The View From 1776



President Carter’s foreign policy was based, as is President Obama’s, upon the ideology of the socialist international’s one-world government.  President Carter championed an abstraction called human rights.  President Obama espouses Senator John Kerry’s “sensitivity” in foreign affairs. 

Liberal-progressives, including notably Carter and Obama, believe that abandoning the realities of international power politics will magically bring peace and harmony to the whole world.  As did early socialist theoretician Auguste Comte, they appear to believe that the world is inevitably driven by the force of a reified “history” toward a scientific, one-world, socialist government that will transform humanity. 

Both Carter and Obama are attracted to the most oppressive dictators, from Cuba’s Castro to Iran’s Khomeini, and Venezuela’s Chavez, whom they see as victims of American imperialism.

Carter Administration’s Dilemma: Iran’s Theocracy

By Slater Bakhtavar
 


I did not know it then, perhaps I did not want to know, but it is clear to me now that the Americans wanted me out. Clearly this is what the human rights advocates in the State Department wanted .  What was I to make of the Administration’s sudden decision to call former Under Secretary of State George Ball to the White House as an adviser on Iran?  Ball was among those Americans who wanted to abandon me and ultimately my country.


 

Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, The Shah of Iran


These were the words uttered by the distraught Shah of Iran when, grieving, he reflected on his downfall just before his demise in exile.  The tormented former “King of Kings” ardently nurtured a deep-rooted conviction that the Carter Administration, in cooperation with the British Secret Intelligence, ordered and ensured his fall.

During World War II, England and the Soviet Union jointly invaded Iran, dividing the nation into two zones of occupation as the English and Russians had previously done in 1907.  In the North, the Soviets secured a viable supply route and in the south the British placed their oil interests under their direct protection.  Reza Shah, father of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, and the Nation of Iran were humiliated by the subjugation of Iran’s domestic and foreign affairs to their conduct by foreign powers. King Reza Shah, who had implemented numerous progressive social and economic reforms, was ousted by British and Soviet forces and replaced by Mohammad Reza Shah, his twenty-year-old, inexperienced son.  The British and Soviets, wielding little sympathy for the mass populace, occupied Iran.

In the North, the Soviets promptly and forcefully revived Iran’s Communist Party with the objective of undermining the royal regime and installing a centralized Communist government.  With Soviet assistance, the Tudeh party constituted itself as a pro-Soviet Communist party with its central management in Soviet Union.  Meanwhile in the South, the British set monarchists against religious fundamentalists, fundamentalists against nationalists, nationalists against monarchists, faction against faction, and tribe against tribe with a divide-and-conquer agenda. Accordingly, Iran sank into social disorder, political disarray and economic hardship.  Under foreign domination by both the Communists and the British, the Iranian people welcomed an increasing role of the United States.  By 1946, the Iranian government crushed the pro-Soviet Tudeh party that had been infiltrating the nation and threatening to divide Iran.

Increasingly, Iran became dependent on the United States as a counterinfluence to the Soviets and British.  As early as December 1954 the Shah noted
 

...the potentialities of friendly and close relations between the people of Iran and the United States are immense. There is a deep and fundamental identity of national interests which overshadows everything else.  We both believe that the individual is the central figure in society, and that freedom is the supreme blessing. . . Iran has a great deal in common, in convictions with the Western world regarding freedom and democracy.

 
He branded his regime’s politics “positive nationalism.”
 
In January 1963, the Shah announced democratic reforms as part of a six-point program called the White Revolution, a program of reforms to divide landholdings such as those owned by religious foundations, grant women the right to vote and equality in marriage, and allow religious minorities a greater share in governmental offices. 

Ruhollah Ayatollah Khomeini led a movement among radical fundamentalists to oppose equal rights for women and minorities and the reform policies of the Shah.  On January 22, 1963, Khomeini dictated a vigorously worded declaration denouncing the Westernization of Iran and economic reforms and human rights as anti-Islamic.

However, the Shah did not per se attempt to Westernize Iran.  Iran was since its inception a Monarchy.  Instead the Shah sought a pro-Western policy to counter the Communist Soviet Union.  Iran’s socio-economic and foreign policy objectives were closely tied to the capitalist world, in direct conflict with the communist ideology of Soviet Union and fundamentalism of surrounding nations.
 
In contrast, the Iranian fundamentalists sought to eradicate pre-600 A.D. Iranian culture and history and supersede it with an exclusive focus on post-600 A.D.  This is in line with Khomeini’s decrees, such as one issued on March 21, 1963 in which he declared that Persian New Year (Norooz) celebrations be cancelled and that references to pre-Islamic Iran be eliminated. 

In 1964 Khomeini was arrested and exiled to Turkey.  On September 5, 1965, he left Turkey for Najaf, Iraq, where he spent 13 years as an exile out of touch with the Iranian people and culture.  On October 3, 1978, he left Iraq for Kuwait, but was refused entry at the border. After a period of hesitation in which Algeria, Lebanon and Syria were considered as possible destinations, Ayatollah Khomeini embarked for Paris.  Once arrived in Paris, Khomeini took up residence in the suburb of Neauphle-le-Chateau in a house that had been rented for him by Iranian exiles in France.  Subsequently, journalists from across the world visited the cleric, and the image and the words of Ayatollah Khomeini soon became a daily feature in Iran and across the world.  The BBC and other agencies broadcast nightly interviews with Khomeini beamed into Iran, which incited the people against the Shah.
 
In November 1978 then President Carter nominated George Ball as a member of the Trilateral Commission.  The commission acted under the direct control of the National Security Council’s Zbigniew Brzezinski, an ardent opponent of the Shah of Iran.  This commission cultivated a clandestine Iran task force.  While serving on this commission George Ball championed cessation of United States support for the Shah and clandestine support for Rubhullah Ayatollah Khomeini who, albeit in exile, led a proletariat Islamic opposition.  Pursuant to this agenda George Ball sought to garner the support of Robert Bowie, who was at that time the Deputy Director of the United States Central Intelligence Agency.

Meanwhile, Iran and British Petroleum commenced negotiations in Tehran, Iran concerning the renewal of a twenty-five-year-old extraction agreement.  These talks collapsed because the British demanded exclusive rights in Iran’s future oil output and refused to guarantee purchase of the commodity.  The disintegration of the these negotiations was domestically branded as a step towards nationalization of Iran’s oil for the first time since 1953.  Subsequently, the Shah turned to prospective buyers in Germany, France, Japan and elsewhere.  The Shah had increased Iran’s control over its oil resources, implemented progressive economic and social initiatives, undertook speedy process of capitalist reforms that focused on industrialization, increased Iran’s military capabilities and sought to build a strong, prosperous and independent Iran; however, his goals and policies became the bases for his eventual downfall.

In mid-January 1979, Ayatollah Khomeini returned and the monarchy collapsed on February 11, 1979.  Subsequently, Iranians, many of whom believed in Ayatollah Khomeini’s promises of freedom and democracy, voted by a national referendum to become an Islamic Republic on April 1, 1979.  They also approved a new constitution, and Khomeini became Supreme Leader of Iran.

But Khomeini did not fulfill his pre-revolution promises to the people of Iran.  Instead, he started to marginalize and crush the opposition groups and those who opposed the clerical rules.  He ordered establishment of many institutions to consolidate power and safeguard the cleric leadership.  During his early years in power he launched the Cultural Revolution in order to Islamize the whole country.  Many people lost employment, and books were revised or burnt according to the new Islamic values.  A newly established Islamic judicial system sentenced many Iranians to death and long-term imprisonment, as they were in opposition to those radical changes.  The current regime continues many of the policies of the regime of the now-deceased Ayatollah Khomeini, including revising and eradicating Iranian history, culture and identity.

Perhaps the revolution and subsequent consequences would have never occurred if the Carter Administration had not taken the helm.  No doubt, neither President Richard M. Nixon or President Ronald Reagan would have paved the way for the arrival of the current theocracy. Criticizing the Carter Administration’s handling of the crises in Iran, President Reagan said, “I did criticize the President because of his undermining of our stalwart ally, the Shah.  I do not believe that he was that far out of line with his people.” Former United States President Richard Nixon was the sole United States representative to attend the Shah’s funeral in Egypt, 
 
To the present, many Iranians believe that the Carter Administration and the British intervened in 1979 and paved the path for the Shah’s demise. Sympathetic remarks about the revolution by high-level Democratic American officials, such as Bill Clinton, who dubbed Iran a democracy, and several former members of the Carter Administration, indicate the pretentious attitude of these officials.  These officials should be reminded that President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, erroneously labeled by foreign journalists as the Leader of Iran, exerts minimal control in Iran.  Rather, pursuant to the Iranian Constitution virtually absolute power is in the unelected Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei.

Iran is an absolute theocracy and lacks the basic foundations of even a limited form of democracy.  Perhaps, if the Carter Administration had not undermined the Shah of Iran, the regime itself would have implemented the proper foundations for a modern democratic republic or constitutional monarchy.  Modern Iran could have been an island of stability in the Middle East.  Without the Carter Administration’s misguided foreign policy initiatives, Iran, similar to Japan, Denmark, Spain or England, could today be a close U.S. ally with a hereditary monarch and a democratically elected President or Prime Minister.

Slater Bakhtavar is president and founder of Republican Youth of America.

Slouching Toward Orwell’s 1984

By Jeff Lukens

George Orwell’s “Nineteen Eighty-Four” tells of an advanced world where there are no individual freedoms, and the state uses fear to manipulate and control people to conform to a prescribed belief. In the book, the Party maintains absolute power, and power has become an end to itself. His book is as relevant today as ever. In the age of Obama, the freedoms that define American life are slipping away and being replaced with ever more state control.

In Orwell’s book, the Party constantly rewrites history and rewrites the language to restrict the true meaning of words and the ideas behind them. They eliminate words to reduce vocabulary and thereby reduce uncontrolled thoughts. Doublespeak makes people believe what they would otherwise know to be false, and is encapsulated by the phrase: “War is Peace; Freedom is Slavery; Ignorance is Strength.” Orwell defined doublethink as, “The power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one’s mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them.”

In the book, the Party rewrites historical documents to match an evolving propaganda line, which changes daily. They amend newspaper articles, destroy evidence, and delete the existence of people identified as “unpersons.”

More than any other facet of the novel, political rhetoric today is designed to shape the thoughts of people toward the party line. While we all accept that thievery is wrong in our personal lives, the government makes thievery by taxes a great virtue for “the public good.” Global warming advocates claim to be “saving the planet” when in fact they have no evidence their polices will do anything of the sort. Those who doubt their claims are called “deniers.” And while jihadists are still killing our soldiers, we now call the global war on terror an “Overseas Contingency Operation.” The list is virtually endless.

Similar to Orwell’s 1984, our personal possessions today are fast becoming only what the state allows us to have. Employment is found ever more within government. The Party (you know which one) is gaining control of our health care, our cars, our insurance companies, our schools, and our banks. Let’s just say they are gaining ever more control or our lives.

Democrats draw their support from the ignorance and complacency of their electorate: the Proles, as Orwell would say. People fear that if they oppose this mad dash toward collectivism, they may be stripped of what few gifts the government allows them to have. Big Brother may be watching.

Intentional or not, rational discussions on issues are increasingly harder to achieve. Try having a coherent debate with a committed Leftist and it will often break down to emotional appeals, unsupported accusations, and outright name-calling. And as for our Big Brother, whose cool demeanor precludes such behavior, the tactic is more like, “Are you talking to me?” Question his policies and you quickly become an unperson.

Barack Obama utters soothing tones that seem comforting on the surface, but his policies only prescribe more misery, and in the end only strengthen the state. His apparent contempt for the Constitution, the rule of law, and Founder’s intent can be waved off with the flicker of his hand, and a bit more empathy on the Supreme Court. Individuals who think independently are a threat to him, and the last thing he wants is to be held accountable for what he says. With the aid of the adoring media, so far he hasn’t had to.

Today’s media is almost as one-sided as Orwell’s Ministry of Truth. Their cheering on Obama is as close to groupthink as anyone has ever seen. Most news coverage is all Obama all the time, and news shows are even broadcast from inside the White House. They have lowered journalistic standards to the point where they allow very little discussion of dissenting opinion.

In Orwell’s 1984, telescreens announce economic production figures that are grossly overstated, or simply invented, to show an ever-rising economy when there is actually decline. In our case, no matter how robust the economy has been in recent years, the talking heads have always warned of looming recession. Now that economic hardship has arrived, mostly by the hand of an intrusive government, they vilify the free market and encourage ever more state control.

Unlike the book, our government does not torture people. Instead, they confiscate personal possessions through taxes and wantonly squander it. It is not the physical torture of people they cause, but their financial ruin and dependency.

Consider a government-run health system where individual choices are removed, and the patient—faced with a major illness—is left to the mercy of faceless government officials to decide whether he or she lives or dies. Could we become a nation where the old and infirm become too costly to care for? In the name of progress, rationed care could replace the most advanced health care system in the world.

A state-controlled health system could easily become an avenue by which all food perceived as high fat, high sodium or otherwise unhealthy is prohibited, taxed and strictly controlled to save money for the state. By way of new regulations that we cannot yet imagine, the authority of the state over the individual could easily reach far beyond issues of health with a single-payer health system.

The American way of life has never been about fear of our own government. We have always been a nation where each person is unique and worthy of respect. If we wish to remain a self-sufficient people where the rule of law provides a governing framework for our way of life, we need to take steps to preserve it.

We are nowhere near the level of tyranny found in Orwell’s 1984, but we move closer to it each day. The state seizes ever more power over the individual simply because it can. Orwell warned that no one ever seized power with the intention of relinquishing it. This is the nature of the state, and is why the Founders created a government with divided and enumerated powers. It is also why we all need to oppose the growing threat to our freedoms posed by Barack Obama and his statist allies on the Left.

Jeff Lukens is a columnist who lives in Florida.