the aspiration of nations that have no desire for alliance with either side. Says Hoffmann: “To me, the biggest meaning of Iran is that it is the first major international crisis that is not an East-West crisis, and for that very reason we find ourselves much less able to react. There is very little attention given to the problems of revolutionary instability and internal discontent. Americans don’t study any of this, and when such events happen, we are caught by surprise.”A corollary thought is that the U.S. must avoid getting tied too closely to anti-Communist “strongmen” who are detested by their own people. Says Selig Harrison: “We should not be so committed that we become hostage to political fortune. We should have contact will all the forces in these countries, and we should not regard any of them as beyond the pale, even many Communist movements that would like to offset their dependence on Moscow and Peking.” Such a policy, of course, is easier proclaimed than executed. In some volatile Third World countries, the only choice may be between a tyrant in power and several would-be tyrants in opposition. But when the U.S. does find itself allied with a dictator, it can at least press him to liberalize his regime and at the same time stay in touch with other elements in the society.Finally, Khomeini has blown apart the comfortable myth that as the Third World industrializes, it will adopt Western values, and the success of his revolution ought to force the U.S. to look for ways to foster material prosperity in Third World countries without alienating their cultures. Says Richard Bulliet, a Columbia University historian who specializes in the Middle East: “We have to realize that there are other ways of looking at the future than regarding us as being the future. It is possible that the world is not going to be homogenized along American-European lines.”It is, unfortunately, almost surely too late for any such U.S. strategies to influence Ayatullah Khomeini, whose hostility to anything American is bitter, stubborn, zealous—and total. But he may have taught the U.S. a useful—even vital—lesson for the 1980s. He has shown that the challenges to the West are certain to get more and more complex, and that the U.S. will ignore this fact at its peril. He has made it plain that every effort must be made to avoid the rise of other Khomeinis. Even if he should hold power only briefly, the Ayatullah is a figure of historic importance. Not only was 1979 his year; the forces of disintegration that he let loose in one country could threaten many others in the years ahead.

This article is lifted from this link (credit to author, Simon Andrew) and it explains the propaganda war against Iran during the Hostage crisis:

The Iranian Hostage Crisis: A War of Words, not Worlds

I. Introduction           

            U.S. media presented the Iranian hostage crisis as a decisive attack against America and therefore the American [...]]]>

Iranians Under US Threat

This article is lifted from this link (credit to author, Simon Andrew) and it explains the propaganda war against Iran during the Hostage crisis:

The Iranian Hostage Crisis: A War of Words, not Worlds

I. Introduction           

            U.S. media presented the Iranian hostage crisis as a decisive attack against America and therefore the American people.  Initially, the media discussed only factual information on the crisis and referred to the players according to their occupation; however, every hostage soon appeared as a victim whose life hung in the balance of terrorists, led by a religious fanatic.  No longer were the hostage takers viewed as students under the orders of a religious leader.  The purpose behind the embassy takeover and atrocities committed under the U.S.-installed shah regime were never mentioned, at least in the U.S. media intended for the public eye.  The absence of the other side’s perspective led to the formation of a unilateral opinion regarding the Iranian hostage crisis, the hostage takers, and the hostages; surely, it was a battle between good and evil forces.  President Carter’s administration preached passivity; other politicians, such as former Texas Governor John Connally, devised daring rescue plans in an effort to gain political clout in a fragile America.  No matter the course of action advised the victimized hostages had been the main concern and the loss of one life as a motive for war between the U.S. and Iran.  Both countries publicly presented their own agendas with conflicting outcomes and neither country was willing to negotiate, a sign of weakness.  The outcome of the crisis was the last 52 hostages being freely returned to the United States 444 days later, leading to an unforeseen turn in events.  Many of the hostages, who had been depicted as abused and tortured, told stories of sympathy and remorse.  Some questioned why America saw the hostage takers as terrorists and not students, while others questioned why America built the hostage crisis into such a spectacle.  The hostages’ accounts of American imperialism and Iranian hardship did not make the ten o’clock news; their stories may have led to a more balanced take on the hostage crisis.  I intend not to say which view, the hostages or the medias, was correct or wrong, but to present both sides of the Iranian hostage crisis dialogue and analyze the vivid contrasts between the two; I also intend to analyze the internal divisions within the hostage accounts.  In a time of great danger, U.S. politics and media worked as one entity and presented an argument drastically different from that of many hostages.

II. First Reports

            In order to illustrate the evolution of terminology displayed in U.S. coverage of the Iranian hostage crisis, I will analyze a series of U.S. media articles chronologically.  The articles will originate from both national and regional newspapers, providing a more extensive portrait of U.S. perception with regards to the hostage crisis.  Due to the extensive amount of written material on the event, I will limit the majority of my analysis to articles written in the first week of coverage, specifically November 4^th through November 9^th.  All of the articles I intend to analyze have already been compiled in the Mark Bowden collection.  Bowden, author of Black Hawk Down and reporter for several Philadelphia-based newspapers, sorted and organized hundreds of articles pertaining to the Iranian hostage crisis.  He would later use the extensive collection of articles as a resource for his book, Guests of the Ayatollah, which was published in 2006.

            The Associated Press released the first two articles responding to the crisis on November 4^th, the first day of the takeover.  The opening sentence of the earliest article reads, “After a three-hour skirmish with U.S. marine guards, Iranian students seized the American Embassy in Tehran Sunday and took about 100 of its staff members hostage” (4).  It is important to note that the hostage takers are referred to as students and the embassy was seized following a “skirmish.”  The article also claimed, “the student invaders bore great pain with fortitude and in an Islamic manner” (4).  The issue of Islam immediately becomes tied to the student invaders.  Later on the idea of religion will play a more potent role as the hostage crisis develops and the world begins to question the Iranians’ objectives.  Finally, the article simplistically states why the students took over the embassy.  The hostage takers accused the U.S. of “assisting the refugee counter-revolutionary elements against the Islamic revolution [and] hatching cowardly conspiracies in different parts of [their] country” (4).  The second article printed by The Associated Press on November 4^th, begins to mark the transition in coverage of the crisis.  In contrast with the previous article, the first sentence reads, “A mob of Iranian students overran U.S. marines in a three-hour struggle Sunday and invaded the American Embassy” (4).  The students begin to assume the mob identity and the previous small-scale skirmish with the marines evolved into a “struggle.”  The language appears starkly more militaristic, by using words like “overran”, but the article does state the students used no weapons.  Also in contrast with the first article, the number of hostages in the second article largely fluctuates.  According to the report, “an Iranian Ministry Spokesman said he believed it was fewer than 45” (4); on the other hand, “State Department spokesman Jack Touhy said it was estimated 59 persons” (4).  No one seems to be exactly sure as to the number of hostages, thus adding a sense of mystery to the unfolding plot.  At the end of the article, The Associated Press confirms that “Television film broadcast in some Western countries showed a few hostages in front of an embassy building who were blindfolded and either bound or handcuffed” (4).  It is important to note how quickly the U.S. government and media released images of the hostages being mistreated.  Such images functioned as a scare tactic and attention grabber; now the public had no other option but to read the papers and watch the news.

            By day two of the hostage crisis, The Associated Press began to release articles discussing the politics at stake, the specific actors, and possible courses of action.  The reader sees a shift in not only the language referring to the event, but also a transition from factual statements to hypothetical situations.  No matter the future outcome of the hostage crisis the U.S. remained in a state of helplessness.  Moreover, the newspapers began to focus less on the number of hostages and more on what the hostage crisis meant to the country.  In order to present a strong exterior to a weakened U.S. government, “The State Department today rejected the demand of the Iranian students”; the shah would remain in the U.S. and undergo cancer treatment (5).  Although many saw this as an easy decision, Ali Agah, the Iranian charge d’affaires, reminded reporters that the current government under Khomeini, “reflects the demands of the people that the shah be returned to Iran before the hostages are released” (5).  Such quotations supporting the students and designating them as the voice of Iran and not the Ayatollah would cease to appear at later dates.  President Carter’s Press Secretary, Jody Powell, informed the public that the President would not take an aggressive stance on the hostage crisis, seeing as it might result in American deaths.  A staunch believer in passivity and waiting the predicament out, President Carter was immediately under fire from several other politicians running for his office; in the eyes of the opposing politicians, hoping for the hostages to be released was playing into the hands of the hostage takers.  One Republican Candidate, John B. Connally, said that “If appeasement were an art form, this administration would be the Rembrandt of our time” (5).  Other politicians, without a stake in the upcoming presidency, agreed with President Carter’s discretion; the Iranian hostage takers would eventually break under U.S. and international pressure and release the hostages out of frustration or hopelessness for their cause.  One official wishing to remain anonymous, confessed, “Since we don’t have the Shadow or Superman, even to discuss publicly a military option is a sure way to get their throats cut” (12).  This official reflects a trend soon to come in every newspaper; the hostage takers were no longer students, but militants capable of killing.  For the time being, the Iranians knew they had the upper hand.  To bury the U.S. further in grief, the students announced “a break in relations with the United States” (5).  From the viewpoint of President Carter this meant approximately, “900,000 barrels [of oil] a day that amount to 5 percent of all U.S. oil” quickly disappearing into thin air (5).  The United States, or “the great Satan”, according to Khomeini, might as well have been another hostage in the American embassy.

            On day three of the hostage crisis, the U.S. media strengthened the image of the U.S. held hostage and began to refer to the students as “terrorists” and the Ayatollah as a “maniac.”  In my opinion, November 6^th marked the day of the biggest transition and evolution in terminology concerning the hostage crisis.  First, The Associated Press ran an article saying, the “Iranian demonstrators threatened today to execute some 60 Americans held hostage…” (6).  The term “execute” is extremely militaristic in nature and reflects the war like atmosphere the press is trying to create and convey.  In response to this supposed threat from the Iranian students, State Department officials said, “You’re dealing with a mob.  It’s not surprising that some of them would say that” (6).  Thus, the mob mentality mentioned once previous to this date, begins to grow and take root in the minds of the American people.  In using the term “mob” as opposed to “students” it appeared the press suggested that hostage takers were capable of irrational behavior that could result in the loss of American lives.  In addition to the normal coverage of the event, The Associated Press featured an interview with one of the hostage’s fathers.  The father of Sergeant Paul Lewis described his take on the Iranian threat and what should be done.  In a moment of rage, he stated, “If you start letting them blackmail you, you’ll have every pipsqueak in the world making demands” (30).  Nonetheless, he went on to say “All we can do is wait” (30).  The media consciously interviewed the father of a hostage in order to humanize the men and women inside the embassy.  Soon these interviews would become commonplace and every hostage appeared to have “weeping mothers and stoic fathers” (22). 

            Newspapers around the United States, both local and national, began to viciously condemn the actions of the hostage takers.  As a result, Khomeini was labeled, “the fanatical Ayatollah Khomeini,” (6) and the student mob as “fundamentalists” (6).  The Indianapolis Star urged President Carter to take military action because the U.S. could no longer “grovel at the feet of petty tyrants” (6).  In addition to labeling them as fanatics and tyrants, the Washington Star angrily denounced the hostage takers as “Moslem student terrorists…continuing [the] bloodthirstiness of the regime that overthrew the government of Shah Reza Pahlevi” (6).  The media was stepping into uncharted waters and no longer felt any need to exercise discretion in its coverage of the hostage crisis.  This transition to the extreme becomes more apparent and solidified when the New York Times refers to the Iranian hostage crisis as, “not just a diplomatic affront; it is a declaration of war on diplomacy itself, on usages and traditions by all nations, however old or new, or whatever belief” (6).  The crisis was no longer an attack against America, but a war against all humanity and the entire world; there were no boundaries.  Only three days into the hostage crisis the U.S. began to solidify its image as the victim of a malicious terrorist attack.  According to the Washington Star, the only solution to the crisis was persuading Iran “to dissociate itself from the savage terrorism of student extremists before a minor crisis becomes a major catastrophe” (6).  No matter the title of the hostage takers, one thing remained indisputable, every one of them lacked humanity.

            Day four of the hostage crisis reports emphasized three main points: every American in Iran was in danger, the hostages inside the embassy were being mistreated and abused, and the shah was a cancer patient, not the former leader of Iran.  Although never outright saying the Iranian students were targeting other Americans in the country, the State Department strongly advised all Americans to leave as soon as possible.  This recommendation by the Carter administration was facilitated by America sending planes over to Iran twenty-four hours a day to evacuate American citizens.  In addition to writing about the State Department’s recommendation, the newspapers actively interviewed representatives of U.S. based companies with employees in the region.  One spokesman for Morrison-Knudson, a company responsible for highway construction, said his employees were “just fine. They have no plans to leave” (29).  Whether or not the State Department wanted to spread fear of future student attacks against Americans is a matter of opinion, however, Morrison-Knudson’s employees in the region confirmed there was no immediate danger.  In response to President Carter and the State Department’s recommendation for Americans to leave Iran immediately, one of the hostage takers  “accused the United States of creating, ‘an atmosphere of fear and insecurity,’ for foreign nationals in Iran, especially Americans” (7).  In an effort to ease tensions between the two countries, the anonymous student reassured the American people that “any molestation of foreign nationals, even American nationals,” would be considered “counter-revolutionary” (7).  America was operating under the assumption that the students were terrorists led by an “authentic paranoid,” however; the students were carrying out the embassy takeover in the spirit of Islamic revolution (7).  Whether or not the U.S. viewed the Islamic revolution as a terrorist movement is another question.  The Carter administration was trying to win over public support by evacuating other Americans; what other action could the President have taken to not endanger the hostages inside the embassy?  Although not fully appeasing the American public, President Carter was depicted as heroically rescuing Americans, albeit not the Americans in the embassy.

            The Associated Press accuses the Iranian hostage takers for the first time of physically mistreating the American hostages.  According to an anonymous U.S. official, the hostages were being “pushed around, abused, intimidated, and mishandled” (29).  Without actual hard evidence for his claim, the official clarified, the hostages have not been “beaten, stabbed, or shot” (29).  It is important to remember U.S. officials had not been let in the embassy, had no source on the inside, and could only hypothesize what was going on behind the embassy walls.  Thus, why is the Associated Press releasing reports of hostages being beaten this late in the Iranian saga?  Day four of the hostage crisis also marked the day President Carter sent former Attorney General Ramsey Clark and William Miller to Iran in hopes of directly negotiating with Khomeini for the release of the hostages.  In sending negotiators and having the media report hostage abuse, President Carter was attempting to convince the American public that he was doing all he possibly could to force the Iranians’ hand; every resource, every staff member, and every course of action was being viewed and reviewed to solve the current crisis. 

            Similar to earlier articles, but with greater exaggeration, the majority of reports published on November 7^th depicted the shah as a dying man, not a former leader or tyrant.  Al Ahram, a newspaper published in Muslim Egypt, asked, “Does Islamic fervor really mean persecuting a sick man, who lies between life and death, and demanding he be hanged” (7)?  It began to appear that the shah’s oppressive regime in Iran never existed or was completely irrelevant to the current hostage crisis, all of his actions as the former leader of Iran disappeared into thin air as the cancerous cloud loomed over his head.  Khomeini’s decision to seize the embassy in hopes of forcing America to return the shah was harshly criticized as an inhumane demand.  The Daily Telegraph, queried Khomeini’s sanity and humanity when stating, “with expressions of delight at the news that [the shah] has cancer—[Khomeini] seems to show a form of dementia” (7).  Such articles urged the American public to sympathize with the shah and blindly hate Khomeini.  As voiced by Al Ahram and The Daily Telegraph, in an effort to recapture the shah, Khomeini himself became viewed as a tyrant inside and outside of the U.S domain.

            By day five of the hostage crisis the Iranian hostage takers insisted the seizure of the embassy was an action against the American government and not the American people, the shah appeared to sympathize with America’s inability to act, and the American people began to mobilize for the hostages’ immediate release.  Following reports of hostage abuse the previous day, one anonymous hostage taker inside the embassy stated, “in Islam we don’t believe to hurt someone…[the hostages] are very well and we know their rights” (8).  His statements had little effect on both public and international outcry against the students’ actions, but did stand up to critics claiming the students were acting against Islamic principles.  The Muslim student went on to emphasize, “we are not enemies with people, but with governments” (8).  From the perspective of the students, the embassy seizure was not an attack on Americans, rather the American government for sheltering a former oppressive leader.  The embassy takeover was a desperate, strategic play to force the United States’ government to return the shah.  Nonetheless, the student’s pleas fell on deaf ears; American lives were at stake, so how could this terrorist claim it was not an attack against American people?  Matters were not helped when the shah became closer aligned with American interests and the country’s incapacity to act.  In the shah’s eyes, he was the reason that the embassy was taken over, he was the former leader of Iran.  Also, he was the one offered medical treatment by the United States, the country that had coincidentally retuned him to power.  In order to ease tensions between the U.S. and Iran, The New York Times reported, “[The] Shah has volunteered to return to Mexico to ease the crisis” (17).  Such newspaper articles made the shah appear sympathetic towards the American hostages.  As a result, the American people, instead of reaching out towards the oppressed Iranians under the shah’s regime, reached out towards the ailing shah; a man willing to move his hospital bed to Mexico if American lives were saved.  At the same time as the shah offered to move to Mexico, the American people began to sign petitions to release the hostages.  A trade lobbyist, Gary Bauer, began a petition with “the hope that some of the people would be moved in their own offices and schools to take similar action” (8); action that the American government could not take. 

            The hostage crisis placed the lives of individual Americans in danger, in addition to the archetypal American family.  As mentioned earlier, many Americans began to leave Iran with their families, believing the country was no longer safe.  The fear surrounding the evacuation from Iran was conveyed by one young businessman, “[who arrived] in London with his blonde wife and 3 year-old daughter” (8).  The blonde wife and infant girl are used to humanize the evacuees, to provide a face to those running from danger.  The same businessman, although running in fear for his life, casually reported he would immediately return on business to Iran.  As for now, he just wanted to get his “wife and family away from the front line” (8).  The usage of “front line” conveys the military perspective of the hostage crisis even though no side has taken any direct military actions.  The Iranians were committing an atrocity by holding the Americans hostage; likewise, America was seen as harboring a tyrant when providing the shah with medical treatment.  With neither side willing to negotiate it appeared the crisis would endure until someone broke the standoff.  The humanization of the Americans fleeing Iran and held hostage inside the embassy, partnered with the dehumanization of the hostage takers, favored the United States in the eyes of Americans and the world; The U.S. was right and the Iranians were wrong.

            Approaching the end of the week, verbal attacks on the Iranian hostage takers appeared throughout most of the American media.  In addition to the open critique of the Iranian students’ actions, many politicians began to launch campaigns against “the Iranians,” signaling the start of the “us versus them” mentality.  The cause for this mentality was clear, the average American was unable to respond to the hostage crisis directly and passivity remained as the chief political strategy.  Although President Carter encouraged all Americans and particularly American politicians to exercise discretion towards the crisis, some politicians could not control their needs to voice disapproval.  The Transportation Secretary, Neil Goldschmidt, demanded the Iranians to “Give [America] back our people and keep your damned oil” (1).  Secretary Goldschmidt continued to voice his rage by saying, “I’m sick and tired of being blackmailed by them, and I think most Americans feel the same way” (1).  Secretary Goldschmidt’s comments reflect a number of issues pertaining to understanding the hostage crisis.  First, Secretary Goldschmidt and a number of politicians tied the issue of oil to the crisis.  Although oil had nothing to do with the Iranian students’ demands, it remained as a constant factor in the media and on politicians’ minds.  Secondly, Secretary Goldschmidt generalizes the actors involved in the hostage crisis, he does not hold the Iranian students responsible, rather, Goldschmidt says America is being attacked by “them,” America is being held hostage by “them.” Such comments reflect great negligence in handling the situation and could potentially lead the way to violence against Iranians on U.S. soil.  On another note, the Iranians responsible for holding the Americans hostage were no longer students; they were full-fledged “Iranian militants.” Articles appearing on November ninth presented the readers with several, thought provoking pictures.  These pictures had nothing to do with the article’s content, but were incorporated to remind the readers of the ongoing battle against an inhumane enemy.  One article, written by Bernard Gwertzman, discussed the ongoing negotiations between the U.S. and the PLO.  According to President Carter, such discussions could lead the way to the hostages being freed.  However, the picture attached to the article was captioned, “Photo of blindfolded hostage at US embassy in Tehran” (18).  In another article, John Kifner wrote about the Iranians’ rejection of future negotiations with the PLO.  The photo attached to this article was captioned, “machine gun used by student to shred documents at embassy” (20).  The pictures are not meant to coincide with the article’s content.  The purpose of the photos is to provide further evidence that the hostage takers are irrational militants. 

            In addition to provocative photos and rash political statements, the U.S. media began to run mini documentaries on the hostages, made possible by interviewing the hostages’ families.  Mike Sager, a writer for The Washington Post, wrote an article on the life of William Reeder.  Reeder, a marine being held hostage in Tehran, was a high school drop out who later learned discipline by joining the marines.  Reeder’s mother, Laura Mae Reeder, is quoted as not understanding why America does not just hand the shah over.  According to Laura, “The shah is just one man.  Let [the hostage takers] have him.  There are 65 other lives at stake here” (28).  It is evident that all citizens do not support the passivity of the U.S. government; however, all citizens do condemn the unjust actions of the Iranians.

III. Later Coverage, Same Trends

            The Iranian hostage crisis became the centerpiece to every cover page in U.S. newspapers.  The event was talked about in the “International” section, the politics behind negotiations under “Washington”, and predictions of how the Carter administration should act appeared in opinion polls.  The hostage crisis unfortunately sparred no part of the newspaper; the deaths of the Delta Force rescue team members were listed in the obituaries.  It is evident that the Iranian hostage crisis consumed both the American media and public, but were the trends appearing in the first week congruent with the trends months later?  Since I cannot read every article, I will limit my analysis of further media articles, beyond the first week, to articles that coincide with major dates central to the hostage crisis.  The dates will be as follows: December 4, 1979, the day the UN Security Council advised the Iranians to release the hostages, July 27, 1980, the day the shah passed away in Cairo, and January 20, 1981, the day the remaining 52 hostages were released.  Any noticeable shifts from the first week trends, such as a relapse into factual reporting, will be documented.  Likewise, if the trends remain the same, I will address how these constant themes relate to the changing historical context.

            On December 4, 1979 the UN Security Council demanded the hostage takers to release the remaining 52 hostages; a request ignored by the Iranians.  December 4^th also marked the day President Carter gave his first public address in relation to his re-election and explanation for his lack of prior campaigning.  President Carter began the televised speech by gravely saying, “I speak to you at a somber time.  Fifty Americans continue to be held captive in Iran, hostages of a mob and a government that have become one and the same” (9).  The above opening statement reinforces a trend noticed in the very first week of coverage; the Iranians were a mob and Khomeini was the mob boss.  However, President Carter goes one step further than previous U.S. reporters by equating the Iranian government to a mob.  Thus, the Iranian government, the hostage takers, and Khomeini were all responsible for the hostage crisis; they were a single entity united under the “mob” front.  Another article, by Dick Dabney, draws comparisons between the Iranian hostage crisis and the 1707 best selling novel, The Redeemed Captive Returning to Zion.  This novel documents the plight of its author, John Williams, as he was held captive by Indians; the same Indians that forced Williams to watch the slaughter of his children and wife.  According to Dabney, the Iranians are similar to the Indians; Williams’ story is being retold in Iran.  However, this time, “the wigwams have been replaced by Kafkaesque office buildings, the bows and arrows by submachine guns…And those massed, raging haters are no longer 100 pretend-savages who don’t really mean it, but 100,000 Iranians who do” (14).  Thus, not only does Dabney equate the Iranians to savage Indians, but firmly states the Iranians were more savage than the Indians.  In my opinion, this comparison proves quite troublesome.  The Indians were known to taunt their captives before killing them and the Iranians had been documented as jeering the hostages, however, none of the hostages suffered the same fate as Williams’ wife and children.  Such statements further dehumanized the hostage takers; they were more savage than the savage Indian.

            On July 27, 1980 the shah passed away and politicians around the world released statements to express their deepest condolences.  Former President Nixon, a close friend of the shah, released the following statement:

“For over 30 years the shah was a loyal friend of all of the United States and [a] personal friend as well.  Tragically, he died a man without a country.  Now that his personal ordeal is over, the government of Iran has no excuse [whatsoever] for continuing to hold innocent Americans hostage” (10).

Former President Nixon makes it appear as though the Iranians seized the embassy for no reason other than claiming to want the shah to be returned.  In the eyes of former President Nixon, the Iranians primary goal was to overrun the embassy, as opposed to asking for the shah to be returned and then taking over the embassy to force America’s hand.  Also, nowhere does Nixon mention the shah’s political relations with Iran, he only states the shah’s warm relations with the U.S. and how “he died a man without a country,” as if Iran deserted him and not the other way around (10).  Another article by George Gedda, of The Associated Press, contained official statements from around the world, with regards to the shah’s passing.  One statement released by former CIA director Bush, stated that, “the shah was a ‘long and loyal friend,’ and while ‘his regime was not perfect, it was greatly preferable to the fanatical government of the Ayatollah Khomeini—a government which continues to hold 52 Americans hostage’” (15).  Bush’s statement gives the allusion that Khomeini was officially running the Iranian government, not the recently elected President Abdollhassan Bani-Sadr.  Thus, according to Bush, Khomeini was in the seat of power in a “fanatical” government; the same accusations against Khomeini can be easily traced back to the first week of media coverage.

            On January 20, 1981, the day the final 52 hostages were released, a number of papers ran articles on the hostages’ families and the emotions they were experiencing.  For example, wife of Staff Sergeant Michael D. Moeller reflects on her husband and other hostages’ return home, by saying, “They’re coming home, because if they don’t, Iran doesn’t get its money…All they want is their money” (27).  After 444 days of hostage crisis coverage, Mrs. Moeller concluded Iran seized the embassy for financial gain; It did not matter that the Iranians claimed they seized the embassy to force the U.S. to return the shah.  Another article tied the election of President Reagan to the hostage crisis.  The article begins by stating, “Ronald Reagan took the oath of office Tuesday, pledged as ‘year of national renewal’ and pronounced his first day as the nation’s 40^th president ‘perfect’ because the 52 American hostages were released” (26).  Already there is less focus on Iran and more focus on new, U.S. beginnings.  The hostage takers no longer make the press because Americans are being airlifted out of Iran; America could now turn its head to the human right’s situation in Iran because the issues of the shah’s government and Iranian plight were no longer on its front doorstep. 

IV. Important Events and Election Nightmares

            The Iranian hostage crisis became the focus of nearly every newspaper reporter in America, beginning November 4, 1979 when the embassy was seized and ending January 20, 1981 when the remaining 52 hostages were released.  After having analyzed reports originating in the first week of media coverage, I will now present a timeline of the major events during the 444 days of the hostage crisis.  The purpose of the timeline is not to catalog every minor detail, but to provide the reader with factual knowledge of major events leading up to the hostages’ release. 

            A little over two weeks since the embassy had been seized, the Iranian hostage takers decided to release thirteen of the 66 hostages.  The thirteen hostages, five women and eight African-American males, were released over the course of two days, November 19^th to November 20^th.  Seven of the eight males were members of either the U.S. Air Force or the U.S. Marine Core; the one exception was Lloyd Rollins who served as an administrative officer in the embassy.  Four of the five women were secretaries at the embassy; the exception was Sergeant Ladell Maples, an embassy guard employed by the U.S. Marine Core.  On December 4, 1979, a vote unanimously passes in the UN Security Council demanding the Iranians to release the hostages (3).  However, Iran offers no signs to abide by the UN Security Council’s wishes.  Following the January 25, 1980 election of Abolhassan Bani-Sadr as President of Iran, the United States severs political relations with Iran and passes down economic sanctions.  As stated by the initial media reports, President Carter preached passivity and saw any rescue attempt as endangering American lives.  However, President Carter began to fear the hostage crisis would never end and a militaristic solution was the only means to freeing the hostages.  This secret, militaristic ploy was code named “Operation Eagle Claw.”  According to President Carter’s plan, an elite group known as “delta force,” would attempt to infiltrate, by helicopter, the desert and mountains surrounding Tehran.  However, “Operation Eagle Claw” failed and was ultimately aborted when one of the U.S. helicopters crashed into a transport plane attempting to refuel over “Desert One” (3).  The crash resulted in the death of eight highly trained personnel from the Marines and the Air Force.  Overall, the mission was regarded as a horrific failure that would haunt President Carter and his hopes for re-election.  On July 27, 1980 the Iranian’s main goal, forcing the shah to return to Iran, was no longer feasible; the shah had passed away in Cairo.  September 12, 1980  marked the last major event before the U.S. Presidential election.  On this day Khomeini stated four conditions, if met, would ensure the release of the hostages.  The conditions included: financial compensation for the money embezzled by the Shah, “cancellation of American claims,” unlocking of Iranian finances in U.S. banks. and the U.S. swearing to not play an active role in Iran’s future dealings (3).  All of the above dates are vital to understanding the complexity of the Iranian hostage crisis.  Miscalculations, such as the rescue mission, resulted in the loss of American lives; however, every action taken by Iran sealed the fate of its country’s image for years to come.

            The United States was eventually able to negotiate with the Khomeini enabling the final hostages to be released.  However, President Carter had lost valuable time on the campaign trail.  In an effort to sway the popular vote President Carter attempted to play “Rose Garden Politics”.  This political strategy is described by Alison Mitchell, a New York Times reporter, as, “when a President facing a re-election campaign would use the majesty and aura of his office to rise above all challengers” (23).  Although many people respected President Carter for attempting to free the hostages through diplomacy, the majority of the American people were fed up with a lack of results; the hostages remained in Tehran and the rescue mission had resulted in eight fatalities.  This frustration was reflected in the voting polls when “Ronald Reagan won the electoral vote 489-49, and enjoyed a 10 percent bulge in the popular vote” (24).  In the end, I agree with Elizabeth Drew, a political journalist, who said the hostage crisis “undid” President Carter (24).  President Carter was defeated by Ronald Reagan in the election of 1980, but was crushed by the prolonged Iranian hostage crisis.

V. The Hostages Speak 

            After having read excerpts from U.S. media reports, analyzed the trends and transitions appearing throughout the media’s coverage, and cataloged the critical, historical events, I will focus the second half of the essay on interviews with the hostages; the interviews I intend to analyze are from the Tim Wells collection. Tim Wells, like many other Americans at the time, was fascinated by the Iranian hostage crisis and specifically the accounts of the hostages.  Wells admits that his quest for what really happened behind embassy walls was very difficult, considering “Hard facts simply did not exist” (33).  After nearly 2 ½ years of gathering information from the hostages, resulting in over five thousand pages of interviews, Wells released his compilation of interviews, 444 Days: The Hostages Remember.  In the foreword of the book, Wells pays thanks to all the book’s contributors, for freely giving their time and opening up their houses to Wells during his whirlwind tour around the country.  Wells also acknowledges that the interviewees did not receive any sort of financial compensation for the in depth interviews that sometimes lasted several hours.  It is important to note all of the interviews took place three to four years after the hostage crisis; the memories and emotions stirred by the crisis were still fresh in the minds of the men and women held captive in Iran.  Wells’ purpose for compiling the interviews is simple; he gives the hostages a chance to speak and reflect on their ordeal, whereas one hostage claimed, the media would print only “the most sensational aspects of the story” (33).  His compilation functions on two levels: it points out the contrasts between the media reports and hostage accounts, and it also makes clear the dissention amongst hostages over what happened at the embassy.

            As soon as the hostages began trickling out of the U.S. embassy in Tehran, they were bombarded by hundreds of reporters and blinded by camera flashes.  The highly anticipated moment was characterized by emotions of jubilation and excitement.  However, the emotion taking precedence above all others was curiosity.  Reporters and the American public wanted to hear first-hand the hostages’ tales of survival and victory against all odds.  Instead, some hostages told tragic stories about the conditions of the Iranians under the shah’s regime and how their conditions in the embassy were nothing in comparison.  Sergeant William Quarles was released approximately 2 weeks after the students seized the embassy.  Although being held hostage for a relatively short period, Quarles conveyed his sympathy for the Iranians when he stated, “I learned a lot from what I read and saw, and was very saddened by some of the things going on under the shah” (32).  Quarles admits in a later interview with Wells that he was not going to condemn the hostage takers, due to his still close proximity to the embassy, but also how he “wasn’t saying something that they told [him] to say” (32).  In addition to discussing the shah’s oppressive regime, Quarles also said, “I think the American people have…to turn around and look at…the other side of American imperialism” (32, 33).  At a later date, Quarles elaborated on this statement by comparing the American presence in Tehran to the “English in Africa,” and the French elsewhere in the world (32, 33).  Baffled reporters meticulously jotted down all of Quarles’ responses, knowing full well his statements would make every front page in the country, if not the world.  In order to minimize the effect of this new released truth on the hostage crisis, Quarles was made to appear distraught by an “ABC reporter [who] explained to viewers that Quarles’ apparent sympathy for his captors was a syndrome well known to psychologists” (22).  This was one of the earliest attempts to silence the hostages’ perspectives if they were detrimental or contradictory to the U.S. media coverage and U.S. political agenda.

            Sergeant Quarles was not the only hostage to convey unforeseen opinions on the hostage crisis and American politics in Iran.  Some time after Quarles and others were released, some hostages felt undeserving of the medal of valor, bestowed upon them by President Carter.  Other hostages questioned America’s curiosity in the incident and the media’s portrayal of all major actors.  Robert Engelmann, one of the last 52 hostages to be released, was one of several to question American politics and agendas in the region and abroad.  In a later interview with Wells, Engelmann openly admits, as if it was common knowledge, that “in all honesty some of [the hostages] were the horned evil.  I mean America plays games in other peoples governments” (32).  Besides the large role of politics in the hostage crisis and ensuing stages of negotiation, Engelmann questions America’s curiosity with regards to the event and the actors involved.  In the same interview, as mentioned before, Engelmann describes how he “went to New York for the ticker tape parade…and [how] the last thing on earth [he’d] of ever predicted was that [he’d] be in a ticker tape parade” (32).  Engelmann never saw himself as a hostage or victim in the hostage crisis, but rather a human being; nevertheless, America still viewed him as a former hostage.  In response to being selected as a participant in the parade, Engelmann said, “It must’ve meant something to somebody” (32).  In another instance similar to Engelmann being recognized by the American public, Colonel Leland Holland, also one of the last 52 hostages to be released, was given the medal of valor for his time spent in the embassy.  Instead of being gracious about receiving the prestigious award, Colonel Holland agreed with a man who called into the radio and stated, “they don’t deserve anything.  They had a picnic over there…” (32).  It is true that the words of these hostages do not represent the feelings of all the hostages, but it is important to recognize that every hostage did not fit the media’s definition as an identity characterized by helplessness, abuse, and struggle.

            Before further discussing contrasts between hostage accounts and media reports, I must first point out that some hostages’ accounts were in concurrence with U.S. newspaper reports.  According to the Tim Wells’ interviews, the last 52 hostages were individually informed that they had each been chosen as “a candidate for release” (33).  All of the possible candidates were led into interview rooms, one-by-one, and interrogated by a female Iranian.  One candidate for release was Joe Hall, a former warrant officer at the embassy in Tehran.  According to Hall’s interview with Wells, he would say anything the hostage takers wanted in order to be released.  Thus, when questioned by “screaming Mary” (33), the lead interrogator, Hall verbally denounced any mistreatment and claimed he was well-fed and well-treated.  In reflecting on this moment years later, Hall told Wells, “all I wanted was to get the hell out of Iran.  So I played their little game, and tried to keep my answers as short as I could” (33).  Unlike Sergeant Quarles, who spent a relatively short time as a hostage, Hall felt he could not speak freely about his conditions at the embassy, especially with armed Iranians in the room.  Other hostages, such as Bill Belk, a former communications officer, were extremely nervous and could not help but speak the truth.  Belk remembered being led into the room and not knowing whether or not he “was going to be released, or taken out and shot” (33).  According to Belk, there were several armed men in the room, an atmosphere that made full disclosure of hostage conditions an almost guaranteed prolonged stay in the embassy.  After overcoming initial feelings of intimidation and letting his nerves control his answers, Belk freely admitted to the interrogator, “I thought it was wrong to take hostages, but I wasn’t the sort of person to hold grudges” (33).  Thus, Belk was aware that what he said would directly impact his chances for release, but still openly criticized the approach of the hostage takers.  Sergeant Paul Lewis immediately identified the interview as staged propaganda, a forum to make the hostage takers appear they had never harmed the hostages.  When asked by Wells to reflect on his interview, Lewis firmly stated, “It was all bullshit” (33).  It is clear there was a range of emotions and opinions of the Iranians, some hostages saw them as activists and others reinforced the media’s belief that they were all ruthless terrorists.  Nonetheless, the media did not acknowledge the internal division between hostage accounts.  Instead, the media depicted only one side of the story, the tale of the angered and abused hostages.

            The U.S. media initially labeled the hostage takers as students, but then quickly progressed to calling them terrorists and radicals.  Sergeant Quarles attempted to disprove the media’s effort to stereotype all the hostage takers as terrorists, and tried to recapture their image as students first and hostage takers second.  When asked about the conflicting images of the hostage takers, Quarles stated, “it wasn’t what the media portrayed at all.  They weren’t ignorant militants, but they were educated students” (32).  In fact, at no time does Quarles refer to the hostage takers as terrorists or radicals, he always addressed his captors as students.  In a later interview, Quarles vividly remembers how “a lot of them were working on degrees, and some of them were working on their Ph.D’s and Master’s…They would have their books…and they’d have their little lectures” (32).  After witnessing all of the above, Quarles admits “[he] was impressed with that” (32).  Is it possible Quarles respected the hostage takers because of their intellectual endeavors, in addition to the guidelines the hostages were treated under?  Such declarations would place U.S. media claims in jeopardy; the Iranians objective to regain the shah could not be justified.  When asked, by Wells how he was treated in the embassy, Quarles described how an Imam instructed the students to let the hostages:

“sleep on the beds while they sleep on the floor.  And [the hostages] have to eat first, while they eat last.  or what’s left.  And they can’t treat [the hostages] like they were treated under the Shah, because they are above that kind of thing” (32).

Besides these generous codes of conduct, the students provided for Quarles and did not view him as a prisoner, rather a friend.  Quarles recalled how one student would “go get [him] a cigarette [and if] there was no more, he’d go all the way out to the store and buy [him] a carton of cigarettes…He’d take…it out of his pocket” (32).  Some writers speculate that Quarles was treated kindly because he was African-American; he was not the white horned evil.  In my opinion, Quarles represented someone who was willing to listen to the hostage takers’ plight.  Quarles may not have agreed with the students’ decision to seize the embassy, but he never viewed the hostage takers as terrorists.  Clearly, U.S. media could not write about such kindness and hospitality provided to Quarles.  In the media’s defense, they were unaware about the students’ activities and relationships with the hostages; however, they still saw fit to declare that the students were terrorists and the hostages were being abused. 

            In order to disprove the media’s position on the hostage takers being terrorists, Quarles provided accounts of the hostage takers’ efforts to continue their studies and participate in intellectual endeavors.  Engelmann attacked the issue of the hostage takers being equivalent to terrorists in a more direct manner.  He argued his captors were not militaristically trained and incompetent in securing the embassy.  In his interview with Wells, Engelmann said, “enough of the Iranians were just so unskilled in martial arts that a Marine could disarm six or seven of them and have a field day for awhile” (32).  To backup his statement, Engelmann told Wells about how one marine, Greg Persinger, was being walked to the bathroom by a guard when he “grabbed the guy’s revolver…and flipped it around” like a cowboy (32).  Engelmann vividly recalls Persinger saying to the guard, “Don’t point it at me unless you’re going to shoot me with it” (32).  The Iranian guard was in absolute shock and did not know how to respond or act, “just like a kid,” much less a militant (32).  Another instance demonstrating the students’ inability to watch over the hostages took place when several hostages went to the bathroom.  As a rule, the hostages had to knock on the bathroom door to signal the guard they had finished and were ready to go back to their rooms.  However, the student responsible for answering the knock had fallen asleep.  Realizing the student was sleeping, the men “being good little hostages…blindfolded themselves, opened the door, and walked down the hall blindfolded back to their room” (32).  Both of the above incidences further prove the students, or “radicals,” functioned more as caretakers than militants.

            Similar to the contrasting hostage accounts in relation to freely voicing one’s opinion about their conditions before release, some hostages, like the U.S. newspapers, claimed the hostage takers were militants rather than students.  Sergeant Rocky Sickmann, a marine security guard who was not freed until the last day, referred to the hostage takers on at least one occasion as “militants” (33).  Another hostage, Bruce German a former budget officer who was not freed until the last day, referred to the hostage takers as “goons” (33).  It remains unclear whether or not Sickmann’s and German’s prolonged stays at the embassy influenced their use of terminology.  However, John Limbert, a political officer, still referred to the hostage takers as “students”, even when they confiscated all of his belongings before he boarded the final plane leaving Iran.  The main difference between the hostage accounts and the U.S. media reports was the transition of terminology from beginning to end.  The U.S. newspapers, at first, referred to the hostages as students, but then after a few days began addressing the students as terrorists.  Some hostages expressed disdain for the hostage takers throughout, such as Sickmann and German, while others, such as Limbert, always addressed the hostage takers as students.  Thus, in my research I found no transition in terminology between the hostages and hostage takers; the Iranians were always militants or always students.  The U.S. media, once consciously identifying the Iranians as terrorists, never looked back.

            The Iranian students were not qualified to watch over the hostages and even more inept and religiously opposed to disciplining the hostages.  In hostage accounts following their releases, there are hardly any mentions of physical abuse.  The students were not there to beat the hostages; they sought to inform the hostages of their plight under the shah, sometimes resulting in what some would consider verbal abuse, but to others mere sarcasm.  For the most part, the most difficult obstacle for the hostages to overcome was the living conditions inside the embassy.  According to Engelmann, the meanest guard there once refused to “give us the soap and he wouldn’t take us to the toilet” (32).  These examples of mistreatment seem like child’s play compared to the actions of the students in U.S. newspapers.  U.S. media claimed the hostages had routinely suffered physical abuse, but had not been stabbed or shot.  Both media claims directly contrast with Quarles first hand account of the situation.  Quarles claimed, “[it was] a pain living in conditions like that for a while, but [the students] didn’t make it.  I mean I wasn’t beaten up” (32).  Quarles places the blame on the logistics of the situation, while the media placed all the blame on the students.  Quarles went on to state, “I didn’t even have any resentment against them really..  I don’t resent them” (32).  Although Quarles and Engelmann voiced no resentment of the hostage takers, the U.S. media had already won the general public over to their side.  The students would indefinitely be associated as terrorists and the hostages as helpless, beaten victims.

            Former hostages, such as Quarles and Holland, spoke out against the shah regime; the message the students had been trying to deliver from the start.  Almost every newspaper in the country failed to mention the underlying motives of the students for taking over the embassy, however, every newspaper pointed out the shah was undergoing treatment for cancer.  U.S. media, serving as the voice of the government, portrayed the shah in a sympathetic light; every American was aware of the devastating effects of cancer on loved ones.  On the other hand, articles sympathizing with the shah and condemning the students did not reach the hostages in Iran.  Thus, the hostages formed very different opinions from those of mainstream America.  During an interview, Quarles stated, “Yes.  The Shah was a –I think he was a tyrant” (32), because “people were being deprived of a lot” (32).  Quarles, who was perhaps the most willing to learn about Islam and the conditions under the shah, was told the most stories about the oppressive leader.  He recalls the students telling him about SAVAK, the secretly run police organization under the shah.  SAVAK was known to carry out several, atrocious acts and routinely abuse and kill all those who stood in the way of the shah and in favor of the Ayatollah.  For example, Quarles retells a story about a fire that erupted in a crowded theater where people “were listening to a lecture about the Ayatollah” (32).  The people attempted to escape the fire but could not open the doors deliberately locked by SAVAK.  Finally, the fire department arrived but “was prevented by SAVAK to put out the fire.  So about 700 or 800 people just died…” (32).  This atrocious incidence could not be erased from Quarles’ mind; he had been shown several photos of the mutilated bodies.  Quarles also sat down and spoke with an elderly man who retold his dealings with the shah.  He remembered how, “[The man] broke out and cried in tears.  Really, he was so angry because [SAVAK] killed his brother, his sister, his father, and some of relatives of his too” (32).  Unlike the vast majority of America, Quarles had witnessed the devastation under the shah regime and took the students’ accounts as the truth.  In my opinion, it is clear the students were attempting to convince Quarles and other hostages that the shah’s regime was responsible for thousands of deaths.  Thus, the hostage takers’ argument, to have the U.S. return the shah, appeared justified and rational.  Although the hostage takers were promoting their own agenda in telling these gruesome stories, I believe their accounts were convincing and powerful because they were fact-based accounts of real atrocities.

            Other hostages were aware of SAVAK and the shah’s regime before the hostage crisis.  Colonel Holland already knew SAVAK functioned as the shah’s henchmen to solve daily nuisances and silence the opposition.  When asked to describe SAVAK, he recalled:

“they tie you down, if you don’t ask the questions their asking, they’ll bring in your little girl, your sweetheart, your mother or somebody, and proceed to brand her, or ram a jagged coke bottle up their anus, or burn ‘em, use electrodes, whatever,  And then you’ll talk” (32).

Such accounts were never published in American newspapers and would definitely never make the ten o’clock news. 

VI. Conclusion:

            The Iranian hostage crisis demanded the attention of nearly every newspaper reporter in the United States.  The hundreds of article released in the first week of coverage alone heavily reflected the thoughts and actions taken by the U.S. government towards solving the crisis.  If the government released a statement advocating non-military action against the Iranians, Americans across the country would launch peaceful protests and sign mass petitions to free the hostages.  The American people acted when President Carter had his hands tied and likewise, the media functioned as President Carter’s voice.  Over the course of the 444 days the hostages were held captive, the media became increasingly more aggressive in its use of word choice; a transition representing the frustration towards the lack of progress in negotiations with the Ayatollah Khomeini and a political ploy to gather support for the hostages and develop hatred towards the Iranians; Americans had to protect American lives that the Iranians were recklessly placing in danger.  This all-for-one and one-for-all mentality led many Americans to not question who the shah was and why Iran wanted him to be returned.  Images of beaten and blindfolded hostages symbolized a violation of a human being’s universal rights; acts of oppression under the shah were not placed on the same plateau and were largely ignored by the papers and politicians alike.  In my opinion, the Iranian hostage crisis placed American politics and agendas on the international stage right beside those of Iran.  The hostage crisis set the benchmark for America’s policy of not negotiating with terrorists.  The hostages, or victims of the Iranians, were divided in their views on the hostage takers and their said cause.  However, inner dissention between the hostages was never written about in the U.S. media; newspaper articles only quoted the beaten and abused hostages.  Some of the  hostages questioning U.S. government actions and the oppressiveness of the shah were granted national air time, but were introduced as suffering from post traumatic stress disorder, or some other psychological ailment that invalidated their opinion.  Thus, the media filtered all of the information pertaining to the hostage crisis before it reached the loyal readers.  The hostage crisis ultimately led to the election of President Ronald Reagan and changed the role of the media in relation to covering a national and on some levels international crisis.  In a time of great political and social change one thing remained certain and unquestioned; the hostages were heroes and the Iranians were villains.

Bibliography:

1. Adams, Jim. The Associated Press 9 Nov. 1979. Mark Bowden Papers.

            In feeling helpless to respond to the actual hostage crisis, many Americans and politicians begin to voice anger against Iranians on U.S. soil.  The Iranian student and the Iranian neighbor now assume role the role of scapegoat, for what “their people” have done.

2. America held hostage [videorecording] : the Iran crisis / presented by ABC News.  [S.l.]: ABC News ; [S.l. : MPI Home Video [distributor], 1989.

            First noticed in McAlister reading.  I viewed the film in order to see how U.S. media covered the Iranian hostage crisis at the time.

3. The Associated Press. “Timeline of the Crisis.” Harvard University.

< https://www.pon.harvard.edu/hnp/iran/timeline.shtml>.

            A general timeline of the Iranian hostage crisis, dating back to when the embassy was seized and ending at the release of the hostages.  This proved very helpful to describe events leading up to the hostages’ release.

4. The Associated Press 4 Nov. 1979. Mark Bowden Papers.

            The first article identifies the hostage takers as students “seizing” the embassy following a “skirmish.”  The second article refers to the students as a “mob” overrunning the marines in a “struggle.”  Both articles confirm the students’ demand for the shah to be returned to Iran.

5. The Associated Press 5 Nov. 1979. Mark Bowden Papers.

            The State Department is not willing to cooperate with the hostage takers’ demands.  The issue of oil is addressed with relation to the Ayatollah Khomeini running the government.

6. The Associated Press 6 Nov. 1979. Mark Bowden Papers.

            There is a big shift in language with regards to the Iranian hostage crisis.  The Ayatollah is now referred to as a “petty tyrant” and the students’ image is once again solidified as a “mob”, capable of acting irrationally towards the hostages.  First look at regional papers in addition to reports in national papers.

7. The Associated Press 7 Nov. 1979. Mark Bowden Papers.

            President Carter urges all Americans to flee Iran.  The article also takes snippets from papers all around the world that condemn the actions of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini as un-Islamic and inhumane.

8. The Associated Press 8 Nov. 1979. Mark Bowden Papers.

            American citizens begin to sign petitions for the release of the hostages, since the government continues to follow Carter’s passivity.  The Iranian students try to convince world media that the hostages are not being beaten.  The archetypal American family is brought into the equation along with stronger military terminology.

9. The Associated Press. 4 Dec. 1979. Mark Bowden Papers.

            Article contains excerpt from President Carter’s official statement to seek re-election as President of the United States.  Carter equates the Iranian government and the hostage takers to a “mob.”

10. The Associated Press. 27 July 1980. Mark Bowden Papers.

            Official statement from former President Nixon, in relation to the shah’s death.  Nixon makes it appear that the Iranians were holding the hostages as an “excuse” for wanting the shah to return, not a reason.

11. Bowden, Mark. Guests of the Ayatollah. New York: Atlantic Monthly Press, 2006.

            Used as a reference for obtaining background information on the events during the Iranian hostage crisis.

12. Cullen, Robert B. The Associated Press 5 Nov. 1979. Mark Bowden Papers.

            U.S. political figures will not rush to offensive action because they believe the hostage takers are capable of killing.

13. Cullen, Robert B. The Associated Press 9 Nov. 1979. Mark Bowden Papers.

            Claims the hostages have not been harmed physically, which directly contradicts previous reports of abuse and mistreatment.

14. Dabney, Dick. The Washington Post 4 Dec. 1979. Mark Bowden Papers.

            Dabney compares the Iranian hostage takers to the savage Indians in “The Redeemed Captive Returning to Zion.”  The hostage takers appear more savage than the savage India.

15. Gedda, George. The Associated Press 27 July 1980. Mark Bowden Papers.

            Former CIA Director Bush describes how the shah was a close friend and did not run as fanatical of a government as Khomeini.

16. Gerstenzang, James. The Associated Press 5 Nov. 1979. Mark Bowden Papers.

            The Carter administration is airing on the side of caution while other politicians vying for the Presidency suggest more aggressive action.

17. Gwertzman, Bernard. New York Times 8 Nov. 1979. Mark Bowden Papers.

            The international crowd and American people further sympathize and side with the shah when he offers to return to Mexico for medical treatment.

18. Gwertzman, Bernard. New York Times 9 Nov. 1979. Mark Bowden Papers.

            Discussions take place with the PLO.  The photo attached to the article is of blindfolded hostages, thus unrelated to the article’s content.

19. John Kifner. New York Times 8 Nov. 1979. Mark Bowden Papers.

            Two Americans outside of the embassy are allegedly kidnapped from their apartments and brought to the embassy as hostages.

20. John Kifner. New York Times 9 Nov. 1979. Mark Bowden Papers.

            The Iranian students reject any negotiations with the PLO.  The picture attached to the article is of the hostage takers shredding documents with a machine gun.

21. Mark Bowden Papers, Rare Book, Manuscript, and Special Collections Library, Duke University, Durham, North Carolina.

            The source of all the news articles pertaining to the Iranian hostage crisis.

22. McAlister, Melani. Epic Encounters. Berkeley: University of California P, 2001.

            Sergeant William Quarles says a series of critical comments about American imperialism and the shah regime that shock reporters.

23. Mitchell, Alison.  “The Nation: Presidential Poses; Campaign Trail or Garden Path?” The New York Times 2 July 1995.

            This article defines the “rose garden strategy.”  President Carter used this strategy when he chose to forego campaigning and focus on the hostage crisis.

24. “People & Events: The Election of 1980.” American Experience: Jimmy Carter PBS.  2002.  < http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/carter/peopleevents/e_1980.html>.

            The following article was part of a PBS series on Jimmy Carter’s Presidency.  The article discusses the role of the Iranian hostage crisis on his chances for re-election.

25. Randal, Jonathan C. The Washington Post 9 Nov. 1979. Mark Bowden Papers.

            The hostage takers are first addressed as “Iranian militants” and not students.  They are not willing to negotiate with the PLO.

26. Richards, Clay. United Press International 20 Jan. 1980. Mark Bowden Papers.

            President Reagan is inaugurated and the focus is now on new beginnings for America and a “year of national renewal.” 

27. Robinson, Eugene. The Washington Post 20 Jan. 1981. Mark Bowden Papers.

            Wife of Staff Sergeant Michael D. Moeller believes hostages are returning so Iranians can claim their money; the Iranians are only interested in money.

28. Sager, Mike. The Washington Post 9 Nov. 1979. Mark Bowden Papers.  

            Mother of a Marine held hostage is interviewed.  Thus, the hostages are humanized and their life stories are shared with the American audience.

29. Schweid, Barry. The Associated Press 7 Nov. 1979. Mark Bowden Papers.

            U.S. employees in Iran are in danger, according to the State Department.  Some employees are contacted by their companies and insist they are safe.

30. Springer, Bob. The Associated Press. 6 Nov. 1979. Mark Bowden Papers.

            Article interviews the father of Sergeant Paul Lewis.  Mr. Lewis appears mad at Iran but agrees with Carter’s plan of passivity.

31. “The Hostages and The Casualties.”  Jimmy Carter Library & Museum.  2005. http://www.jimmycarterlibrary.gov/documents/list_of_hostages.phtml

            Provided detailed lists of the hostages, their occupations, age, and when they were released.  Also listed the men and women who died in the rescue mission.

32. Tim Wells Papers, Rare Book, Manuscript, and Special Collections Library, Duke University, Durham, North Carolina.

            The source of all the interviews pertaining to the Iranian hostage crisis.

33. Wells, Tim. 444 Days: The Hostages Remember. San Diego: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1985.

            Provided helpful excerpts from several of the interviews in the Tim Wells’ collection.  I was able to read these excerpts, organized around a central idea of the chapter, in addition to reading the full-length interviews in the Tim Wells’ collection.

Fake Iranian Analyst Meir Javedanfar

Bio: “Meir Javedanfar is an Iranian born Middle East Analyst, who lived in Iran until eight years after the Islamic revolution. He holds a Bachelor’s Degree and two Masters Degrees from three universities in England, one of which was in the field of International Relations and Strategic Studies.

Currently, Mr. Javedanfar [...]]]>

Fake Iranian Analyst Meir Javedanfar

Bio: “Meir Javedanfar is an Iranian born Middle East Analyst, who lived in Iran until eight years after the Islamic revolution. He holds a Bachelor’s Degree and two Masters Degrees from three universities in England, one of which was in the field of International Relations and Strategic Studies.

Currently, Mr. Javedanfar is the Director of the Middle East Economic and Political Analysis Company, which specializes in the analysis of 16 countries in the region. He specializes in Iranian affairs, in areas such as intelligence matters, defense, economy and domestic politics.”

The above bio and most other little bios on Mr Javedanfar seems to forgot to mention that Javendanfar is now a Jewish Israeli living in Tel Aviv.

Articles on Guardian’s Comment is free:

This is Meir’s first article in Guardian’s Comment is free.

07/04/09 – Obama factor reaches Iran: Meir’s first article in the Guardian’s CiF is before the elections. After paragraphs of attacks on Ahmedinijad, he ends it with,

“Realising that the re-election of Ahmadinejad may be interpreted as a rebuff in Washington, it is very possible that Khamenei may decide that Ahmadinejad’s removal may serve his interests far more than keeping him as president.”

The conclusion has several problems. It seems to indicate that the election of a Iranian President is directly linked to the presidency in America, a grave insult to the Iranian people. Furthur than that, it seems to claim that Khamenei is directly responsible for who becomes president. While both of those are wrong, what’s proves Meir even furthur incorrect is that Ahmedinijad won the presidency for the second term. By being victorious in the elections, Ahmedinijad proved Meir’s last line in the article to be completely wrong, “Despite that, the day after Iran’s presidential elections, he may find himself the most prominent victim of the “Obama factor“.”

22/04/09 – Ahmadinejad’s touch turns to dust: Meir’s long, one-sided anti-Ahmedinijad bash revolves around the Holocaust issue. Ahmedinijad is not actually a Holocaust denial, but attacks the mythology of the Holocaust, the idea that a certain point of history is guarded off to criticism and furthur studies, and has been used to great political ends at the cost of Palestanian lives. Ahmedinijad is against the untouchable aspect of it, “Historical events are always subject to revisions, and reviews and studies. We’re still revising our thoughts about what happened over thousands of years ago. Why is it that researchers are jailed? Why is researching this issue prohibitited? Where as we can openly question God, the prophet, concepts such as freedom and democracy?”

Journalists such as Meir Javedanfar prove Ahmedinijad write, when they cling at any opportunity that is available to attack Ahmedinijad. Quoting his two opponents only furthur proves that the Holocaust has been transformed into a mythology to be used for political ends.

Ahmedinijad’s focus on the Holocaust, which he has clarified several times, is three parts. 1) Why is the focus only on the Jews in the holocaust and not on the rest of the 50 million killed? 2) Why is criticism and research discouraged? 3) Why should the Palestanians, who did not cause it, suffer as the consequence of the European genocide?

06/05/09 – Ahmadinejad’s messianic connections: In another anti-Ahmedinijad article, “ A recent sign was the decision by the Society of Combatant Clergy not to to support any candidate until all presidential candidates had been vetted by the Guardian Council. This powerful society has usually supported rightwing conservative candidates and many thought its support for Ahmadinejad as the candidate to stand against the reformists was certain. However, Ahmadinejad’s unpopularity has persuaded some of them to withhold their vote to see if a more viable conservative candidate will emerge.”

Did Mr Javedanfar forgot to mention that Rafsanjani is a member of the Society of Combatant Clergy and that Rafsanjani backed Mousavi?

The rest of the article is typical anti-Ahmedinijad propaganda, using the lie that because they want the return of Mehdi, and Medhi is supposed to return at the end of the world, then it means that they will hasten his return. Even though, in almost all religious, end of the world has something significient, although no one accuses those religions that they want to bring about an end of the world themselves.

25/05/09 – Iran and Israel are not worlds apart: Meir Javedanfar starts the article by telling us he lives in Israel, a little tibbit that is usually not mentioned in his bios, which would make us understand his anti-Iranian attacks a bit better if we knew.

Issues with the article. Meir repeats the claims that Iran wants to destroy Israel or wants to do a regime change, both incorrect, as Iran has never directly threatened Israel, even though Israel has on several occasions claimed that they might military attack Iran.

An amusing line is the following, “It is not Ayatollah Khamenei whose house is bombarded. While he is sitting comfortably in his well-protected residence, it is the people of Gaza and Lebanon who pay the price, with their lives and their property.”

The line seems to put Ayatollah Khamenei as the cause of the destruction and not the Israelis themselves.

Finally the article seems to indicate that since Iran has no borders with Israel, why is it against it? Iran also never officially recognized the apartheid South Africa, even though it did not border it. It did not recognize it on matters of principle.

07/06/09 – Ayatollah Khamenei’s Obama dilemma: Nothing noteworthy in this article except such silly, simplified statements such as, “In some ways, Ahmadinejad is the son Khamenei never had.”

30/06/09 – Clerics pose little threat to Khamenei: I have no real issues with this one, but that is also mainly because not much is being said here.

19/07/09 – Iran’s crisis has nuclear fallout: A very weak article. Meir Javedanfar constantly uses terms such as “ many Iranians”, “more Iranians” and ”some Iranians” as if he has a complete understanding of 80 million diverse Iranians, backed by no data, polls, or surveys. The crux of argument is that due to the elections, the Iranians do not care much about the nuclear issue anymore (wrong, since even the opposition strongly defends the nuclear right). It even offers such silly analysis, “ After the recent events, some employees at Iran’s nuclear industry could ask “do we want to become a nuclear power under an oppressive government, or wait for a democratic one?” It is possible that the number of those preferring the second option could increase. This could then mean that their level of co-operation could decrease.”

His worst conclusion is “To Ahmadinejad, and probably Khamenei, after recent events, stronger sanctions could be more preferable. Even war. These are overt external threats. They would provide the regime with a justification for the use of its armed forces to suppress internal and external threats.”

Given Iran’s constant attempts at negotiations, this shows how dangerously wrong Meir Javedanfar is.

10/09/09 - A green day for Iran: Meir first makes an almost correct statement but quickly rushes to excuse it, “ One of them is the fact that their numbers were limited to major cities, especially Tehran. Towns and villages in rural areas showed less support because they are not connected to the internet, which made it more difficult for the reformists to campaign and mobilise support before and after the elections.”

So the only reason is that pro-Ahmedinijad supporters don’t have internet? The question I want to ask Meir Javedanfar is, did democracy not exist before the Internet? Khatami did not win in an era of Internet. The revolution of 1979 did not happen because of blogs and facebook.

18/09/09 – Did the US do a deal with Russia?: Look at this part in the article, “All these efforts slowly started to put Iran’s leadership on the back foot. Suddenly, it was deprived from its two main battle cries. One was that America was against the Muslim world and the other that the US had ambitions to apply regime change in Iran. This panicked Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, which is why he decided to back Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in presidential elections, apparently allowing extensive fraud in his favour.”

But in an article on 7th of April, Javedanfar said the exact opposite, “Although the supreme leader is under no obligation to compromise with Obama, shunning the US president would be damaging, both diplomatically and economically. Realising that the re-election of Ahmadinejad may be interpreted as a rebuff in Washington, it is very possible that Khamenei may decide that Ahmadinejad’s removal may serve his interests far more than keeping him as president.”

Note that in one analysis, Khamenei doesn’t want Ahmadinejad due to Obama, but in the other analysis (once real events proved Meir wrong), Khamenei suddenly wants Ahmadinjejad due to Obama!

This shows exactly why Meir Javedanfar is completely unable to comprehend Iranian politics.

05/10/09 – Ahmadinejad has no Jewish roots: Ahmedinijad is not a jew. That’s basically the story, which was something not any Iranian I ever talked to would even bring up. To many muslims, it would not really matter to many people which religion a person used to be.

14/10/09 – Can Iran afford a nuclear U-turn?: Meir does a U-turn himself again. He goes from arguing that the Iranian officials want sanctions or war as an excuse to remain in power, but now it seems they are negotiation with America because they fear sanctions and war, “However, if they don’t agree to it, crippling sanctions, or even war, could follow.”

23/10/09 – Iran will emerge victorious: Like what I said previously, “First, the deal will significantly reduce the chances of sanctions and war against his country. This will be welcomed in Tehran, especially after the recent unrest. Many conservatives were concerned that the west could use the current atmosphere of disunity as an opportunity to strike at the regime, through military or economic means. Their fears will be allayed, giving Khamenei the opportunity to attend to internal matters.”

Look at that “analysis”, and compare it to his previous article from three months back, ““To Ahmadinejad, and probably Khamenei, after recent events, stronger sanctions could be more preferable. Even war. These are overt external threats. They would provide the regime with a justification for the use of its armed forces to suppress internal and external threats.”

See how those two articles conflict?

Meir makes up his “analysis” without any basis in reality.

He continues pushing forward in his about face analysis, “Had international sanctions been imposed during or immediately after this change, it could have caused further instability for his regime. The proposed agreement will provide him with an important respite, he will be able to implement the measures without the fear of sanctions.”

Can Meir decide if the Iranian government wants sanctions & war or it doesn’t?

28/10/09 – Happy birthday, Ahmadinejad: In a letter to Ahmedinejad, Meir starts off by talking about his appearance, than says “Over the last 12 months you have become one of the most scorned presidents Iran has ever had. Just think for a moment: which other president drew so many hundreds of thousands of people to the streets to demonstrate against him? And which other Iranian president has damaged the economy and made the people of Iran actually poorer than you have?”

Meir seems to have short memory. First of all, Iran has had only 6 presidents so far. The first Banisadr was impeached after being in office for just over a year and left in exile. The next one was only in office for less than a month before being assasinated. So you just now have 4 presidents left.

Khamenei was a wartime president, so the focus was on the war.

As you can see, Iran slowly was entering into a more stable, democratic enviroment, and with such an enviroment, more province is given for democratic disputes. And saying which president damaged the economy more would assume that Iran’s economy is on the decline, which is false, given that Iran has been slowly on the rise since the war. In what way did Ahmedinijad put the breaks on this? The currency exchange has been relatively stable in Ahmedinijad’s presidency, something not the previous presidents can have a claim on.

Meir then compares Ahmedinijad to the Shah, which is a ridicolous comparison,  given that the Shah was in control of the whole government and was a King. The current President is merely just that, a President, with powers balanced by other offices and a term that will run out in a few years. In no way, is he comparable to the Shah.

“Iran’s economy, despite vast natural resources, is the pity of the Middle East.” What does that mean? Iran’s economy is a very strong economy, with its investments having an impact in its neighbours.

“However, Iran has one thing that should be the envy of this world, if it already isn’t. And that is its young people. Many of its students trounce western students in maths and science competitions. Unfortunately, you have imprisoned many of them and killed others because they want a genuine recount of the presidential votes.” Meir uses sentimental sentences to somehow attack Ahmedinijad, even though factually it makes no sense. Saying “imprisoned many of them” is wrong on many levels.

“However, his desire, like that of millions of young Iranians, is for something completely different” The writer, like many times before, again seems to assume he is able to speak for all Iranians.

09/11/09 – Iran’s top-down unity: Now again, Meir is confused. Few articles back he said that the Iranian government don’t WANT a nuclear deal, then when there were negotiations, he said they DID, and when the deal did not go through, he again says, they DON’T. This shows that Meir is completely unable to know exactly the realities of the situation and is only able to provide “analysists” after an event which in no way predicts the future and if something else happens, he just changes his reasons.

17/11/09 – Is Iran dropping Russia for Turkey?: A very simplified analysis.

01/12/09 – Yachtsmen and Iran’s anger with UK: When Iran arrests foreigners in its terrotorial waters, journalists like Meir are quick to use phrases like “British hostages languishing in Iranian jails” to make a negative emotional impact.

Anyway, while Javedanfar offers several reasons for the capture and how it will turn out and making it bigger than it seemed, reality again proved Javedanfar’s analysis trite. The only incident lasted only a few days.

17/12/09 – The plus side of an arms race with Iran: Meir argues that Iran is spending a lot on its defense, and this is a good thing, because it will collapse under the expenses. Meir again does not argue from the point of facts.

Just look at the facts. Israel’s military budget is 8.6% of its GDP and USA is at 4.3%. Saudi Arabia is at 9.3% and Oman is at 10.7%! Where does Iran fall? Just 1.2%, vastly lower than its neighbours and many European countries! Even though, unlike those countries, Iran is constantly under threat, it still spends far less than those countries. Yet Meir Javedanfar has no concern for reality, he is only looking to write what he feels is acceptable in his mind.

21/09/09 – Filling Montazeri’s shoes in Iran: A small write-up on Montazeri, nothing really new or important.

12/01/10 – Is Iran losing the intelligence war?: Somehow Meir twists assasinations against Iranian scientists as something positive…

12/02/10 – No respite for Ahmadinejad: Remember a few articles back how Meir Javedanfar would constantly change his anaylists, the Iranian officials want sanctions, they don’t want sanctions, they want war, they don’t want war, well, here again is another dance by Meir, “Supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s main motivation for following the current nuclear policy is to keep Iran isolated. The thinking among Tehran ultra-conservatives is that by raising the ire of the west and keeping Iran isolated from the rest of the international community, it will be easier for them to crack down against opposition at home”

Sometimes it seems, according to Meir, that inside opposition forces Khamenei to negotiate with USA and othertimes, he says the opposite.

And look at some of the strange reasons he gives for the October deal not going forward, “Iran’s refusal to accept the terms of the recent deal offered by the international community – which called for Iran to first ship 75% of its ­uranium abroad, and then to receive it back in the form of nuclear fuel – has more to do with domestic politics. Khamenei is worried that such a deal would boost Obama’s image in Iran.” Lets ignore the part where journalists like Meir uses terms like “international community” when its usually only a few countries, or mainly just USA. But he ignores all of Iran’s actual concern and somehow thinks it has just to do with Obama’s image in Iran…!

“The reality of a black US president with the middle name Hossein has ­neutralised years of claims by the post-revolution Iranian government that America is a racist, anti-Islamic state. Unhelpfully for Khamenei, the name Obama can also be pronounced as oo–ba–ma, meaning “he is with us” in Farsi. All these factors have endeared the US more than ever to the people of Iran. The last thing Khamenei wants is to boost America’s image by reaching a deal; in doing so his regime could lose the anti-American glue that it ­increasingly relies on to hold it together.”

I honestly don’t even want to comment on this part too much, just highlighting it should be enough.

“Although the west, especially Israel, has every right to feel threatened,” Two questions, how is the west threatened by Iran and since is Israel part of the west?

17/02/10 – Target sanctions at Iran’s leaders: An article beginning with a foundation of lies. “ The site, which was recently exposed by the United States, should have been declared three years ago when Iran began construction there. However, the Iranian government decided to keep it secret until September this year.” As per the rules of the NPT, Iran is obliged to inform of the site 180 days before inserting nuclear material in the site. Iran informed the IAEA way sooner than the required 180 days.

He then mentions a secret dossier, which can not be trusted.

That’s more or less his reasons for assuming Iran is building a bomb!

“This was witnessed recently by the positive reaction received in the Iranian blogosphere to the UK decision to block $1.6bn of funds” This is probably the best reason why Meir Javedanfar fails as an analyst. He assumes that Iranian blogosphere somehow is any clear indication of the reality of Iran’s 80 million population.

16/03/10 – Israel must help US tackle Iran: The article is more about Israel than Iran, but this was amusing, “The recent report in the Washington Post that Iran tried to buy nuclear bombs from Pakistan in the late 1980s is another reminder of the urgency and danger posed by the Iranian nuclear programme.” How is something that happened in the late 1980s a reminder of an urgency??

01/04/10 – Sanctions will make Tehran take notice: The propaganda game: “That depends. If Iran is less than two years away from crossing the technological threshold which would enable it to assemble a bomb, then it’s unlikely any amount of sanctions would stop Khamenei in his tracks. He may well decide that as Iran is close to making the bomb, it would be worth absorbing the pain.” Assume Iran is going to make the bomb, give it a time, making it a foregone conclusion.

03/04/10 – Hamid Karzai takes on the Taliban: Not an Iran article, so no comments from me.

09/04/10 – Israel’s nuclear standoff: Mainly about Israel, not Iran, so again no comments from me.

04/05/10 – Obama’s nuclear misstep in Iran: Good for Meir for criticising Obama for his nuclear threat statement against Iran, but why does he have to still persue his propaganda against Iran at the same time, “After Obama’s declaration, many of them could now say that their country is under a nuclear threat, and the best way to prevent this from happening is through the acquisition of nuclear weapons. That way, the US would be deterred from launching a nuclear attack against their country.”

There is still no reason to believe Iran is making a nuclear weapons program but journalists like Meir Javedanfar insist on linking nuclear energy with nuclear weapon, until it is indistinguishable.

Anyway, Meir goes back to being the mouthpiece of his imaginary Iranian people. “Increasing numbers of Iranians now see their country’s nuclear drive as a Khamenei-Ahmadinejad project, rather than a nationalistic one” Where does he get this “increasing numbers of Iranians” data? In his mind apparently, because he says, “If a survey were held in Iran, it’s quite likely that majority of Iranians would say yes to a nuclear Iran, both in terms of energy and weapons. However, when it comes to the question “do you want Iran to become nuclear under this regime?”, the answer is likely to be very different. It would be a fair and accurate estimation to say that many people, maybe even the majority, would say no – the reasons here being related to the regime’s tarnished image at home and loss of legitimacy. Also, increasing numbers of people in Iran are worried that if this regime becomes nuclear, it would use its power not for the betterment of their lives but for the opposite. It would use its new status to confront the west, thus making Iran more isolated, both economically and politically.”

What kind of person says, if a survery is held this would be the answer? The point of a survey is that we DON’T know the results and are trying to find out, but Meir is sure about the results without even conducting a survey!

13/05/10 – Lula plays a risky diplomatic game in Iran: Meir does not tire of writing as if, even  though he is a Jewish Israeli with Iranian roots living in Tel Aviv, he knows exactly how Iranians think. He says of Brazil’s Lula, “What is certain is that his trip to Iran will damage his country’s image with Iranians, many of whom adore Brazil because of its football.” Even though logic would seem  to indicate that a country that is getting closer to Iran, increasing business relationship, defending Iran, and helping negotiate a peaceful deal to Iran, would appeal  to most Iranians, not have then be against it. Somehow Meir thinks that all Iranians live in Tel Aviv with him and what benefits Israel benefits them.

“With reports of arrests, torture, rape and executions in prisons reaching all-time highs, many Iranians will hold the honour which Lula will be bestowing on Iran’s leadership with much contempt.” What does he mean “all-time high”, what does he mean “many Iranians”? Meir’s article are full of unsupported claims like this.

03/06/10 – Why Iran is quiet on the flotilla: The article argues that Iran is silent over Israel’s murder of the activists in international water because they are scared of the internal opposition, very comfortably ignoring the news that regularly popped up after the article and as of  this writing, still ongoing. So far, Iran has had people protesting the incident, people volunteering to be on the next ship, and Iran claiming they will send their own ships to Gaza.Whatever happens, one thing is certain, Iran did not keep quiet.

One of the lines in Meir’s article is very amusing and perfectly illustrates his agenda. He writes, “ Unlike Iran, Turkey has a powerful economy.” Well, fine…and “Its GDP is the 18th largest in the world” …interesting…and then he himself says, “– one place above Iran.” One place above Iran! How can he say that but at the same time say, “unlike Iran, Turkey has a powerful economy”! This is ridicolous, so the 18th largest GDP has a powerful economy but the 19th largest doesn’t. That one spot sure seems to make a huge difference in Meir’s propaganda book.

The West’s media attack on Iran did not start with Ahmedinijad. This has been a constant media assault for decades now.

Read the Time article from 1953 to see what I mean. Below are such excerpts, but I will also repost the full article at the end [...]]]>

Mohammed Mossadegh - Time Person of the Year

The West’s media attack on Iran did not start with Ahmedinijad. This has been a constant media assault for decades now.

Read the Time article from 1953 to see what I mean. Below are such excerpts, but I will also repost the full article at the end of the excerpts. I will put some of my comments first in the excerpts I took out,

“Behind his grotesque antics…” – Notice the word “grotesque”

“His weapon was the threat of his own political suicide, as a willful little boy might say, “If you don’t give me what I want I’ll hold my breath until I’m blue in the face. Then you’ll be sorry.”” – Comparing him to a child to show that he is unreasonable, similiar to the attacks leveled at Iranian leaders today.

“In this way, too, he increased the danger of a general war among nations, impoverished his country and brought it and some neighboring lands to the very brink of disaster.” – Selling it now as a leader that is not only harmful and dangerous to other countries but ALSO to his own people.

“…oiled the wheels of chaos.” – Again, look at the terminology

“His acid tears dissolved one of the remaining pillars of a once great empire. In his plaintive, singsong voice he gabbled a defiant challenge that sprang out of a hatred and envy almost incomprehensible to the West.” – Acid tears? Gabbled? Sprang out a hatred and envy?

“whose fanatical state of mind he had helped to create.” - Using the word “fanatic” also used today

“They would rather see their own nations fall apart than continue their present relations with the West.” – Another similiar argument, that Iranian leaders hate the west so much that they are ready to risk everything

“…weeping, fainting leader…” – Character assasination

“Mossadegh, by Western standards an appalling caricature of a statesman,” – Again

“…probably born in 1879 (he fibs about his age)” – Almost childish attacks…

“In a few weeks a wave of anti-foreign feeling, assisted by organized terrorism, swept him into the premiership” – Notice the word terrorism

“…whose mind runs in a deep single track, was committed to nationalization” – Attacks sound familiar to today’s attacks

“The suicidal quality of this fanaticism…” – Notice, “suicidal”, “fanaticism”

“…terrorist organization…” – And “terrorist”, decades before 9/11, still a good way to mold public’s perception

“Neither Makki, Kashani nor Mossadegh has ever shown any interest in rational plans for the economic reform and development of their country.” – The attacks against the leaders of Iran are usually in this approach, that Iranian leaders are harmful for the Iranians

“The fact that Iranians accept Mossadegh’s suicidal policy is a measure of the hatred of the West…” – Again, suicidal…

“One of them is to meet the fundamental moral challenge posed by the strange old wizard who lives in a mountainous land and who is, sad to relate, the Man of 1951.” – “strange old wizard”??

Full Article:

Once upon a time, in a mountainous land between Baghdad and the Sea of Caviar, there lived a nobleman. This nobleman, after a lifetime of carping at the way the kingdom was run, became Chief Minister of the realm. In a few months he had the whole world hanging on his words and deeds, his jokes, his tears, his tantrums. Behind his grotesque antics lay great issues of peace or war, progress or decline, which would affect many lands far beyond his mountains.

His methods of government were peculiar. For example, when he decided to shift his governors, he dropped into a bowl slips of paper with the names of provinces; each governor stepped forward and drew a new province. Like all ministers, the old nobleman was plagued with friends, men-of-influence, patriots and toadies who came to him with one proposal or another. His duty bade him say no to these schemes, but he was such a kindly fellow (in some respects) that he could not bear to speak the word. He would call in his two-year-old granddaughter and repeat the proposal to her, in front of the visitor. Since she was a well- brought-up little girl, to all these propositions she would unhesitatingly say no. “How can I go against her?” the old gentleman would ask. After a while, the granddaughter, bored with the routine, began to answer yes occasionally. This saddened the old man, for it ruined his favorite joke, and might even have made the administration of the country more inefficient than it was already.

	Pick a Year2001:Rudy Giuliani2000:G. W. Bush1999:Jeff Bezos1998:Clinton/Starr1997:Andy Grove1996:Dr. David Ho1995:Newt Gingrich1994:John Paul II1993:Peacemakers1992:Bill Clinton1991:Ted Turner1990:George Bush1989:Gorbachev1988:Earth1987:Gorbachev1986:Corazon Aquino1985:Deng Xiaoping1984:Peter Ueberroth1983:Ronald Reagan/Yuri Andropov1982:The Computer1981:Lech Walesa1980:Ronald Reagan1979:Khomeini1978:Hsiao P’ing1977:Anwar Sadat1976:Jimmy Carter1975:U.S. Women1974:King Faisal1973:Judge Sirica1972:Nixon/Kissinger1971:Richard Nixon1970:Willy Brandt1969:Middle Class1968:U.S. Astronauts1967:Lyndon Johnson1966:Young People1965:Westmoreland1964:Lyndon Johnson1963:ML King Jr.1962:John XXIII1961:J. F. Kennedy1960:U.S. Scientists1959:Eisenhower1958:De Gaulle1957:Khrushchev1956:Freedom Fighter1955:Harlow Curtice1954:John Dulles1953:Adenauer1952:Elizabeth II1951:Mossadegh1950:Fighting-Man1949:Churchill1948:Harry Truman1947:George Marshall1946:James F. Byrnes1945:Harry Truman1944:Eisenhower1943:George Marshall1942:Joseph Stalin1941:F. D. Roosevelt1940:Churchill1939:Joseph Stalin1938:Adolf Hitler1937:C. Kai-Shek1936:Mrs. W. Simpson1935:Haile Selassie1934:F. D. Roosevelt1933:Hugh S. Johnson1932:F. D. Roosevelt1931:Pierre Laval1930:Gandhi1929:Owen D. Young1928:Chrysler1927:LindberghComplete List

In foreign affairs, the minister pursued a very active policy—so active that in the chancelleries of nations thousand of miles away, lamps burned late into the night as other governments tried to find a way of satisfying his demands without ruining themselves. Not that he ever threatened war. His weapon was the threat of his own political suicide, as a willful little boy might say, “If you don’t give me what I want I’ll hold my breath until I’m blue in the face. Then you’ll be sorry.”

In this way, the old nobleman became the most world-renowned man his ancient race had produced for centuries.

In this way, too, he increased the danger of a general war among nations, impoverished his country and brought it and some neighboring lands to the very brink of disaster.

Yet his people loved all that he did, and cheered him to the echo whenever he appeared in the streets.

The New Menace. In the year of his rise to power, he was in some ways the most noteworthy figure on the world scene. Not that he was the best or the worst or the strongest, but because his rapid advance from obscurity was attended by the greatest stir. The stir was not only on the surface of events: in his strange way, this strange old man represented one of the most profound problems of his time. Around this dizzy old wizard swirled a crisis of human destiny.

He was Mohammed Mossadegh, Premier of Iran in the year 1951. He was the Man of the Year. He put Scheherazade in the petroleum business and oiled the wheels of chaos. His acid tears dissolved one of the remaining pillars of a once great empire. In his plaintive, singsong voice he gabbled a defiant challenge that sprang out of a hatred and envy almost incomprehensible to the West.

There were millions inside and outside of Iran whom Mossadegh symbolized and spike for, and whose fanatical state of mind he had helped to create. They would rather see their own nations fall apart than continue their present relations with the West. Communism encouraged this state of mind, and stood to profit hugely from it. But Communism did not create it. The split between the West and the non-Communist East was a peril all its own to world order, quite apart from Communism. Through 1951 the Communist threat to the world continued; but nothing new was added—and little subtracted. The news of 1951 was this other danger in the Near and Middle East. In the center of that spreading web of news was Mohammed Mossadegh.

A Matter of Conscience. The West’s military strength to resist Communism grew in 1951. But Mossadegh’s challenge could not be met by force. For all its power, the West in 1951 failed to cope with a weeping, fainting leader of a helpless country; the West had not yet developed the moral muscle to define its own goals and responsibilities in the Middle East. Until the West did develop that moral muscle, it had no chance with the millions represented by Mossadegh. In Iran, in Egypt, in a dozen other countries, when people asked: “Who are you? What are you doing here?” the West’s only answer was an unintelligible mutter. Charles Malik, Lebanon’s great delegate to the U.N., put it tersely: “Do you know why there are problems in the Near East? Because the West is not sure of itself.” The East would be in turmoil until the West achieved enough moral clarity to construct a just and fruitful policy toward the East.

In the U.S., the core of the West, the moral climate was foggy. Scandal chased scandal across the year’s headlines. Senator Estes Kefauver revived the Middle ages morality play, on television. Kefauver’s reluctant mummers were followed by basketball players who rarely threw games—just points, and West Pointers who were taught a rigid code of honor which did not seem to apply when the football squad took academic examinations.

None of 1951’s scandals indicated thoroughgoing moral depravity, or even idiocy—just an inability to tell right from wrong if the question was put (as it usually was) in fine print. This uneducated moral sense led congressional committees through a sordid trail of mink coats and other gifts to Government officials. Casuistry reached a high point with the official whose conscience told him that it was proper to accept a ham under twelve pounds, but not a bigger one. Democratic Chairman William Boyle resigned his job under a cumulus cloud of influence peddling, and his successor was hardly in office before clouds gathered over him too. The public worked up quite a head of indignant steam over scandals in the Bureau of Internal Revenue, which was taking more of its money than ever before. This indignation fell like a load of hay on Harry Truman. Perhaps it would be the understatement of the year to say that 1951 was not Truman’s year.

Other Men of 1951. Nor was it Dean Acheson’s year—except in the sense that he survived it. By his firm and skillful handling of the Japanese Treaty conference his forepaws out of the public’s dog-house, and proved once again that he would be a masterful Secretary of State if all the U.S.’s enemies could be disposed of with a gavel. Yet all through 1951, Acheson’s State Department was still caught as tight as Brer Rabbit in Tar Baby. The useless and impossible effort to justify its past mistakes consumed its energies. In this year-long waste of time, Senator Joe McCarthy, the poor man’s Torquemada, played Tar Baby.

Credit for the big diplomatic achievement of the year goes not to the State Department but to a Republican—John Foster Dulles, who, step by careful step, won nearly all of the free world to accept the Japanese Peace Treaty, and thereby handed Communism a stunning diplomatic defeat. But the Japanese Treaty was more a beginning than an end. Whether it became the keystone of a more successful U.S. policy in the Far East would depend on how well U.S.-Japanese relations were handled in the future.

Matthew Ridgway and his valiant men in Korea did all that men could be expected to do—and more. But the Korean war had been in an uneasy stalemate since May.

France’s General Jean de Lattre de Tassigny turned the tide against the Communist advance in Indo-China. At year’s end, however, De Lattre lay ill in Paris, and the Indo-China war was far from won.

In 1951’s first months, it looked as if Eisenhower would certainly be the Man of the Year. Never in recent history has Europe experienced such a lifting of heart as it got from Ike’s inspiring presence and his skillful, patient incubation of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. In December 1950, NATO seemed just another paper plan doomed to failure. By April 1951 it was a psychological reality: Europeans began to believe that Europe could and would be defended. By year’s end, NATO was a military reality, with six U.S. and twelve European divisions in the field. Defeatism faded, neutralism began to fade, because arms came into being; and the fading of defeatism made more arms possible. Europe, for a change, was moving in a virtuous circle.

Through no fault of Ike’s, the heart-lift and the arming both slowed down. At year’s end, Britain and France were in bad economic trouble. Headway had been made on the German problem, but the Germans, with the tragic consistency of their character, were again pushing and shoving into a bargaining position.

Ike in Europe registered a big net gain, although Europe was still in no position to beat off a Russian attack. Ike in the U.S. was a fascinating political riddle, and, to millions, the best hope in 18 years of replacing the New-Fair Deal. On the record, Ike was not the Man of 1951; 1952 might be his year. Or Robert Taft’s. Or, in spite of 1951’s scandals, Harry Truman’s.

The outstanding comeback of 1951 was Winston Churchill’s. In his first two months of office he moved with the utmost caution, apparently trying to prove that he could be almost as colorless as a Socialist. This might be good politics, but it did not make big news.

The Old Soldier. Many thought Douglas MacArthur the logical choice for Man of the Year. The arguments were impressive: I) he was winning the Korean war, in so far as he was permitted to win it, when he was fired; 2) his speech before Congress breathed a sense of high public duty long absent from U.S. affairs; 3) the Japanese Treaty was a monument to his bold and generous effort to find a new U.S. relationship with Asian peoples; 4) to millions of Americans, he remained the No. I U.S. hero, by no means faded away.

However, by year’s end MacArthur had abdicated a position of national leadership to become spokesman for a particular group. Some passages in his later speeches were ambiguous and inconsistent with his own basic line of thought and action. These ambiguities, plus the distortion of MacArthur by his friends of the Hearst and McCormick press, led some to conclude that MacArthur was an isolationist; others, that he was an imperialist. Both tags were absurd, yet the figure of MacArthur in U.S. life was neither as clear nor as large in December as it had been in April.

Nevertheless, his Congress speech still sang in the nation’s conscience. It contained a brilliant passage applicable to 1951’s biggest news—the turmoil in the Middle East. Asian peoples, MacArthur said, would continue to drive for independence from the West and for material progress, and this drive “may not be stopped.” The U.S. must “orient its policies in consonance with this basic evolutionary condition, rather than pursue a course blind to the reality that the colonial era is now past and the Asian peoples covet the right to shape their own destiny. What they seek now is friendly guidance, understanding and support, not imperious direction; the dignity of equality, and not the shame of subjugation.”

No George Washington. The U.S. vaguely agreed with MacArthur’s plea: it wanted to feel sympathy toward the aspirations of Asian peoples. After all, material progress and national independence are both classic American doctrines, and the U.S. could envision itself as playing Lafayette to Asian George Washingtons. But in terms of Asian realities, the Lafayette-Washington picture was sheer sentimentality, and, like all sentimentality, led to bad morals. MacArthur knew the discouraging facts of Asian politics. He wanted the U.S. to face the facts and build a policy upon them. The U.S.—or at least its official leadership—was appalled by the facts. Just as it had recoiled from Nationalist China, crying “Corruption,” so in 1951 the U.S. recoiled from the corruption, hatred, fanaticism and disorganization of the Middle East.

Mossadegh, by Western standards an appalling caricature of a statesman, was a fair sample of what the West would have to work with in the Middle East. To sit back and deplore him was to run away from the issue. For a long time, relations with the Middle East would mean relations with men such as Mossadegh, some better, some much worse.

The Iranian George Washington was probably born in 1879 (he fibs about his age). His mother was a princess of the Kajar dynasty then ruling Persia; his father was for 30 years Finance Minister of the country. Mohammed Mossadegh entered politics in 1906. An obstinate oppositionist, he was usually out of favor and several times exiled. In 1919, horrified by a colonial-style treaty between Britain and Persia, he hardened his policy into a simple Persia-for-the-Persians slogan. While the rest of the world went through Versailles, Manchuria, the Reichstag fire, Spain, Ethiopia and a World War, Mossadegh kept hammering away at his single note. Nobody in the West heard him.

They heard him in 1951, however. On March 8, the day after Ali Razmara, Iran’s able, pro-Western Premier, was assassinated, Mossadegh submitted to the Iranian Majilis his proposal to nationalize Iran’s oil. In a few weeks a wave of anti-foreign feeling, assisted by organized terrorism, swept him into the premiership.

The Anglo-Iranian Oil Co., most of whose stock is owned by the British government, had been paying Iran much less than the British Government took from the company in taxes. The U.S. State Department warned Britain that Iran might explode unless it got a better deal, but the U.S. did not press the issue firmly enough to make London listen. Mossadegh’s nationalization bill scared the company into concessions that were made too late. The Premier, whose mind runs in a deep single track, was committed to nationalization—and much to the surprise of the British, he went through with it, right down to the expulsion of the British technicians without whom the Iranians cannot run the Abadan refinery.

Results: I) the West lost the Iranian oil supply; 2) the Iranian government lost the oil payments; 3) this loss stopped all hope of economic progress in Iran and disrupted the political life of the country; 4) in the ensuing confusion, Iran’s Tudeh (Communist) Party made great gains which it hoped to see reflected in the national elections, due to begin this week.

Tears & Laughter. Mossadegh does not promise his country a way out of this nearly hopeless situation. He would rather see the ruin of Iran than give in to the British, who, in his opinion, corrupted and exploited his country. He is not in any sense pro-Russian, but he intends to stick to his policies even though he knows they might lead to control of Iran by the Kremlin.

The suicidal quality of this fanaticism can be seen in the two men closest to Mosadegh in politics. Ayatulla Kashani is a zealot of Islam who has spent his life fighting the infidel British in Iraq and Iran. He controls the Teheran mobs (except those controlled by the Communists), and his terrorist organization assassinated Razmara. Hussein Makki controls the oil-rich province of Khuzistan, in which the Abadan refinery lies. When the British got out, Mossadegh put Makki in charge of the oil installations. Makki’s view on oil: close up the wells, pull down the refinery and forget about it. Neither Makki, Kashani nor Mossadegh has ever shown any interest in rational plans for the economic reform and development of their country.

Sometimes the crisis through which Iran is passing depresses Mossadegh to the point of tears and fainting spells. Just as often, he seems to regard the state of affairs with a light heart. When he came to the U.S. to plead his cause, mercurial Mossadegh was so ready with quips, anecdotes and laughter that Secretary Achseon thought the visitor should be reminded of the gravity of the situation. At a Blair House luncheon where Mossadegh was guest of honor, Acheson told a story: a wagon train, crossing the American West, was attacked by Indians. A rescue party found the wagons burned, and the corpses of the pioneers lying around them. The only man still alive lay under a wagon, with an arrow through his back. “Does it hurt?” he was asked. The dying man whispered: “Only when I laugh.” Acheson looked pointedly at Mossadegh—who just doubled up with appreciative laughter.

Before he left the U.S., empty-handed, Mossadegh’s name was thoroughly familiar knew just what the News meant when it reported his return to the Iranian Majilis and his victory there, under the headline:

MOSSY WINS,
90 TO 0, ON
A WET FIELD.

Five Grim Conclusions. The fact that Iranians accept Mossadegh’s suicidal policy is a measure of the hatred of the West—and especially the hatred of Britain—in the Near and Middle East. The Iranian crisis was still bubbling when Egypt exploded with the announcement that it was abrogating its 1936 treaty with Britain. The Egyptian government demanded that British troops get off the soil of Egypt. Since the British were guarding the Suez Canal, they refused. The Egyptians rioted, perhaps in the belief that the U.S., which had opposed any use of force in Iran, would take the same line in Egypt. The U.S., however, backed the British, and the troops stayed. But now they can only stay in Egypt as an armed occupation of enemy territory. Throughout the East, that kind of occupation may soon cost more than it is worth.

Since Mossadegh’s rise, U.S. correspondents have been swarming over the Near and Middle East. Their general consensus is that:

I) The British position in the whole area is hopeless. They are hated and distrusted almost everywhere. The old colonial relationship is finished, and no other power can replace Britain.

2) If left to “work out their own destiny” without help, the countries of the Middle East will disintegrate. The living standard will drop and political life become even more chaotic. (Half a dozen important political leaders in the Near and Middle East were assassinated during 1951.)

3) Left to themselves, these countries will reach the point where they will welcome Communism.

4) The U.S., which will have to make the West’s policy in the Middle East, whether it wants to or not, as yet has no policy there. The U.S. pants along behind each crisis, tossing a handful of money here, a political concession there. At the height of the Egyptian crisis (the worst possible moment), the U.S., Britain, France and Turkey invited Egypt to join a defense pact. The invitation was promptly rejected.

5) Americans and Britons in the Near and Middle East spend a large part of their energies fighting each other. No effective Western policy is possible without Western unity.

The word “American” no longer has a good sound in that part of the world. To catch the Jewish vote in the U.S., President Truman in 1946 demanded that the British admit 100,000 Jewish refugees to Palestine, in violation of British promises to the Arabs. Since then, the Arab nations surrounding Israel have regarded that state as a U.S. creation, and the U.S., therefore, as an enemy. The Israeli-Arab war created nearly a million Arab refugees, who have been huddled for three years in wretched camps. These refugees, for whom neither the U.S. nor Israel will take the slightest responsibility, keep alive the hatred of U.S. perfidy.

No enmity for the Arabs, no selfish national design motivated the clumsy U.S. support of Israel. The American crime was not to help the Jews, but to help them at the expense of the Arabs. Today, the Arab world fears and expects a further Israeli expansion. The Arabs are well aware that Alben Barkley, Vice President of the U.S., tours his country making speeches for the half-billion-dollar Israeli bond issue, the largest ever offered to the U.S. public. Nobody, they note bitterly, is raising that kind of money for them.

The Deep Problem. What is the right answer to the seething problem of the Middle East? It is much easier to see past U.S. mistakes, sins of omission and commission, than to plot a wise and firm future course. The U.S. success in Turkey, gratifying as it is, does not give much guidance on Western policy in the Arab countries and in Iran. Turkey had passed through a drastic process of modernization which in most of the Moslem world is still to come. But the U.S. cannot wait for Kemal Ataturks who are not in sight.

The West’s new relationship with the East must start at a much deeper level than efforts at economic help or military alliance. Economic and military cooperation will be of little use unless they are part of a Western approach that involves the whole range of culture—especially religion and law.

In the current issue of Foreign Affairs, Lebanon’s Malik brilliantly lays the groundwork for such a change in Western attitude. Malik sums up:

“The disturbing rise of fanaticism in the Near East in recent years is a reaction to the thoughtlessness and superficiality of the West…In all this we are really touching on the great present crisis in Western culture. We are saying when that culture mends its own spiritual fences, all will be well with the Near East, and not with the Near East alone. The deep problem of the Near East must await the spiritual recovery of the West. And he does not know the truth who thinks that the West does not have in its own tradition the means and the power wherewith it can once again be true to itself.”

In its leadership of the non-Communist world, the U.S. has some dire responsibilities to shoulder. One of them is to meet the fundamental moral challenge posed by the strange old wizard who lives in a mountainous land and who is, sad to relate, the Man of 1951.