No. of Recommendations: 4
...and Jimmy Carter's dealings with the Ayatollah while he was still in exile in Paris.
I must admit, I thought the Obamaites were the first democrats who, via either stupidity/arrogance/antisemism/naivete thought they could deal with or control hard core Islamists. Turns out that I was wrong and they weren't:
Jimmy Carter was.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-36431160Naturally one needs to read this somewhere other than the American media:
In a first-person message, Khomeini told the White House not to panic at the prospect of losing a strategic ally of 37 years and assured them that he, too, would be a friend.
"You will see we are not in any particular animosity with the Americans," said Khomeini, pledging his Islamic Republic will be "a humanitarian one, which will benefit the cause of peace and tranquillity for all mankind".
Khomeini's message is part of a trove of newly declassified US government documents - diplomatic cables, policy memos, meeting records - that tell the largely unknown story of America's secret engagement with Khomeini, an enigmatic cleric who would soon inspire Islamic fundamentalism and anti-Americanism worldwide.
This story is a detailed account of how Khomeini brokered his return to Iran using a tone of deference and amenability towards the US that has never before been revealed.Good Lord. It gets worse:
In a key meeting at the White House Situation Room on 11 January, the CIA predicted that Khomeini would sit back and let his moderate, Western-educated followers and his second-in-command, Ayatollah Mohammad Beheshti, run the government.Great call, guys!
No. of Recommendations: 3
And even more:
It was an artfully-crafted portrait of an Islamic Republic, mirroring what Carter had sketched at a conference of world leaders on Guadeloupe Island earlier that month: an Iran free of Soviet domination, neutral, if not friendly to America, one that would not export revolution, or cut oil flow to the West.
"We will sell our oil to whoever purchases it at a just price," Khomeini wrote.
"The oil flow will continue after the establishment of the Islamic Republic, except for two countries: South Africa and Israel," he added.
To develop the country, Iran needed the assistance of others, "in particular the Americans", Khomeini wrote.
As for foreign investments, the US was likely to have a role. He implied that the Islamic Republic would be interested in buying tractors, not tanks, making it also clear that he had no "particular affinity" for the Russians.
"The Russian government is atheistic and anti-religion. We will definitely find it more difficult to have a deep understanding with the Russians," Yazdi added to Zimmermann as he delivered the answers.
"You are Christians and believe in God and they don't. We feel it easier to be closer to you than to Russians," Yazdi said.
Khomeini also vowed not to destabilise the region.
"Non-interference in other people's affairs", he wrote, would be the policy of the future government.
The Ayatollah completed suckered the Carter administration, and this disaster has reverberated around world events for the last 45 years.
