The Downfall of the Shah and Its Consequences

November 8, 2006

by Stella L. Jatras

Today, our country is paying for one of the most disasterous foreign policy mistakes in U.S. history. It was made by former President Jimmy Carter when he pulled the rug out from under the Shah of Iran. That action ushered in the 1979 Iranian Revolution that transformed Iran from a constitutional monarchy under the Shah (Mohammad Reza Pahlavi) to a theocratic Islamic republic under the rule of Imam Ayatollah Khomeini. In the process the American Embassy was invaded and 52 Americans were held hostage until their release 444 days later.

"Facing a revolution, the Shah of Iran sought help from the United States. Iran occupied a strategic place in U.S. foreign policy toward the Middle East, acting as an island of stability and a buffer against Soviet penetration into the region. Pahlavi was pro-American, and domestically oppressive. The U.S. ambassador to Iran, William H. Sullivan, recalls that the U.S. National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski 'repeatedly assured Pahlavi that the U.S. backed him fully.' However, President Carter arguably failed to follow through on those promises. On November 4, 1978, Brzezinski called the Shah to tell him that the United States would 'back him to the hilt.' At the same time, certain high-level officials in the State Department decided that the Shah had to go, regardless of who replaced him. [emphasis added]. Brzezinski and Energy Secretary James Schlesinger (former Secretary of Defense under Ford), continued to insist that the U.S. would support the Shah militarily. Even in the final days of the revolution, when the Shah was considered doomed no matter the outcome of the revolution, Brzezinski still advocated a U.S. military intervention to stabilize Iran. President Carter could not decide how to appropriately use force, opposed a U.S. coup and ordered the USS Constellation aircraft carrier to the Indian Ocean, but soon countermanded his order. A deal was worked out with the Iranian generals to shift support to a moderate government, but this plan fell apart when Khomeini and his followers swept through the country, taking power 12 February, 79." (Wikipedia free encyclopedia)

One of the main reasons that the Shah met with President Carter's disapproval seems unbelievable in the context of international politics. The Shah was doing what every Middle-Eastern leader or dictator does - he bribed. He was paying "baksheesh," an time-honored Middle-East tradition in order to keep his powerful Islamic clerics in line, much the same as the royal family in Saudi Arabia has to pay off their religious fanatical Wahabbis to keep them under control, (for how long is now the question). Once the "baksheesh" stopped, the Shah no longer had the support he needed; he was overhrown; the mullahs took control and became the catalyst of the wars that we are seeing today.

The Iran/Bosnia connection.

President George W. Bush has repeatedly accused Iran of being the main instigator of the conflict in Iraq by sending Islamic insurgents to defeat any attempt to bring peace to that war-torn nation. But there is another place where Iran sent insurgents (Mujahedin) to destabilize a nation - The Balkans.

LTC John E. Sray, former U.S. Army senior analyst with the Foreign Military Studies Office at the Army's Combined Arms Command, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, wrote in his 1995 report titled, "Selling the Bosnian Myth to America: Buyer Beware," that "Funding for the Mujahedin has been provided by Iran and various other Islamic states with an interest in expanding extremism into Europe. International radical groups, such as Hizbollah, have also been included on the suspected list of sponsors. Bosnian government sources only grudgingly acknowledge the presence of the Mujahedin but publicly intimate that they have accepted their presence as a 'necessary evil' to maintain the flow of aid from international Islamic contributors. This 'aid' has been distributed in forms ranging from hard currency to clandestine arms shipments. As time progresses, these professional 'holy warriors' will likely divert their attention to politicizing the Muslim population and attempting to establish an Islamic republic obedient to fundamentalist doctrine."

The New York Times of 1 January 1997, reproted that, "Iran Gave $500,000 to Bosnian President's Election Effort, U.S. Says." It further writes: The contributions, delivered by the Iranians in at least two suitcases full of cash, came on the evening of the national elections in September, in which Izetbegovic won a seat on the three-member presidency that is now to govern Bosnia after four years of war, the officials said. . . Iran's presence in Bosnia has exposed President Clinton to sharp criticism, particularly from Republicans on Capitol Hill, who have argued that the adminsitration opened the door for Iran when it decided not to object to the flow of Iranian arms into Bosnia in 1994 in violation of an arms embargo." [emphasis added]

U.N. Complicity

A 1995 Reuters report stated, "Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Velayati arrived in Sarajevo Thursday for meetings to discuss the Dayton Peace Agreement and post-war economic relations with Bosnia, Bosnian government source said. Velayati had been scheduled to fly in Wednesday after meetings with Croatian President Franjo Tudjman in Zagreb, but diplomats here said the United Nations would not allow Velayati's Iran Air jet to land at the U.N.-controlled airport for fear of provoking Bosnian Serb soldiers who still man trenches along stretches of its perimeter. He arrived on Thursday in a U.N. aircraft. Iran has been an active supporter of the Bosnian government in its 43-month war against separatist Bosnian Serbs, shipping small arms and ammunition to the Bosnian army despite an international arms embargo against former Yugoslavia."

From the August 1996 The American Spectator, "....Iran has been sending waves of elite forces into Bosnia ever since [U.S. Ambassador to Croatia] Galbraith's green light Intelligence sources told Los Angles Times reporter James Rosen that in 1994, 'A different kind of Iranian was showing up in Bosnia, military and civilian advisors who appeared to have been sent by the Tehran government on well-defined missions.' These included members of the Iranian Revolutionaty Guards and Iran's Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS). One highly placed intelligence sources says, 'We saw the Iranians equipped with all sorts of sophisticated electronic easvesdropping equipment, casing out U.S. positions in the region'."

Iran had aid from an an unlikely source in its shipment of arms into Bosnia to fight the Christian Serbs. A 1997 report of the Senate Republican Policy Committee titled, "Clinton-Approved Iranian Arms Transfers Help Turn Bosnia into Militant Islamic Base," and a House Republican Research Committee on Terrorism and Unconventional Warfare report titled, "Iran's European Springboard?" spelled out how Iranian involvement in the Balkans was encouraged and facilitated by the Clinton administration.

With the Democrats now in control of Congress and promising a new approach to the Iraq War, it will be interesting to see what that approach will be, considering their "success" in the Balkans. As LTC Sray writes, "Our NATO allies, without bluntly stating the obvious, more realistically fear the establishment of a future base from which the Iranians can spread their fanatic ideology and orchestrate acts of terrorism." The truth is that Bosnia has become al-Qaeda's corridor into Europe.

Sources:

Iranian Revolution: wikipedia free encyclopedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iranian_Revolution

Selling the Bosnian Myth: Buyer beware: http://fmso.leavenworth.army.mil/documents/bosnia2.htm
(FYI: After LTC Sray wrote his analysis, he was transfered to another post)

Clinton-Approved Iranian Arms Transfers Help Turn Bosnia into Militant Islamic Base: http://www.senate.gov/%7erpc/releases/1997/iran.htm#top

Iran's European Springboard? http://www.balkan-archive.org.yu/politics/papers/civil_war/iran_springboard.html