Dave Emory’s entire lifetime of work is available on a flash drive that can be obtained here. The new drive is a 32-gigabyte drive that is current as of the programs and articles posted by early winter of 2016. The new drive (available for a tax-deductible contribution of $65.00 or more.) (The previous flash drive was current through the end of May of 2012.)
WFMU-FM is podcasting For The Record–You can subscribe to the podcast HERE.
You can subscribe to e‑mail alerts from Spitfirelist.com HERE.
You can subscribe to RSS feed from Spitfirelist.com HERE.
You can subscribe to the comments made on programs and posts–an excellent source of information in, and of, itself HERE.
This program was recorded in one, 60-minute segment.
Introduction: This broadcast concludes our review of Fara Mansoor’s heroic, ground-breaking research on what we call “The Deep October Surprise,” and references the historical lessons to be drawn from the inquiry to the contemporary political scene.
In numerous programs, we have discussed what Peter Levenda has termed “weaponized religion.” In particular, we have examined what Peter termed weaponized Islam. With the recent Iranian nuclear deal and the lifting of economic sanctions against Iran, the history of U.S./Iranian relations has attained greater relevance.
In that context, we present the fourth and concluding broadcast in a series of programs revisiting Fara Mansoor’s landmark research on what we have termed the “Deep October Surprise.” Usually, the term “October Surprise” refers to an alleged deal between the Reagan/Bush campaign and the Khomeini regime in Iran to withhold the U.S. hostages taken from the American Embassy until after Jimmy Carter’s humiliation and consequent election defeat were assured.
” . . . . By late August [of 1977], the Shah was totally confused. U.S. Ambassador Sullivan recorded the Shah’s pleadings over the outbreak of violence: ‘He said the pattern was widespread and that it was like an outbreak of a sudden rash in the country…it gave evidence of sophisticated planning and was not the work of spontaneous oppositionists…the Shah presented that it was the work of foreign intrigue…this intrigue went beyond the capabilities of the Soviet KGB and must, therefore, also involve British and American CIA. The Shah went on to ask ‘Why was the CIA suddenly turning against him? What had he done to deserve this sort of action from the United States?’ . . . . ”
Fara’s research goes farther and deeper, suggesting that the CIA learned of the Shah’s cancer in 1974 (from former CIA director Richard Helms), withheld the information from Jimmy Carter, installed Khomeini’s Islamic fundamentalists as an anti-communist bulwark on the Soviet Union’s Southern flank and then micro-managed the hostage crisis to insure the ascension of the Reagan/Bush/Casey forces. What has become known as the Iran-Contra Scandal was an outgrowth of this dynamic.
” . . . . With thousands of documents to support his position, Mansoor says that the “hostage crisis” was a political “management tool” created by the pro-Bush faction of the CIA, and implemented through an a priori Alliance with Khomeini’s Islamic Fundamentalists.” He says the purpose was twofold:
- To keep Iran intact and communist-free by putting Khomeini in full control.
- To destablize the Carter Administration and put George Bush in the White House.
‘The private Alliance was the logical result of the intricate Iranian political reality of the mid-70s, and a complex network of powerful U.S.-Iranian ‘business’ relationships,’ Mansoor states. ‘I first met Khomeini in 1963 during the failed coup attempt against the Shah. Since that time I have been intimately involved with Iranian politics. I knew in 1979 that the whole, phoney ‘Islamic Revolution’ was ‘mission implausible’.’ Mansoor was frank. ‘There is simply no way that those guys with the beards and turbans could have pulled off such a brilliantly planned operation without very sophisticated help.’ . . .
. . . . ‘I have collected enough data to yield a very clear picture. Mr. Bush’s lieutenants removed the Shah, brought Khomeini back to Iran, and guided his rise to power, sticking it to President Carter, the American people (52 in particular), and the Iranian people.’ . . .”
Extending a doctrine formulated by then Secretary of State John Foster Dulles in the early 1950’s, “the religions of the East” were viewed by the national security establishment as a bulwark against the U.S.S.R. (We note that the British originally installed the first Shah of Iran in the post World War I period as an anti-Soviet bulwark.) When Jimmy Carter neither extended George H.W. Bush’s CIA tenure nor appointed Theodore Shackley as head of the agency, but fired Shackley and much of the institutionalized covert action team, his political fate was sealed.
” . . . Mansoor’s meticulous research clearly demonstrates how Khomeini’s published vision of an Islamic Government (Vilayat-Faqih) dovetailed with the regional and global strategic objectives of a hard-core subset of the U.S. National Security establishment loyal to George Bush. It shows that the Iranian hostage crisis was neither a crisis nor chaos. In 1953, the CIA orchestrated a coup in Iran, which threw out the democratic government and installed the Shah.
In order to understand the imperative of this Alliance, we must realistically examine the sociopolitical alignment both in Iran and the U.S., and accurately assess their respective interests to find the common ground for this coalescence. The anti-monarchic forces in mid-70s Iran consisted of various nationalist groups including religious reformists, the Islamic Fundamentalists, and the leftists and communists. . . . .
. . . . The Islamic Fundamentalists had no government experience, but they had major grassroots support. Islam, in its Shi’ite format, was deeply embedded in the lives of the vast majority of the Iranian people. The Fundamentalists were absolutely anti-communist.
The philosophical divide within the U.S. National Security establishment, especially the CIA, became quite serious in the aftermath of Watergate. To make matters worse, the election of Jimmy Carter in 1976, his campaign promise to clean the “cowboy” elements out of the Central Intelligence Agency and his “human rights” policies alarmed the faction of the CIA loyal to George Bush. Bush was CIA director under Gerald Ford. Finally, the firing of CIA Director George Bush by Carter, and the subsequent “Halloween Massacre” in which Carter fired over 800 CIA covert operatives in 1977, angered the “cowboys” beyond all measure. That was Carter’s October surprise, 800 firings on Halloween 1977.
Bush and his CIA coverts were well aware of the Shah’s terminal cancer, unknown to President Carter. The team had an elaborate vested interest to protect. They were determined to keep Iran intact and communist-free and put George Bush in the White House. . . .”
Tracing the intricate networking of CIA and Iranian personnel in the machinations of this gambit, this broadcast highlights a signature event in April of 1978, months before Khomeini took over and and more than a year before the hostages were taken from the U.S. Embassy.
” . . . . Mansoor produced a confidential document called the “Country Team Minutes” of April 26, 1978, more than a year before the hostage crisis. The meeting was held in Iran. The second paragraph of the routine minutes, states, ‘The Ambassador commented on our distinguished visitors, Ronald Reagan, George Bush and Margaret Thatcher, and commented that Teheran seems to be the site for an opposition parties congress.’ Mansoor indicates the entire relationship was probably the most sophisticated criminal act in recent history. ‘That the people who, until recently, were holding power in Washington and those who currently are still in control in Teheran, got there by totally subverting the democratic process of both countries is news. That their methods of subversion relied on kidnapping, extortion and murder is criminal,’ Mansoor states. . . .”
Dramatis Personae of the “Deep October Surprise”:
A. General Hossein Fardoust:
- Fardoust was a key player in this drama. Like Richard Cottam and General Qarani, he had been networking with the CIA/Shah/Helms milieu for decades. He was the head of an elite intelligence organization within the Shah’s regime that superseded the SAVAK (the Shah’s secret police) in importance and influence. It was from his long-time associate Fardoust that Helms learned that the Shah had cancer. ” . . . In 1975, former CIA director, and the U.S. Ambassador to Iran, Richard Helms learned of the Shah’s cancer through the Shah’s closest confidant, General Hossein Fardoust. The Shah, Helms and Fardoust had been close personal friends since their school days together in Switzerland during the 1930s. . . .”
- General Fardoust set up an incident that was central to the staging of the uprising that installed Khomeini in power. ” . . . On January 7, 1978, an insidious article entitled Iran and the Red and Black Colonialism, appeared in the Iranian daily newspaper Ettela’at. It castigated the exiled Khomeini, and produced a massive protest riot in the Holy City of Qum the next day. The clergy had little choice but to rally to Khomeini’s defense. The Qum incident shifted many of the clergy from a position of support for the Shah’s monarchy to an active opposition. That ‘dirty trick’ perpetuated by General Fardoust was the trigger that sparked Islamic movement participating in the anti-Shah democratic Revolution. John D. Stempel, characterized Fardoust’s importance to the Alliance: ‘it is hard to overestimate the value of having a mole in the inner circle of the Shah.’ . . .”
- After Khomeini’s ascension to power, General Qarani (see below) consults with General Fardoust about the personnel to fill Khomeini’s general staff of the armed forces. All the recommendations are followed, except for the filling of the head of SAVAK, the Shah’s secret police. Fardoust is then appointed head of SAVAMA, Khomeini’s version of SAVAK! ” . . . . On February 11, 1979, in seemingly a bizarre twist, General Qarani asked the Shah’s “eyes and ears” General Hossien Fardoust for recommendations to fill the new top posts in Iran’s armed forces. Except for the recommendation for the Chief of SAVAK, all the others were accepted. Shortly after, General Fardoust became head of SAVAMA, Khomeini’s successor to SAVAK. . . .”
B. Dr. Ibrahim Yazdi:
- Yazdi is in close contact with 1953 coup participant, Bush operative and probable CIA officer Richard Cottam. ” . . . . In August [1978], the Bush team sent its own point man to meet the exiled Ayatollah in Najaf. Professor Richard Cottam carried excellent credentials. During the 1953 coup, he had been in charge of the CIA’s Iran Desk. He had also been in close contact with Dr. Ibrahim Yazdi in the U.S. since 1975. . . .”
- In September of 1978, Yazdi is visited in the U.S. by Khomeini ally Ayatollah Mohammed Hussein Beheshti. ” . . . . In Mid-September, at the height of the revolution, ‘one of the handful of Khomeini’s trusted associates,’ Ayatollah Mohammed Hussein Beheshti, secretly visited the United States. He also met with Yazdi in Texas, among others. Beheshti was an advocate of the eye-for-an-eye school of justice. . . .”
- Following an abortive takeover of the U.S. Embassy by Khomeini followers posing as leftists, Yazdi connects U.S. Ambassador William Sullivan with Mashallah Khashani, who becomes chief of security for the compound. ” . . . . On February 14, soon after order was restored at the U.S. Embassy in Teheran, Khomeini’s aide Yazdi supplied the Embassy with a group of Iranians for compound security. Ambassador Sullivan installed, armed, and trained this Swat squad lead by SAVAK/CIA agent Mashallah Kahsani, with whom Sullivan developed a close working relationship. . . . ”
C. General Valliollah Qarani:
- Like General Hossein Fardoust, Qarani was networking with the CIA milieu since the 1953 coup that installed the Shah. In April of 1978, he advised Khomeini that the CIA was ready to remove the Shah. ” . . . . The same month, Khomeini’s old ally from the failed 1963 coup (that resulted in Khomeini’s arrest and major uprising in June 1963 and his subsequent exile to Iraq) General Valliollah Qarani sent his emissary to meet Khomeini in Najaf. Qarani had been a major CIA asset in Iran since the 1953 coup. Seeing another chance to gain power for himself, he advised Khomeini, according to former Iranian President Abol Hassan Bani-sader: ‘If you settle for the Shah’s departure and don’t use anti-American rhetoric, the Americans are ready to take him out. . . .’ ”
- Qarani was then appointed chief of staff of the army under Khomeini. ” . . . . Khomeini moved quickly to establish his authority. On February 5 he named Mehdi Bazargan, a devoted Muslim and anti-communist, interim Prime Minister. Yazdi and Abbas Amir Entezam became Bazargan’s deputies, Dr. Sanjabi Foreign Minister, and General Qarani was named military Chief of Staff. . . . ”
D. Mashallah Khashani:
- Mashallah Khashani was a SAVAK and CIA agent who was installed by Khomeini aide Dr. Ibrahim Yazdi as chief of security for the compound after an abortive takeover of the Embassy in February of 1979. ” . . . . On February 14, soon after order was restored at the U.S. Embassy in Teheran, Khomeini’s aide Yazdi supplied the Embassy with a group of Iranians for compound security. Ambassador Sullivan installed, armed, and trained this Swat squad lead by SAVAK/CIA agent Mashallah Kahsani, with whom Sullivan developed a close working relationship. . . . ”
- On November 4th of 1979, “chief of security” Khashani leads the takeover of the U.S. Embassy. This was the beginning of the hostage crisis. ” . . . . On November 4, 1979, the U.S. Embassy was taken again. Leading the charge was none other than Ambassador Sullivan’s trusted Mashallah Kashani, the Embassy’s once and former security chief. . . .”
E. Ayatollah Mohammed Hossein Beheshti:
- By July of 1977, a CIA analysis identifies Beheshti as one of the major players in any scenario following the removal of the Shah. ” . . . . By July 1977, anticipating trouble ahead, the Bush covert team issued a preliminary script for the transition of power in Iran. According to John D. Stempel, a CIA analyst and Deputy Chief Political officer of the U.S. Embassy in Iran: “A ten page analysis of the opposition written by the embassy’s political section in July 1977 correctly identified Bakhtiar, Bazargan, Khomeini and Beheshti as major actors in the drama that began unfolding a year later. . . . ”
- In mid-September of 1978, Beheshti visits Yazdi in the United States. ” . . . . In Mid-September, at the height of the revolution, “one of the handful of Khomeini’s trusted associates,” Ayatollah Mohammed Hussein Beheshti, secretly visited the United States. He also met with Yazdi in Texas, among others. Beheshti was an advocate of the eye-for-an-eye school of justice. . . .”
F. Richard Cottam:
- A professor, Cottam was in all likelihood the CIA operative he was during the 1953 coup that ousted Mossadegh and re-installed the Shah. ” . . . In August, the Bush team sent its own point man to meet the exiled Ayatollah in Najaf. Professor Richard Cottam carried excellent credentials. During the 1953 coup, he had been in charge of the CIA’s Iran Desk. He had also been in close contact with Dr. Ibrahim Yazdi in the U.S. since 1975. Curiously, he admitted to Bani-sadr in 1987, that he had not been working for the Carter Administration. Cottam’s visit must have had an impact, because Iran suddenly began to experience a series of mysterious catastrophes. . . .”
- Cottam tried to arrange a meeting between Carter security aide Gary Sick and Khomeini’s representative in the U.S., Ibrahim Yazdi. ” . . . A few days later, Carter’s National Security aide, Gary Sick, received a call from Richard Cottam, requesting a discrete meeting between him and Khomeini’s representative in the U.S., Dr. Yazdi. Sick refused. . . .”
- Cottam requests of Gary Sick that the Carter administration facilitate the transit of Khomeini from Iraq. “. . . . October 3, 1978, Yazdi picked up Khomeini in Iraq and headed for Kuwait. According to Gary Sick, he received an urgent call from Richard Cottam, learning for the first time that Khomeini had been forced out of Iraq. Sick was told that Khomeini and his entourage were stuck in no man’s land while attempting to cross the border. Cottam was requesting White House intervention to resolve the issue. Sick respond, ‘there is nothing we could do.’ ”
- In December of 1978, Cottam visits Khomeini in Paris, noting that Ibrahim Yazdi functioned as the Ayatollah’s apparent chief of staff. ” . . . . December 28, Cottam visited Khomeini in Paris where he noted that U.S. citizen Dr. Yazdi was the ‘leading tactician in Khomeini’s camp’ and apparent ‘chief of staff’. . . .”
- In January of 1979, Cottam goes to Teheran to prepare for Khomeini’s return and installation. ” . . . . Leaving Paris, Cottam slipped into Teheran, arriving the first week in January 1979, to prepare Khomeini’s triumphal return to Iran. . . .”
Some key events and relationships figuring prominently in the material presented in this program (material in these broadcasts is deliberately overlapped with information from the previous program):
20. A few days later, Carter’s National Security aide, Gary Sick, received a call from Richard Cottam, requesting a discrete meeting between him and Khomeini’s representative in the U.S., Dr. Yazdi. Sick refused.
21. Khomeini for the first time, publicly called for the Shah’s overthrow.
22. In Mid-September, at the height of the revolution, “one of the handful of Khomeini’s trusted associates,” Ayatollah Mohammed Hussein Beheshti, secretly visited the United States. He also met with Yazdi in Texas, among others. Beheshti was an advocate of the eye-for-an-eye school of justice.
23. In early October 1978, the agent for the Bush covert team arranged to force Khomeini out of Iraq.
24. October 3, 1978, Yazdi picked up Khomeini in Iraq and headed for Kuwait. According to Gary Sick, he received an urgent call from Richard Cottam, learning for the first time that Khomeini had been forced out of Iraq. Sick was told that Khomeini and his entourage were stuck in no man’s land while attempting to cross the border. Cottam was requesting White House intervention to resolve the issue. Sick respond, “there is nothing we could do”.
25. October 6, Khomeini’s entourage, having gotten back through Baghdad, popped up in Paris. According to Bani-sadr, “it was Khomeini who insisted on going to Paris instead of Syria or Algeria”. Whoever helped Khomeini out of the Kuwaiti border impasse had to have been on good terms with both the French and Saddam Hussein.
26. December 12, Yazdi made a trip to the U.S. to promote Khomeini and his Islamic Republic. Yazdi met secretly with Henry Precht in an unofficial capacity. Precht was the Director of the Iran Desk at the State Department and one of the Bush team’s main choke points in the Carter Administration. Later Precht and Yazdi appeared together for televised discussion of Iran. Yazdi assured the American public that Khomeini had not really called for a “torrent of blood,” and that the “election would be absolutely free.” The Islamic Republic “would enjoy full freedom of speech and the press, including the right to attack Islam. [Khomeini’s fatwa against Salman Rushdie stands in sharp rebuttal to that claim–D.E.]
27. December 28, Cottam visited Khomeini in Paris where he noted that U.S. citizen Dr. Yazdi was the “leading tactician in Khomeini’s camp” and apparent “chief of staff”. Khomeini was not interested in the Mullahs taking over the government. It is also noted that “Khomeini’s movement definitely plans to organize a political party to draw on Khomeini’s charisma. Cottam thinks such a party would win all Majlis seats.”
28. Leaving Paris, Cottam slipped into Teheran, arriving the first week in January 1979, to prepare Khomeini’s triumphal return to Iran.
29. January 4, 1979, Carter’s secret envoy, General Robert Huyser arrived in Iran. His mission was to prevent the “fall of the Shah.” According to Huyser, Alexander Haig, ostensibly a strong Shah supporter-inexplicably, “took violent exception to the whole idea.” Huyser recalled that “General Haig never gave me a full explanation of his strong objections.” Huyser also revealed that Ambassador Sullivan “had also expressed objections.” Two pro-Shah advocates opposed to the prevention of the Shah’s fall.
30. On January 14, President Carter finally “authorized a meeting between Warren Zimmerman and Ibrahim Yazdi. On the same day, Khomeini, in an interview on CBS claimed, “a great part of the army was loyal to him” and that “he will be in effect the strong man of Iran.”
31. On January 16, in an exact repeat of the 1953 CIA coup, Bush’s covert team ushered the “eccentric and weak” Shah out of Iran.
32. On February 1, 1979, Ayatollah Khomeini staged his own version of a “triumphal return” in the streets of Teheran.
33. Khomeini moved quickly to establish his authority. On February 5 he named Mehdi Bazargan, a devoted Muslim and anti-communist, interim Prime Minister. Yazdi and Abbas Amir Entezam became Bazargan’s deputies, Dr. Sanjabi Foreign Minister, and General Qarani was named military Chief of Staff.
34. On February 11, 1979, in seemingly a bizarre twist, General Qarani asked the Shah’s “eyes and ears” General Hossien Fardoust for recommendations to fill the new top posts in Iran’s armed forces. Except for the recommendation for the Chief of SAVAK, all the others were accepted. Shortly after, General Fardoust became head of SAVAMA, Khomeini’s successor to SAVAK.
35. On February 14, 1979, two weeks after Khomeini’s return to Iran, the U.S. Embassy in Teheran was seized by Khomeini supporters disguised as leftist guerrillas in an attempt to neutralize the left. U.S. hostages were seized, but to the chagrin of Khomeini’s Fundamentalists, the Iranian coalition government restored order immediately. On the same day in Kabul, Afghanistan, the U.S. Ambassador was also kidnapped by fanatic Islamic Fundamentalists disguised as leftist guerrillas and killed in the gunfight.
36. On February 14, soon after order was restored at the U.S. Embassy in Teheran, Khomeini’s aide Yazdi supplied the Embassy with a group of Iranians for compound security. Ambassador Sullivan installed, armed, and trained this Swat squad lead by SAVAK/CIA agent Mashallah Kahsani, with whom Sullivan developed a close working relationship.
37. By August, pro-Bush CIA official George Cave was visiting Iran to provide intelligence briefings to Khomeini’s aides, especially Yazdi and Entezam. These intelligence exchanges continued until October 31, the anniversary of the day on which Carter fired Bush and the 800 agents. Then with all the Iranian officials who had restored order in the first Embassy seizure eliminated, the stage was set for what happened four days later.
38. On November 4, 1979, the U.S. Embassy was taken again. Leading the charge was none other than Ambassador Sullivan’s trusted Mashallah Kashani, the Embassy’s once and former security chief.
Program Highlights Include:
- The assassination of another moderate rival of Khomeini’s.
- Apparent links between Hossein Fardoust’s selection to head the Iranian navy and Albert Hakim and Richard Secord of Iran-Contra fame.
- The partial disarming of the Marine guards assigned to the U.S. Embassy in Iran, thereby facilitating the takeover in November of 1979.
- A warning by Mr. Emory (on 1/23/1993) that the same counter-terrorism networks that were used by George H.W. Bush were still in place and that they might be used to de-stabilize the Clinton administration.
- The counter-terrorism background of Bush White House holdover Linda Tripp, who was the informant for the Monica Lewinsky affair. That affair, of course, de-stabilized Clinton’s Presidency. Tripp was also the last person to see White House Counsel Vince Foster alive, before he allegedly committed suicide. Linda Tripp served Foster lunch, which turned out to be his “last supper.”
- Mitt Romney supporter James Comey’s initiation of the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s e‑mail server. Comey is head of the FBI and the formal general counsel for Bridgewater Associates, which helped to capitalize Palantir, the apparent maker of the PRISM software at the focal point of “L’Affaire Snowden.”
1. A 1995 article by Harry Martin, formerly of the Napa Sentinel, gives an overview of Fara’s analysis:
Fara Mansoor is a fugitive. No, he hasn’t broken any laws in the United States. His crime is the truth. What he has to say and the documents he carries are equivalent to a death warrant for him. Mansoor is an Iranian who was part of the “establishment” in Iran long before the 1979 hostage taking. Mansoor’s records actually discount the alleged “October Surprise” theory that the Ronald Reagan-George Bush team paid the Iranians not to release 52 American hostages until after the November 1980 Presidential elections.
Mansoor’s meticulous documents, shared exclusively with this magazine, shows a much more sinister plot, the plot to take the hostages in the first place. “For 15 years the truth about the nature and origins of the Iranian hostage crisis has been buried in a mountain of misinformation,” Mansoor states. “Endless expert analysis has served only to deepen the fog that still surrounds this issue. We have been led to believe that the ‘crisis’ was a spontaneous act that just sprang out of the ‘chaos’ of the ‘Islamic Revolution’. Nothing could be further from the truth!”
“To really understand the hostage crisis and ‘who done it’, one has to look not only with a microscope, but also a wide angle lens to have a panoramic view of this well scripted ‘drama’,” Mansoor states. “That ‘drama’ was the result of large historical patterns, models, and motives. Once its true nature is understood, it will be clear how Iran/Contra happened, why Rafsanjani has been trying to ‘move toward the West,’ and why Reagan called him a ‘moderate’. And why, during the Gulf War, James Baker said, ‘we think Iran has conducted itself in a very, very credible way through this crisis’” Mansoor emphasizes that the “October Surprise” myth has served as dangerous misinformation.
THOUSANDS OF DOCUMENTS IN SUPPORT
With thousands of documents to support his position, Mansoor says that the “hostage crisis” was a political “management tool” created by the pro-Bush faction of the CIA, and implemented through an a priori Alliance with Khomeini’s Islamic Fundamentalists.” He says the purpose was twofold:
- To keep Iran intact and communist-free by putting Khomeini in full control.
- To destablize the Carter Administration and put George Bush in the White House.
“The private Alliance was the logical result of the intricate Iranian political reality of the mid-70s, and a complex network of powerful U.S.-Iranian ‘business’ relationships,” Mansoor states. “I first met Khomeini in 1963 during the failed coup attempt against the Shah. Since that time I have been intimately involved with Iranian politics. I knew in 1979 that the whole, phoney ‘Islamic Revolution’ was ‘mission implausible’.” Mansoor was frank. “There is simply no way that those guys with the beards and turbans could have pulled off such a brilliantly planned operation without very sophisticated help.”
Mansoor has spent 10 years researching the issue.
“I have collected enough data to yield a very clear picture. Mr. Bush’s lieutenants removed the Shah, brought Khomeini back to Iran, and guided his rise to power, sticking it to President Carter, the American people (52 in particular), and the Iranian people.”
He stated with boxes and boxes of evidence to support his contentions.
“My extensive research has revealed the heretofore untold truth about this episode. This is not another ‘October Surprise’ theory purporting how the hostage crisis resulted in some Khomeini-Republic better deal. That theory puts the cart before the horse. Its absurd premise is that a major international deal was initiated and consummated in three weeks. Give me a break! Bill Casey didn’t have to go to Paris to play lets-make-deal. The ‘deal’ had been in operation for at least two years. This game of blind-man’s‑bluff around Casey’s gravestone was more disinformation, damage control.”
REAGAN, BUSH AND THATCHER IN IRAN IN 1978
Mansoor produced a confidential document called the “Country Team Minutes” of April 26, 1978, more than a year before the hostage crisis. The meeting was held in Iran. The second paragraph of the routine minutes, states, “The Ambassador commented on our distinguished visitors, Ronald Reagan, George Bush and Margaret Thatcher, and commented that Teheran seems to be the site for an opposition parties congress.” Mansoor indicates the entire relationship was probably the most sophisticated criminal act in recent history. “That the people who, until recently, were holding power in Washington and those who currently are still in control in Teheran, got there by totally subverting the democratic process of both countries is news. That their methods of subversion relied on kidnapping, extortion and murder is criminal,” Mansoor states.
Mansoor became a target after he did a radio show in Portland on November 13, 1992. It was the first time he attempted to go public with his documents and information. The Iranian regime has placed a bounty on Mansoor’s head and he has received many death threats.
Is Mansoor just another conspiracy nut? Ervand Abrahamian of Baruch College of New York stated in a letter to Mansoor,
“As you know I am very weary of conspiracy theories. But, despite my preconceived bias, I must admit I found your manuscript to be thoroughly researched, well documented, and, of course extremely relevant to the present. You have done a first-class job of interviewing participants, collecting data from scattered sources, and putting them together like a highly complicated puzzle.”
Mansoor’s meticulous research clearly demonstrates how Khomeini’s published vision of an Islamic Government (Vilayat-Faqih) dovetailed with the regional and global strategic objectives of a hard-core subset of the U.S. National Security establishment loyal to George Bush. It shows that the Iranian hostage crisis was neither a crisis nor chaos. In 1953, the CIA orchestrated a coup in Iran, which threw out the democratic government and installed the Shah.
In order to understand the imperative of this Alliance, we must realistically examine the sociopolitical alignment both in Iran and the U.S., and accurately assess their respective interests to find the common ground for this coalescence. The anti-monarchic forces in mid-70s Iran consisted of various nationalist groups including religious reformists, the Islamic Fundamentalists, the leftists and communists.
The nationalist forces were varied. Some were from within the government, but they were poorly organized and without grass-roots support. Their position was clearly anti-left and anti-communist, but they were vulnerable to being taken over by the well-organized left.
The Islamic Fundamentalists had no government experience, but they had major grassroots support. Islam, in its Shi’ite format was deeply embedded in the lives of the vast majority of the Iranian people. The Fundamentalists were absolutely anti-communist.
CARTER FIRES 800 CIA COVERT OPERATORS
The philosophical divide within the U.S. National Security establishment, especially the CIA, became quite serious in the aftermath of Watergate. To make matters worse, the election of Jimmy Carter in 1976, his campaign promise to clean the “cowboy” elements out of the Central Intelligence Agency and his “human rights” policies alarmed the faction of the CIA loyal to George Bush. Bush was CIA director under Gerald Ford. Finally, the firing of CIA Director George Bush by Carter, and the subsequent “Halloween Massacre” in which Carter fired over 800 CIA covert operatives in 1977, angered the “cowboys” beyond all measure. That was Carter’s October surprise, 800 firings on Halloween 1977.
Bush and his CIA coverts were well aware of the Shah’s terminal cancer, unknown to President Carter. The team had an elaborate vested interest to protect. They were determined to keep Iran intact and communist-free and put George Bush in the White House.
TIMELINE: SEQUENCE OF EVENTS
Hence, the Islamic Fundamentalists were the only viable choice through which the Bush covert team could implement its own private foreign policy. The results: the birth of the Islamic Republic of Iran and the fall of President Carter. Mansoor’s documents show step-by-step events:
1. In 1974, the Shah of Iran was diagnosed with cancer.
2. In 1975, former CIA director, and the U.S. Ambassador to Iran, Richard Helms learned of the Shah’s cancer through the Shah’s closest confidant, General Hossein Fardoust. The Shah, Helms and Fardoust had been close personal friends since their school days together in Switzerland during the 1930s.
3. On November 4, 1976, concurrent with Jimmy Carter’s election as President, CIA Director George Bush issued a secret memo to the U.S. Ambassador in Iran, Richard Helms, asking:
“Have there been any changes in the personality pattern of the Shah; what are their implications . . . . for political behavior? Identification of top military officers that most likely play key roles in any transference of power if the Shah were killed…who will be the leading actors? How will the Shah’s pet projects, including the economic development program, be affected by his departure?”
4. By July 1977, anticipating trouble ahead, the Bush covert team issued a preliminary script for the transition of power in Iran. According to John D. Stempel, a CIA analyst and Deputy Chief Political officer of the U.S. Embassy in Iran: “A ten page analysis of the opposition written by the embassy’s political section in July 1977 correctly identified Bakhtiar, Bazargan, Khomeini and Beheshti as major actors in the drama that begin unfolding a year later.”
5. Contrary to this analysis, in August 1977, the “official wing” of the CIA fed President Carter a 60-page Study on Iran which concluded:
“The Shah will be an active participant in Iranian life well into the 1980s…and there will be no radical changes in Iranian political behavior in the near future.”
6. On October 31, 1977, president Carter made good on his campaign promise to clean the “cowboys” out of the CIA. He fired over 800 covert operatives from the Agency, many of whom were loyal to George Bush. Carter’s presidency split the CIA. It produced in them–many of whom were “well-trained in political warfare–a concerted will for revenge.” By the end of the 1970s many of these special covert operatives had allied themselves with George Bush’s candidacy, and later with Ronald Reagan’s presidential campaign.
7. On November 15, the Shah of Iran visited Washington, D.C. Carter toasted his guest, “If ever there was a country which has blossomed forth under enlightened leadership, it would be the ancient empire of Persia.”
8. On November 23, Ayatollah Khomeini’s elder son, Haji Mustafa, died mysteriously in Najaf, Iraq. According to professor Hamid Algar, he was “assassinated by the Shah’s U.S.-instituted security police SAVAK…the tragedy inflamed the public in Iran.” Ayatollah Khomeini placed an advertisement in the French Newspaper Le Monde which read: “thanking people for condolences that had been sent for the murder of his son.” He also “appealed to the army to liberate Iran, and to the intellectuals and all good Muslims to continue their criticism of the Shah”.
9. December 31, 1977, Carter visited the Shah in Iran. He toasted the Shah for maintaining Iran as “an island of stability in one of the more troubled areas of the world.” Ironically, that so-called stability evaporated before the champagne lost its fizz.
10. On January 7, 1978, an insidious article entitled Iran and the Red and Black Colonialism, appeared in the Iranian daily newspaper Ettela’at. It castigated the exiled Khomeini, and produced a massive protest riot in the Holy City of Qum the next day. The clergy had little choice but to rally to Khomeini’s defense. The Qum incident shifted many of the clergy from a position of support for the Shah’s monarchy to an active opposition. That “dirty trick” perpetuated by General Fardoust was the trigger that sparked Islamic movement participating in the anti-Shah democratic Revolution. John D. Stempel, characterized Fardoust’s importance to the Alliance: “it is hard to overestimate the value of having a mole in the inner circle of the Shah.”
11. On February 3, a confidential communiqué from the U.S. Embassy clearly reflected the vision of the Alliance:
“Though based on incomplete evidence, our best assessment to date is that the Shia Islamic movement dominated by Ayatollah Khomeini is far better organized, enlightened and able to resist Communism than its detractors would lead us to believe. It is rooted in the Iranian people more than any western ideology, including Communism.”
12. April 1978, Le Monde “identified Khomeini’s Liberation Movement of Iran as the most significant force in the opposition. Shi’ite Islam unites the reformist progressive critics of the Shah on the same ground. In fact, this analysis was contrary to what Mohaammad Tavassoli, leader of the Liberation Movement of Iran, expressed to John D. Stempel on August 21, 1978:
“The nationalist movement in Iran lacks a popular base. The choice is between Islam and Communism…close ties between the Liberation Movement of Iran and the religious movement were necessary. Iran was becoming split between the Marxist and the religious.”
13. On April 26, the confidential minutes of the U. S. Embassy Country team meeting welcomed Bush, Reagan and Thatcher.
14. On May 6, Le Monde became the first western newspaper to interview Khomeini in Najaf, Iraq. Khomeini acknowledged his compatibility with the strategic imperatives of the Bush covert team, “we would not collaborate with the Marxists, even in the overthrow of the Shah.”
15. The same month, Khomeini’s old ally from the failed 1963 coup (that resulted in Khomeini’s arrest and major uprising in June 1963 and his subsequent exile to Iraq) General Valliollah Qarani sent his emissary to meet Khomeini in Najaf. Qarani had been a major CIA asset in Iran since the 1953 coup. Seeing another chance to gain power for himself, he advised Khomeini, according to former Iranian President Abol Hassan Bani-sader:
“If you settle for the Shah’s departure and don’t use anti-American rhetoric, the Americans are ready to take him out.”
16. In August, the Bush team sent its own point man to meet the exiled Ayatollah in Najaf. Professor Richard Cottam carried excellent credentials. During the 1953 coup, he had been in charge of the CIA’s Iran Desk. He had also been in close contact with Dr. Ibrahim Yazdi in the U.S. since 1975. Curiously, he admitted to Bani-sadr in 1987, that he had not been working for the Carter Administration. Cottam’s visit must have had an impact, because Iran suddenly began to experience a series of mysterious catastrophes:
- Fundamentalist supporters burned down a theater killing the innocent occupants, blaming it on the SAVAK and the Shah.
- There were riots in Isfahan that resulted in martial law.
- On August 27, one of Khomeini’s rivals among the Shia Islamic faithful outside of Iran, Ayatollah Mosa Sadr mysteriously disppeared. According to an intelligence source he was killed and buried in Libya.
17. By late August, the Shah was totally confused. U.S. Ambassador Sullivan recorded the Shah’s pleadings over the outbreak of violence:
“He said the pattern was widespread and that it was like an outbreak of a sudden rash in the country…it gave evidence of sophisticated planning and was not the work of spontaneous oppositionists…the Shah presented that it was the work of foreign intrigue…this intrigue went beyond the capabilities of the Soviet KGB and must, therefore, also involve British and American CIA. The Shah went on to ask ‘Why was the CIA suddenly turning against him? What had he done to deserve this sort of action from the United States?”
18. September 8, the Shah’s army gunned down hundreds of demonstrators in Teheran in what became known as the “Jaleh Square Massacre”.
19. On September 9, President Carter phoned the Shah to confirm his support for the Shah, a fact that enraged the Iranian population.
20. A few days later, Carter’s National Security aide, Gary Sick, received a call from Richard Cottam, requesting a discrete meeting between him and Khomeini’s representative in the U.S., Dr. Yazdi. Sick refused.
21. Khomeini for the first time, publicly called for the Shah’s overthrow.
22. In Mid-September, at the height of the revolution, “one of the handful of Khomeini’s trusted associates,” Ayatollah Mohammed Hussein Beheshti, secretly visited the United States. He also met with Yazdi in Texas, among others. Beheshti was an advocate of the eye-for-an-eye school of justice.
23. In early October 1978, the agent for the Bush covert team arranged to force Khomeini out of Iraq.
24. October 3, 1978, Yazdi picked up Khomeini in Iraq and headed for Kuwait. According to Gary Sick, he received an urgent call from Richard Cottam, learning for the first time that Khomeini had been forced out of Iraq. Sick was told that Khomeini and his entourage were stuck in no man’s land while attempting to cross the border. Cottam was requesting White House intervention to resolve the issue. Sick respond, “there is nothing we could do”.
25. October 6, Khomeini’s entourage, having gotten back through Baghdad, popped up in Paris. According to Bani-sadr, “it was Khomeini who insisted on going to Paris instead of Syria or Algeria”. Whoever helped Khomeini out of the Kuwaiti border impasse had to have been on good terms with both the French and Saddam Hussein.
26. December 12, Yazdi made a trip to the U.S. to promote Khomeini and his Islamic Republic. Yazdi met secretly with Henry Precht in an unofficial capacity. Precht was the Director of the Iran Desk at the State Department and one of the Bush team’s main choke points in the Carter Administration. Later Precht and Yazdi appeared together for televised discussion of Iran. Yazdi assured the American public that Khomeini had not really called for a “torrent of blood,” and that the “election would be absolutely free.” The Islamic Republic “would enjoy full freedom of speech and the press, including the right to attack Islam. [Khomeini’s fatwa against Salman Rushdie stands in sharp rebuttal to that claim–D.E.]
27. December 28, Cottam visited Khomeini in Paris where he noted that U.S. citizen Dr. Yazdi was the “leading tactician in Khomeini’s camp” and apparent “chief of staff”. Khomeini was not interested in the Mullahs taking over the government. It is also noted that “Khomeini’s movement definitely plans to organize a political party to draw on Khomeini’s charisma. Cottam thinks such a party would win all Majlis seats.”
28. Leaving Paris, Cottam slipped into Teheran, arriving the first week in January 1979, to prepare Khomeini’s triumphal return to Iran.
29. January 4, 1979, Carter’s secret envoy, General Robert Huyser arrived in Iran. His mission was to prevent the “fall of the Shah.” According to Huyser, Alexander Haig, ostensibly a strong Shah supporter-inexplicably, “took violent exception to the whole idea.” Huyser recalled that “General Haig never gave me a full explanation of his strong objections.” Huyser also revealed that Ambassador Sullivan “had also expressed objections.” Two pro-Shah advocates opposed to the prevention of the Shah’s fall.
30. On January 14, President Carter finally “authorized a meeting between Warren Zimmerman and Ibrahim Yazdi. On the same day, Khomeini, in an interview on CBS claimed, “a great part of the army was loyal to him” and that “he will be in effect the strong man of Iran.”
31. On January 16, in an exact repeat of the 1953 CIA coup, Bush’s covert team ushered the “eccentric and weak” Shah out of Iran.
32. On February 1, 1979, Ayatollah Khomeini staged his own version of a “triumphal return” in the streets of Teheran.
33. Khomeini moved quickly to establish his authority. On February 5 he named Mehdi Bazargan, a devoted Muslim and anti-communist, interim Prime Minister. Yazdi and Abbas Amir Entezam became Bazargan’s deputies, Dr. Sanjabi Foreign Minister, and General Qarani was named military Chief of Staff.
34. On February 11, 1979, in seemingly a bizarre twist, General Qarani asked the Shah’s “eyes and ears” General Hossien Fardoust for recommendations to fill the new top posts in Iran’s armed forces. Except for the recommendation for the Chief of SAVAK, all the others were accepted. Shortly after, General Fardoust became head of SAVAMA, Khomeini’s successor to SAVAK.
35. On February 14, 1979, two weeks after Khomeini’s return to Iran, the U.S. Embassy in Teheran was seized by Khomeini supporters disguised as leftist guerrillas in an attempt to neutralize the left. U.S. hostages were seized, but to the chagrin of Khomeini’s Fundamentalists, the Iranian coalition government restored order immediately. On the same day in Kabul, Afghanistan, the U.S. Ambassador was also kidnapped by fanatic Islamic Fundamentalists disguised as leftist guerrillas and killed in the gunfight.
36. On February 14, soon after order was restored at the U.S. Embassy in Teheran, Khomeini’s aide Yazdi supplied the Embassy with a group of Iranians for compound security. Ambassador Sullivan installed, armed, and trained this Swat squad lead by SAVAK/CIA agent Mashallah Kahsani, with whom Sullivan developed a close working relationship.
37. By August, pro-Bush CIA official George Cave was visiting Iran to provide intelligence briefings to Khomeini’s aides, especially Yazdi and Entezam. These intelligence exchanges continued until October 31, the anniversary of the day on which Carter fired Bush and the 800 agents. Then with all the Iranian officials who had restored order in the first Embassy seizure eliminated, the stage was set for what happened four days later.
38. On November 4, 1979, the U.S. Embassy was taken again. Leading the charge was none other than Ambassador Sullivan’s trusted Mashallah Kashani, the Embassy’s once and former security chief.
With the evidence and documentation supplied by Mansoor, the alleged October Surprise would not have been necessary. President Carter was the target, in revenge for the Halloween Massacre, the night 800 CIA operatives and George Bush were fired by Carter. The main thrust, however, was to prevent a communist takover of Iran after the Shah’s anticipated death.
2. In the concluding minutes of the excerpt presented from the 1/23/1993 interview with Fara Mansoor, Mr. Emory warned that the counter-terrorism apparatus used by George H.W. Bush to affect many of the machinations of the Iran-Contra scandal were still in place and could be used to de-stabilize the (Bill) Clinton administration. Bush White House holdover Linda Tripp was the conduit who conveyed the Monica Lewinsky information to Lucianne Goldberg, who publicized it and precipitated the scandal that resulted in Clinton’s impeachment.
Linda Tripp had a background in counter-terrorism, having a Top-Secret security clearance while working for the Delta Force, the country’s elite counter-terrorism commando unit.
Incidentally, Monica Lewinsky was represented by Plato Cacheris, who is now representing Edward Snowden, whose actions have helped to de-stabilize the Obama administration.
“Linda’s Trip” by Jeff Leen and Gene Weingarten; The Washington Post; 3/15/1998.
. . . . There was a long string of assignments, in Germany and elsewhere. Linda got a top-secret security clearance. At one point, according to her resume, she was doing secretarial work for Delta Force, the super-secret counterterrorist unit that does not, officially, exist. . . .
. . . . It was April 1990 when she joined the Bush White House. Ellen Strichartz, a neighbor who worked as a White House correspondence analyst, had sponsored her. Tripp started as a “floater,” filling in answering phones or taking dictation whenever there was a secretarial vacancy.
Tripp had worked mostly for the military, in austere operations that were high in discipline and rigor but low in pomp and stature. This changed. Her 32-month tenure in the Bush White House was a bath in power and privilege and prestige. . . .
3. Republican James Comey–a Mitt Romney supporter in 2012–is taking actions that are causing serious problems for the Obama administration and for the Hillary Clinton candidacy. In particular, the e‑mail scandal appears to have been Comey’s baby.
He has also ruffled feathers with the altogether complicated Apple “ISISphone” controversy. That consummately important case, Byzantine in its complexity and multi-dimensionality (to coin a term) will be dealt with in a future program.
Comey was previously the general counsel for Bridgewater Associates, a hedge fund that helped capitalize Palantir, which (their disclaimers to the contrary notwithstanding) makes the Prism software that is at the epicenter of “L’Affaire Snowden.” (CORRECTION: In past programs and posts, we incorrectly identified Comey as general counsel for Palantir, not Bridgewater.)
The Bridgewater/Palantir/Comey nexus is interesting, nonetheless. Palantir’s top stockholder is Peter Thiel, a backer of Ted Cruz and the man who provided most of the capital for Ron Paul’s 2012 Presidential campaign. Ron Paul’s Super PAC was in–of all places–Provo Utah, Romney country. Paul is from Texas. The alleged maverick Paul was, in fact, close to Romney.
Recall that “Eddie the Friendly Spook” is a big Ron Paul fan and Bruce Fein, Snowden’s first attorney and the counsel for the Snowden family, was the chief legal counsel for Ron Paul’s campaign.
The possible implications of these relationships are worth contemplating and will be discussed at greater length in future programs.
“Comey’s FBI Makes Waves” by Cory Bennett and Julian Hattem; The Hill; 3/09/2016.
The aggressive posture of the FBI under Director James Comey is becoming a political problem for the White House.
The FBI’s demand that Apple help unlock an iPhone used by one of the San Bernardino killers has outraged Silicon Valley, a significant source of political support for President Obama and Democrats.
Comey, meanwhile, has stirred tensions by linking rising violent crime rates to the Black Lives Matter movement’s focus on police violence and by warning about “gaps” in the screening process for Syrian refugees.
Then there’s the biggest issue of all: the FBI’s investigation into the private email server used by Hillary Clinton, Obama’s former secretary of State and the leading contender to win the Democratic presidential nomination.
A decision by the FBI to charge Clinton or her top aides for mishandling classified information would be a shock to the political system.
In these cases and more, Comey — a Republican who donated in 2012 to Mitt Romney — has proved he is “not attached to the strings of the White House,” said Ron Hosko, the former head of the FBI’s criminal investigative division and a critic of Obama’s law enforcement strategies.
Publicly, administration officials have not betrayed any worry about the Clinton probe. They have also downplayed any differences of opinion on Apple.
But former officials say the FBI’s moves are clearly ruffling feathers within the administration.
With regards to the Apple standoff, “It’s just not clear [Comey] is speaking for the administration,” said Richard Clarke, a former White House counterterrorism and cybersecurity chief. “We know there have been administration meetings on this for months. The proposal that Comey had made on encryption was rejected by the administration.”
Comey has a reputation for speaking truth to power, dating back to a dramatic confrontation in 2004 when he rushed to a hospital to stop the Bush White House from renewing a warrantless wiretapping program while Attorney General John Ashcroft was gravely ill. Comey was Ashcroft’s deputy at the time.
That showdown won Comey plaudits from both sides of the aisle and made him an attractive pick to lead the FBI. But now that he’s in charge of the agency, the president might be getting more than he bargained for.
“Part of his role is to not necessarily be in lock step with the White House,” said Mitch Silber, a former intelligence official with the New York City Police Department and current senior managing director at FTI Consulting.
“He takes very seriously the fact that he works for the executive branch,” added Leo Taddeo, a former agent in the FBI’s cyber division. “But he also understands the importance of maintaining his independence as a law enforcement agency that needs to give not just the appearance of independence but the reality of it.”
The split over Clinton’s email server is the most politically charged issue facing the FBI, with nothing less than the race for the White House potentially at stake.
Obama has publicly defended Clinton, saying that while she “made a mistake” with her email setup, it was “not a situation in which America’s national security was endangered.”
But the FBI director has bristled at that statement, saying the president would not have any knowledge of the investigation. Comey, meanwhile, told lawmakers last week that he is “very close, personally,” to the probe.
Obama’s comments reflected a pattern, several former agents said, of the president making improper comments about FBI investigations. In 2012, he made similarly dismissive comments about a pending inquiry into then-CIA Director David Petraeus, who later pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge for giving classified information to his mistress and biographer, Paula Broadwell.
“It serves no one in the United States for the president to comment on ongoing investigations,” Taddeo said. “I just don’t see a purpose.”
Hosko suggested that a showdown over potential criminal charges for Clinton could lead to a reprise of the famous 2004 hospital scene, when Comey threatened to resign.
“He has that mantle,” Hosko said. “I think now there’s this expectation — I hope it’s a fair one — that he’ll do it again if he has to.”
Comey’s independent streak has also been on display in the Apple fight, when his bureau decided to seek a court order demanding that the tech giant create new software to bypass security tools on an iPhone used by Syed Rizwan Farook, one of the two terrorist attackers in San Bernardino, Calif.
Many observers questioned whether the FBI was making an end-run around the White House, which had previously dismissed a series of proposals that would force companies to decrypt data upon government request.
“I think there’s actually some people that don’t think with one mindset on this issue within the administration,” said Sen. Tom Carper (D‑Del.), the Senate Homeland Security Committee’s top Democrat, at a Tuesday hearing. “It’s a tough issue.”
While the White House has repeatedly backed the FBI’s decision, it has not fully endorsed the potential policy ramifications, leaving some to think a gap might develop as similar cases pop up. The White House is poised to soon issue its own policy paper on the subject of data encryption.
“The position taken by the FBI is at odds with the concerns expressed by individuals [in the White House] who were looking into the encryption issue,” said Neema Singh Guliani, a legislative counsel with the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).
This week, White House homeland security adviser Lisa Monaco tried to downplay the differences between the two sides. The White House and FBI are both grappling with the same problems, she said in a discussion at the Council on Foreign Relations.
“There is a recognition across the administration that the virtues of strong encryption are without a doubt,” Monaco said on Monday. “There is also uniformity about the recognition that strong encryption poses real challenges.”
Looking Back from 1984
http://www.newsweek.com/opening-holocaust-cartoon-contest-exhibition-tehran-provokes-continued-461286
Germany added yet another voice Wednesday to the growing list of countries and leaders condemning a Holocaust cartoon contest being held in Iran.
“The murder of 6 million men, women and children during the Holocaust, for which we Germans bear guilt and responsibility, must not be abandoned to ridicule,” German Foreign Ministry spokesman Martin Schaefer said. The Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier himself, Schaefer said, had previously come out against such a contest during a visit to Tehran in February, the Associated Press reported. It’s “very regrettable” that the contest has nevertheless continued, Schaefer said.
An exhibition of 150 cartoons and caricatures submitted for the contest opened Saturday at the Tehran Art Bureau, according to the Tehran Times, with artists of dozens of nationalities represented in the display. Submissions reportedly came from countries such as France, Australia, Brazil, China, Indonesia and Colombia. Three winners in each of the two categories (cartoon and caricature) will be announced upon the show’s conclusion at the end of the month, CNSNews reported, with roughly $50,000 in prize money to be distributed among winners and finalists. The top prize is $12,000.
Try Newsweek for only $1.25 per week
“This exhibition constitutes a response to the publications of cartoons by the French Charlie Hebdo magazine, which affronted the Prophet Muhammad, as well as an expression of [our opposition] to the massacres perpetrated against the Palestinian people,” said Masoud Shojaei-Tabatabaei in a report by Iran’s Al-Alam TV, which has been posted to YouTube with English subtitles by the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI), a nonprofit based in Washington, D.C., that aims to bridge language gaps and inform discussions of the Middle East.
“We do not mean to approve or deny the Holocaust,” Shojaei-Tabatabaei told the Tehran Times. “However, the main question is why is there no permission to talk about the Holocaust despite their [the West’s] belief in freedom of speech.” He reportedly explained at a press conference Saturday that the first contest, held in 2006, as well as the current one—which some sources are referring to as the Second International Holocaust Cartoon Contest despite the fact that a version of the competition was also held last year—are meant to highlight a double standard in the West when it comes to depicting the Holocaust versus the Prophet Mohammad. He insisted that Holocaust denial was not the goal, but his attempts to elaborate resulted in a jarring comparison. “Holocaust means ‘mass killing,’” he said. “We are witnessing the biggest killings by the Zionist regime in Gaza and Palestine.”
Iran has a history of Holocaust denial. When the contest was first held in 2006, then-President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had already become well known for calling the Holocaust a “myth.” The country’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has also expressed doubt. For example, in a speech he gave for Nowruz, the Iranian New Year, in 2014, he called the Holocaust “an event whose reality is uncertain, and if it happened, it’s uncertain how it happened.”
The comments from Germany’s Foreign Ministry spokesman on Wednesday were only the latest in a string of condemnations for the latest contest. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who was a frequent target in the submitted caricatures, fumed at a weekly cabinet meeting in Jerusalem on Sunday, telling ministers that Iran “denies the Holocaust, mocks the Holocaust and is preparing another Holocaust,” and saying that “every country in the world must stand up and fully condemn this.”
That same day, U.S. State Department spokesman Mark Toner expressed Washington’s concern that the contest could “be used as a platform for Holocaust denial and revisionism and egregiously anti-Semitic speech, as it has in the past.”
“We denounce any Holocaust denial and trivialization as inflammatory and abhorrent. It is insulting to the memory of the millions of people who died in the Holocaust,” Toner added. “Such offensive speech should be condemned by the authorities and civil society leaders rather than encouraged.”
In an interview published last month, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif told The New Yorker that the government of Iran was not responsible for the contest and did not control or endorse the nongovernmental organization running it. But both the contest organizer Shojaei-Tabatabaei and exiled Iranian journalist Aida Qajar have refuted the idea that Iran’s government has no involvement.
The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum echoed those sentiments in a press release dated April 29. “The organizations associated with the contest are sponsored or supported by government entities, including the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and the Ministry of Islamic Guidance,” the release said, while reports in Iranian press indicated support from the Ministry of Culture. The 2006 contest, the USHMM said, “had the endorsement and support of government officials and agencies.”
“The global community and the people of Iran deserve an unequivocal denouncement of this Holocaust cartoon contest,” Tad Stahnke, director of USHMM’s Initiative on Holocaust Denial and Antisemitism, is quoted as saying. “Given the Iranian government’s past involvement with these events and its history of restricting unsanctioned speech, it will take much more effort on its part to distance itself from this contest,” he added. “We strongly encourage Zarif and other members of the Iranian government to condemn Holocaust denial and to allow Iranian citizens access to accurate information about the Holocaust.”
In the Al-Alam segment posted by MEMRI, reporter Salim Issa says that “the goals of the contest are to enhance the culture of freedom of speech by means of modern art and to open new horizons for cultural and artistic cooperation and exchange between Iranian and foreign artists.”
But Irina Bokova, the director-general of UNESCO, has vehemently criticized the event. “This contest goes against the universal values of tolerance and respect, and runs counter to the action led by UNESCO to promote Holocaust education, to fight anti-Semitism and denial,” she said in a statement posted Friday, having previously expressed UNESCO’s concerns in a letter to the Iranian ambassador. “Such an initiative which aims at a mockery of the genocide of the Jewish people, a tragic page of humanity’s history, can only foster hatred and incite to violence, racism and anger.”
Fore some time I had my suspicious about the Iranian revolution. So this information doesn’t surprise me.
Does Mansoor still lives and where’re his documents? Why didn’t he publish a book? I was searching for this kind of book on this matter)
Thank you for sharing this important, interesting info!
@Patrick–
Fara has a blog, which is the best I can do: https://faratimes.com/about/
Best,
Dave
How many more ‘October Surprise’ surprises are there, waiting to be found or shared? That was one of the many questions raised by a pretty surprising report out of the New York Times last week that appears to be about as solid a confirmation as we can expect at this point that the October Surprise plot was indeed carried out by the Reagan campaign. It’s a confirmation that comes from Ben Barnes, a once prominent Texas Democratic who has an even more prominent mentor: John Connally. The same former Texas governor who was shot and injured during the JFK assassination while he was Democrats and went on to switch parites and become Richard Nixon’s Treasury Secretary.
Connally are Barnes aren’t names that have previously been associated with the October surprise plot. But as Barnes tells it, it was Barnes and Connally who literally traveled across the Middle East in 1980, meeting one leader after another with a simple message: Iran can’t release the hostages yet. Or, rather, it was Connally conveying the message. Barnes was just tagging along for some reason. Importantly, Barnes also reveals that, following the Middle East trip, he and Connally both had a three hour meeting with Bill Casey at the Dallas airport where Casey was briefed about the trip.
As Barnes tells it, Connally’s message to the Arab leaders was something along the lines of “‘Look, Ronald Reagan’s going to be elected president and you need to get the word to Iran that they’re going to make a better deal with Reagan than they are Carter,’...‘It would be very smart for you to pass the word to the Iranians to wait until after this general election is over.’ ” Intriguingly, Barnes claims that he had no idea this was the intent of the trip until he and Connally met with the first Arab leader and Connally conveyed that message right in front of him. And then did it again with each leader. Why did Conally bring Barnes along for such a mission? That remains a mystery.
It’s worth recall another Connally Democratic Party protege who found himself involved with some rather sleazy political maneuverings: Robert (Bob) Strauss, who Connally placed on the Democratic National Committee in 1968 as part of an effort to block the nomination of anti-war candidate George McGovern. Two years later, Connally joined the Nixon administration. It’s also worth noting that it was Barnes who apparently got George W. Bush into the Texas Air National Guard as part of Bush’s attempt to dodge the Vietnam war. That’s part of the of context here: Barnes and Connally were Texas Democrats with deep Republican ties. So deep in Connally’s case that he literally became a Republican and Nixon’s Treasury Secretary in 1973. And somehow, the two were put at the center of a clandestine lobbying effort to put Reagan in office. An effort that Barnes apparently didn’t even know he was getting into when Connally dragged him along.
All in all, it’s quite a remarkable story. But not one Barnes has never shared before with anyone else. In fact, four people confirmed to the NY Times that Barnes did indeed disclose all of this to them years ago. It raises the question of just how open a secret is all this stuff in DC circles?
Why is Barnes revealing it now? To give Jimmy Carter some long belated justice as he sits on his deathbed. At least that’s how Barns is putting it. It’s sort of a ‘deathbed by proxy’ confession.
Also note that there is no mention at all of how this all ties into the explosive and damning research by Fara Mansoor showing how the Iranian Revolution was effective fomented and managed by the CIA as part of an effort started after learning of the Shah’s cancer diagnosis to install the ardently anti-communist religious fundamentalists of Iran into power to prevent left-wing forces from filing that vacuum. Not that we should have expected Mansoor’s research to factor into this reporting. But it points towards one of the other major contexts that this new revelation is operating in: the utter inability of the US to meaningfully come to grips with its own history. An inability rooted in the collective silence given to important research like Mansoor’s. The US society simply doesn’t seem to care very much about acquiring an accurate understanding of how it got here. So while it’s going to be interesting to watch the potential impact of this latest revelation play out, it’s likely going to be depressingly interesting as the US’s amnesiac apathy kicks in and everyone forgets that there are major unresolved scandals just sitting here waiting to be understood:
“His mentor was John B. Connally Jr., a titan of American politics and former Texas governor who had served three presidents and just lost his own bid for the White House. A former Democrat, Mr. Connally had sought the Republican nomination in 1980 only to be swamped by former Gov. Ronald Reagan of California. Now Mr. Connally resolved to help Mr. Reagan beat Mr. Carter and in the process, Mr. Barnes said, make his own case for becoming secretary of state or defense in a new administration.”
The October Surprise plot was, in part, a bid by John Connally to become Ronald Reagan’s secretary of state or defense. That was the motive for Connally’s previously unrecognized key role in the plot, as laid out by Connally’s mentee, Ben Barnes. And as the article pointcs out, Barnes is no random acquaintance of Connally. He was, at one point, one of the most prominent figures in Texas. He even helped George W. Bush dodge the draft by getting into the Texas Air National Guard. Those apparent ties to the Bush family make this a good time to recall how Farah Mansoor’s research found the Iranian hostage crisis to be a political “management tool” created by a ‘pro-Bush’ faction of the CIA. That was the milieu Barnes was operating in when he had the experiences he’s only now sharing. It’s not quite a deathbed confession from Barnes — it’s Jimmy Carters deathbed that apparently promted this — but Barnes is clearly someone who knows where ‘the bodies are buried’. That part of the context of this new round of October Surprise revelations. This is someone undoubtedly who knows A LOT of secrets reaching a point in life where they are willing to start sharing them:
Nor are Barnes’s claims entirely uncorroborated. For starters, four people confirmed Barnes shared this when them years ago, which raises the interesting question as to just how open a secret this all really was in DC circles. But it appears a Connally itinerary found in the LBJ Library provide some compelling evidence that Barnes isn’t making the 1980 Middle East trip up. The trip happened, including post-trip discussions with Reagan:
Perhaps the most unbelievable part of Barnes’s story is how Connally apparently didn’t inform Barnes as to what the trip was about, and yet both of them met with one Middle East leader after another where Connally issued the same message. It points to a remarkable level of trust Connally must have had in Barnes’s ability to keep a secret. Which is what Barns did, mostly, for 43 years. But the secret isn’t just that they met with all these leaders to deliver the same message. There was the follow up meeting with future CIA-director Bill Casey at the American Airlines lounge at the Dallas Airport. A meeting that Connally again brought Barnes to. And then there’s the fact that Barnes is claiming that Connally and Barnes were sharing the ‘don’t release the hostages’ messages not just with Iranian leaders but leaders across the Middle East, with an apparent hope that those leaders would convey the message to Iran. It’s not entirely clear why Barnes was brought along to all these meetings for a scandalous mission that he apparently wasn’t aware of from the start, or why non-Iranian leaders would be informed about the plot, but that’s the story he’s sharing:
And while suspicions about an October Surprise were around from the start of the Reagan administration, it wasn’t until the 1991 publication of an opinion piece by former Carter National Security aide Gary Sick, that the story started getting the kind of attention it deserved. Recall how Farah Mansoor’s thesis that the CIA orchestrated the collapse of the Shah of the rise of Khomeini and the Islamic fundamentalists was based in part on Sick’s experiences, that included what appeared to be multiple attempts in 1978 by CIA-connected individuals to take steps that would have assisted Khomeini’s revolutionary efforts. It’s a reminder that we can’t really separate the October Surprise intrigue Barnes is fleshing out from Fara Mansoor’s damning thesis about the CIA’s sponsorship of the Iranian revolution. This is all one big wildly scandalous story:
Regarding the bipartisan congressional investigation that followed Gary Sick’s 1991 opinion piece, and the fact that it initially concluded that there was nothing to the October Surprise ‘conspiracy theories’, it’s worth noting that the Democrat who headed that investigation, Lee H. Hamilton of Indiana, was also the vice chair of the widely panned 9/11 Commission.
And note who ultimately discovered a 1991 memo by a lawyer for President George H.W. Bush that confirmed that yes, Bill Casey was indeed in Madrid during July and August of 1980, the period when he is alleged to have met with represenatives of Iran to prevent a release of the hostage: Robert Parry, 20 year later in 2011. Who else knew about that memo during that 20 year period? Just how open a secret was all this?
John Connally wasn’t even ‘on the radar’ of congressional investigators over 30 years ago. But he’s just been put on the radar in a big way. What will historians and investigative journalists do with this now? Is this just a randomly one-off? Probably. But, again, that’s a big part of the context here: it’s not just that we got what appears to be confirmation that the ‘October Surprise’ did indeed happen as many suspected. We’re also getting further confirmation that, for the most part, almost no one actually cares. Sure, there was some hoopla about this report when it first came out. But that was about it. Now it’s back to just passively waiting for more surprises and then not really pursuing those new surprising leads.
It’s Israel’s 9/11. That’s the framing we keep hearing in the reports and analysis covering the explosion of full blow war between Israel and Gaza. A giant seemingly inexplicable 9/11-style intelligence failure.
Time will tell if that’s really what happened, but it’s worth keeping in mind that this apparent giant intelligence failure coincided with the 50th anniversary of the start of the Yom Kippur War. In other words, the timing of something happening on that date wasn’t exactly shocking. Something was surely coming, albeit not necessarily something on this scale.
But as the questions of how such an intelligence failure happened continue to grow, questions are rapidly eclipsing the debate: was Iran involved and will this lead to a wider regional war? Beyond that, was disrupting the Israeli/Saudi peace process the motive here?
Interestingly, the official stances on Iran’s involvement remain nebulous, with the WSJ initially reporting that senior members of Hamas and Hezbollah admitted that Iran gave its support and green light for the attack. Later statements from a senior Hamas official suggested that Iran and Hezbollah played no roles at all in the attack. Iran continues to insist it played no role at all. And while it’s not hard to see what Iran is denying any involvement, it’s also not hard to imagine Hamas had some sort of Iranian assistance, especially given the progress of Israeli/Saudi peace talks. This was a remarkably sophisticated military operation on a number of levels that had to require extensive training somewhere.
But for all the questions about Iran’s possible involvement, and whether or not Iran ends up getting dragged into a broader regional war that could pull in the US too, it’s going to be important to keep in mind the other major ally Hamas has that obviously could have played a major operational role: the rest of the Muslim Brotherhood and its many related affiliates and offshoots. Hamas isn’t just some isolated actor. Plenty of Muslim Brotherhood offshoots have suffered defeats in recent years (like in Syria or Egypt). How big a gamble is that larger network willing to make at this point?
And that brings up the grimly fascinating history of the Iranian revolution that is all the more relevant today as this crisis plays out: the history of Iranian revolution as an extension of the Muslim Brotherhood’s explosive growth across the Muslim World throughout the Cold War period. Explosive growth sponsored and fostered by the CIA, as Farah Mansoor revealed. As we’ve also seen in the the reporting by Robert Dreyfuss back in 2006, the Iranian revolution itself grew out of a Shia Muslim Brotherhood affiliate, the Devotees of Islam, which included the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.
In fact, as we’re going to see in the Dreyfuss article excerpt below, the first instance of Islamist terror in the US — the July 22, 1980, assassination of Ali Akbar Tabatabai, a former press counselor at the Iranian Embassy in Washington — was executed by David Belfield, an American Muslim who first met Muslim Brotherhood lead — and suspected CIA assets — Said Ramadan in 1975. Belfield went on to become Ramadan’s “personal secretary, special emissary and devoted servant.” That’s who committed the first act of Islamist terror on US soil. Said Ramadan’s personal secretary, who killed a critic of the Iranian revolution. It’s the kind of history that could be especially important when trying to make sense of a situation that risks morphing into a broader Muslim Brotherhood/Iranian allied wave of conflict.
Ok, first, here’s an AP mention the Egyptian claims that this wasn’t a surprise attack. Instead, the attack came after Egyptian intelligence warned Israel that ‘something big’ is coming. Soon:
“An Egyptian intelligence official said Egypt, which often serves as a mediator between Israel and Hamas, had spoken repeatedly with the Israelis about “something big,” without elaborating.”
“Something big” was coming. That’s what Egyptian intelligence was apparently warning Israel. Something big was coming “soon”:
So just how big of an intelligence ‘failure’ was this? A genuine screw up? Or something closer 9/11, with intelligence agencies appearing to run cover for the terror operation? It’s too early to say. But it’s not too early to revisit vital history for events involving potential collusion between Hamas and the Iranian government. A history of collusion that involves the CIA too. As Robert Dreyfuss described in this 2006 Mother Jones piece, Muslim Brotherhood leader Said Ramadan didn’t just play a crucial role in establishing Muslim Brotherhood branches across the Muslim world, including the formation of Hamas in Palestine. The Iranian revolution emerged from Muslim Brotherhood affiliate the Devotees of Islam, led by the mentor of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. Beyond that, the first instance of Islamist terror in the US — the July 22, 1980, assassination of Ali Akbar Tabatabai, a former press counselor at the Iranian Embassy in Washington — was perpetrated by none other than David Belfield, an American Muslim who first met Said Ramadan in 1975 and went on to become Ramadan’s “personal secretary, special emissary and devoted servant.” And throughout these decades of Ramadan’s building up of the Muslim Brotherhood, documents indicate he was a CIA asset. Unpleasant history, but the kind of history we should probably keep in mind as we appear to be lurching closer and closer to a regional war that could drag in both the US and Iran:
“By the 1980s and 90s, with Khomeini’s regime in Iran and Zia ul-Haq’s Islamist dictatorship in Pakistan firmly entrenched, the Afghan jihad under way, and the Muslim Brotherhood established as a potent, underground opposition movement in Egypt, Syria, Palestine, and elsewhere, Ramadan’s early spadework had borne fruit throughout the Middle East. But even as Islamism came into its own, an aging Ramadan was fading from prominence, and in 1995, at age 69, he passed away. His son Hani took over the reins of the Islamic Center while another son, Tariq, a professor in Switzerland, publicly eschewed his father’s radicalism. In 2004, Notre Dame University invited Tariq Ramadan to come to Indiana as a professor, but he was barred from entering the United States when the Department of Homeland Security refused to grant him a visa.”
Yes, by the 90s, the fruits of Said Ramadan’s decades of networking and organization building had been borne. Muslim Brotherhood affiliates were wielding influencing in Muslim populations across the globe. Including Iran. Decades of work that appears to include sponsorship by the US — and CIA in particular — going back to Ramadan’s trip to the US in 1953. How does this history help explain what we are seeing unfold today? Are today’s events being facilitated in part from these old ties between Hamas and the Iranian Revolutionary government? We still don’t know since Iran’s involvement remains unclear. But if Iran was involved, this is very relevant history to keep in in mind:
And then we get to this fascinating chapter in the history of Islamist terrorism and the US: it appears the first instance of Islamist terror on US soil was committed on July 22, 1980, by David Belfield, who first met Said Ramadan in 1975 and ended up becoming his “personal secretary, special emissary and devoted servant.” Belfield assassinated an Iranian critic of the Iranian revolution:
It’s kind of hard to come up with a more illustrative piece of this complicated history between the Muslim Brotherhood, the CIA, and the Iranian revolution than the fact that Said Ramadan’s personal secretary committed the first act of Islamist terror in US history by assassinating a critic of the Iranian Revolution. A piece of history from 43 years ago. And here we are, with some sort of bizarre hyper-provocative attack seemingly from this same network and designed to inflame something much bigger. Is this primarily a Hamas operation? A broader Muslim Brotherhood operation? Or something else? It’s too early to say, but not too early to review the relevant history of clandestine power politics that we never really learned in the first place.
There was never really going to be a good explanation for how Israel’s national security state was apparently caught completely off guard by Hamas’s October 7 mass terror attack. But the more we learn, the worse the explanation gets. How bad is it ultimately going to get? Time will tell, but so far it just keeps getting worse.
Like the latest update in NY Times describing a situation where Israeli intelligence apparently decided to just stop eavesdropping on Hamas over a year ago. This includes Israel’s crack Unit 8200 hacking team. We’re also told that the October 7 attack likely took over a year to plan and coordinate. Great timing.
What’s the explanation for the decision to effectively stop spying on Hamas? Well, on the one hand, we’re told that Israeli intelligence was convinced that Hamas had no desire to carry out attacks that would trigger an Israeli invasion of Gaza. Hamas was instead assumed to be focused on fomenting violence in the Palestinian Authority-controlled West Bank.
At the same time, we’re also told that Israel had cultivate extensive human sources inside Hamas and was effectively resting on those laurels. This is a good time to recall the reports that came out days before the October 7 attacks about how Hamas was rocked by Israel managing to acquire a human asset, Khalil Abu Ma’za, who was operating close to Hamas’s leadership for years. Abu Ma’za obviously wasn’t the only human asset. And yet somehow all of these human assets failed to give Israel a heads up on a plot that took over a year to plan.
And then we get to a very interesting additional gross intelligence failure that led up to all of this: US intelligence apparently decided to stop eavesdropping on Hamas over a year ago too. Beyond that, we are told that US intelligence was trying to recruit Hamas assets. In fact, Jonathan Schanzer, a former Treasury Department official and now the senior vice president for research at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, reportedly attended a meeting he had in 2015 with American intelligence and law enforcement officials about suspected Hamas operatives inside the United States. The officials informed him they were trying to recruit the suspected Hamas agents to be “assets” against ISIS.
And that, of course, is the kind of story is eerily reminiscent of the 9/11 revelations earlier this year about how the CIA was apparently trying to recruit some of the 9/11 hijackers and ended up running cover for them and blocking US law enforcement from busting the al Qaeda operation on US soil. So when we hear October 7 characterized as “Israel’s 9/11” and all these claims about how Israeli (and US) intelligence had no idea this attack was on the way, we have to ask: were there by chance certain intelligence units that were very aware of the looming attack but didn’t want to tell anyone out of a fear of disrupting their asset recruitment efforts? If so, it wouldn’t be the first time.
On top of that all is the reality that the newly elected Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, is a representative of the theocrat Council for National Policy, which holds dangerous Christian Zionist views about an apocalyptic ending for the Jewish people. It’s a wildly dangerous state of affairs.
And that’s all why we still have to ask how bad is the real story here? Are these ‘oops, we took our eye off the ball’ explanations plausible? If not, how bad is the real story? Because the more we learn, the worse it looks:
“Despite Israel’s sophisticated technological prowess in espionage, Hamas gunmen had undergone extensive training for the assault, virtually undetected for at least a year. The fighters, who were divided into different units with specific goals, had meticulous information on Israel’s military bases and the layout of kibbutzim.”
Extensive training and preparations for over a year that went virtually undetected by Israel’s national security agencies. Even Unit 8200 stopped eavesdropping on Hamas because they saw it as a wasted effort. That’s the current narrative we’re getting, alongside outright defiance by Benjamin Netanyahu over whether or not his administration had anything to do with this giant intelligence lapse:
Juxtaposing Netanyahu’s denials of culpability is the reality that his government had been warned for months by senior generals that the political turmoil created by Netanyahu’s judicial ‘reforms’ were fundamentally undermining Israel’s armed forces. Warnings that weren’t simply ignored but instead resulted in Netanyahu’s allies attacking these generals over the airwaves:
And then we get to this puzzling addition to the explanation for the massive intelligence failure: part of the reason Israeli intelligence officials assumed they didn’t need to direct their sophisticated surveillance tools towards Hamas is because it was believed the extensive network of human spies already cultivated inside Hamas would be sufficient. Again, recall the reports that came out days before the October 7 attacks about Hamas was rocked by Israel managing to acquire a human asset, Khalil Abu Ma’za, who was operating close to Hamas’s leadership for years. How were all these human assets also kept in the dark about an extensive plan that took more than a year to prepare for?
And then there’s the reality that an empowered Hamas was seen as a means of weakening the Palestinian leadership overall. Which raises an obvious question: assuming Hamas isn’t entirely destroyed by the ongoing Israeli campaign, what can we reasonably expect regarding Hamas’s relative influence vs the Palestinian Authority? Because it seems like Hamas is going to be more popular than ever at this point:
There’s the very interesting questions about the other massive intelligence failure: the US’s intelligence failure. The US just stopped monitoring Hamas too, assuming the Israelis had it handled:
And that brings us to the grimly fascinating apparent reason contributing to the US’s intelligence failure here: US officials were trying to turn Hamas operatives into “assets” against ISIS. Beyond that, Jonathan Schanzer recalls a 2015 meeting about suspected Hamas operatives in the US that US intelligence was hoping to recruit. Again, recall the 9/11 revelation from earlier this year about how the CIA was apparently trying to recruit some of the 9/11 hijackers and ended up running cover for them and blocking US law enforcement from busting the al Qaeda operation on US soil. Did “Israel’s 9/11” include a similar catastrophic asset-recruitment scenario?
So at the same time we’re told the Israeli and the US intelligence agencies decided to just blow off any eavesdropping of Hamas for over a year now, we’re also told that both countries have been eagerly recruiting Hamas human assets. Human assets who apparently neglected to informed either the US or Israel about this impending mass attack. At least that’s the story we’re getting. Which is a reminder that when the public accepts explanations that don’t add up, that’s another kind of “intelligence failure”. Let’s hope this doesn’t turn into another one of those kinds of intelligence failures.
Iran’s nuclear program has been completely obliterated. Forever. The “12 Days” war between Israel and Iran ended with the complete destruction of Iran’s nuclear facilities. End of story.
Obliteration was the word of the day. President Trump insists on it. Intelligence assessments be damned. That’s the comically unhinged narrative that emerged in the hours after the US strikes on three Iranian nuclear facilities over the weekend. A narrative the Trump White House is sticking to following a leaked Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) assessment that reportedly concluded the strikes set Iran’s nuclear weapons program back just a matter or months.
And as we’re going to see, those disagreements between the Trump White House and the US intelligence community aren’t limited to this leaked DIA assessment. The US intelligence community also concluded before the strikes that there was no Iranian orders to build a bomb in place at all. Iran certainly had an ongoing nuclear research and enrichment program, but the scenario being painted of an imminent looming threat simply was not there. It was a conclusion backed by Trump’s Director of National Intelligence (DNI) Tulsi Gabbard. President Trump rejected that intelligence assessment in favor of a much more alarmist interpretation of the available evidence offered to him by the Israeli government. Notably, Gabbard has now fallen in line on the “obliteration” narrative and is denouncing the leaked DNI report.
And as we’re going to see, the decision by Israel to launch this war had little to do with alarm and urgency and everything to do with opportunity. While the Israeli intelligence assessment did include a more alarmist interpretation of the available evidence of Iran’s nuclear program than the US intelligence assessment, it doesn’t sound like there was a huge disagreement with the basic facts or the conclusion that Iran had not yet ordered the development of a bomb. Instead, the Israeli government simply concluded that the strikes against Iran’s air defense last October had left a window open for strikes of this nature but that window wasn’t going to stay open indefinitely. It was a strike consistent with Israel’s longstanding “Begin Doctrine”: a strategy of “anticipatory self-defense” that has been a core of Israel’s strategic thinking ever since the 1981 strike on Iraq’s Osirak nuclear reactor.
We are told The Netanyahu government decided on carrying out these strikes this year back in the fall and had decided to do them whether the US was involved or not. We are also told that Netanyahu ordered the strikes back in March. US intelligence also concluded last year that Israel was planning on some sort of strike of this nature in the first 6 months of this year. Interestingly, we are also tole that part of Israel’s sense of urgency was an awareness that the head of US Central Command, General Michael E. Kurilla, who is described as the “hawk of hawks” when it comes to Iran and someone who doesn’t think a war against wouldn’t necessarily be as costly as others warn.
One final very interesting part of this overall picture is the fact that the Israeli attack utilized drones that were smuggled into Iran by the Mossad and unleashed against Iran’s air defenses during the bombing raids. It’s literally the second time this month that a US ally has used the ‘smuggled drone wave’ tactic, with the June 1 Ukrainian strike deep inside Russia on the Russian strategic bomber fleet being the other example. So now we know the US was working with the Israelis on their war plans. Plans which just happened to include a version of the smuggled drone strike.
And, of course, when it comes to questions about what could be driving the relationship between the Trump administration and the Netanyahu government under the surface, we can’t forget the story of 2016 ‘Russian hack’ that also seems to slip through the cracks: the fact that it was the Netanyahu government that was serving as the middle-man between Roger Stone and Wikileaks and all of the evidence that Israel may have had a hand in executing the ‘Russian hacks’. Compelling evidence exists that Donald Trump owed his first term in office to the actions of the Netanyahu government. It’s the kind of story that should be factor into a story like this but will inevitably be systematically ignored.
Ok, first, here’s a report describing the internal disputes between the Defense Intelligence Agency and the rest of the Trump administration’s intelligence establishment. Even Tulsi Gabbard is now backing the ‘totally destroy’ narrative as the rest of the Trump intelligence community falls into line:
“The report issued by the Defense Intelligence Agency on Monday contradicts statements from Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu about the status of Iran’s nuclear facilities. According to the people, the report found that while the Sunday strikes at the Fordo, Natanz and Isfahan nuclear sites did significant damage, the facilities were not totally destroyed. The people were not authorized to address the matter publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.”
Who should be believe? A leaked DIA report? Or the increasingly aggressive insistence by the Trump Cabinet that Iran’s nuclear program really had been “totally destroyed” and that Iran will never rebuild the facilities? The pessimistic but admittedly “low confident” intelligence report or the lunatic rantings of a Mad King who is demanding reality conform to his desired:
And note how not only are experts warning that Iran might be less inclined to engage in negotiations at this point but that experts were also warning before the strike that it likely couldn’t “obliterate” facilities like Fordo in the first place. In other words, the divide between the Trump administration and the intelligence community started before these strikes were even launched:
And that update on the results of the strike, and in reality-defying response by the Trump administration, brings us to the following Washington Post report describing how both Israel and the US ended up ordering these attacks in the first place. As we’re going see, the conflict between the politicians and in intelligence analysts isn’t limited to the Trump administration:
“Ultimately, when Netanyahu finally launched his surprise attack on Iran in the early hours of June 13 while Trump’s negotiations were still underway, the decision was not so much driven by new intelligence indicating an Iranian sprint for a nuclear weapon or any imminent threat to Israel. Rather, Israel seized on what it saw as a unique opportunity to execute plans, carefully laid months and years in advance, to heavily damage a weakened Iran that had long waged a bloody proxy conflict with Israel and to set back Iranian nuclear and missile programs, Israeli and U.S. officials and advisers to both governments say.”
It wasn’t a preemptive strike intended to destroy an imminent nuclear threat to Israel. It was an opportunity that wasn’t going to be passed up. An opportunity created thanks to Israel’s larger regional offensive waged last year that included the destruction of much of Iran’s air defenses. A preemptive strike of opportunity that Israel reportedly committed itself to back in March, with or without US participation, we are told:
And as the article points out, Netanyahu didn’t devise the policy of preemptive strikes. The “Begin Doctrine” has been a bedrock of Israeli strategic thinking since the 1981 bombing of Iraq’s Osirak nuclear reactor as an act of “anticipatory self-defense.” Still, this isn’t a strategic posture without its critics in the Israeli security establishment, like Danny Citrinowicz, a former head of the Iran desk in the research department of Israeli military intelligence who basically acknowledged that a political route hasn’t really been given a chance. That’s a key part of this strategic posture: it’s entirely based on military strikes and doesn’t even leave open the option of a political agreement:
Instead, it appears the Israeli justification for all of this preemptive alarm was NOT rooted in a conclusion that an order had been issued to create a bomb. Instead, it was based on an assessment that the Iranians were conducting nuclear research that doesn’t have exclusively civilian applications. Which is a pretty loose pretext for preemptive strikes of this nature:
But as the article also makes clear, the divide between the US and Israel on the wisdom of this strike was more a divide between the intelligence analysts and the politicians, with President Trump rejecting the US intelligence in favor of an interpretation that suggested Iran was taking steps toward building a bomb. As one observer put it, “It may be that the U.S. and Israeli intelligence services were on the same page, but they weren’t on the same page as their political leadership”:
Also note how the attacks by Israeli didn’t just include bombs and missiles fired from jets or drones launched from Israel. In a tactic that sounds incredibly similar the drone attack carried out by Ukraine back on June 1 on Russian strategic bombs. Drones launched from trucks smuggled into Russia. It’s rather remarkable that two US allies carried out the same smuggled-mass-drone tactic within weeks of each other:
And muddled divide between the US and Israeli intelligence assessments brings us to this very interesting set of details: first, we are told that US intelligence pick up on Israeli preparations for such an attack in last 2024, with the expectation that the attack would be carried out in the first six months of 2025. But then we’re also told that the sense of urgency by the Israelis was due, in part, to the anticipated retirement of General Michael E. Kurilla, the US Central Command chief who had helped make war plans with Israel throughout the spring. Did those war plans include these strikes against Iran?
And we can see in the following Responsible Statecraft report, General Kurilla isn’t just a US general sympathetic to Israel’s stance on Iran. He’s considered the “Hawk of Hawks” on Iran inside the Pentagon:
““He’s a hawk of hawks,” noted Curt Mills, executive director of the American Conservative. “(The Israelis) knew they were losing an ally soon. They knew the negotiations (with Iran) were ongoing. The Iranians had signaled that they were close to accepting a deal days before the strike. So all of these things were a factor.”
A “hawk of hawks” when it comes to Iran. It’s not hard to see why the Israelis wanted to carry out these strikes while Kurilla is still serving:
But if having General Kurilla still serving really is critical to Israel’s war plans, the fact that the general is slated to retire soon suggest that any more war plans Israel has will have to be initiated sooner rather than later.
Also keep in mind that if the Trump administration really is determined to force the ‘totally obliterated’ narrative indefinitely, and Iran does end up reestablishing its nuclear program while Trump is still in office, some sort of new pretext will have to be established for future strikes. No point in re-bombing something that was already “obliterated”. Which is a warning that the next round of “anticipatory self-defense” is going to have to revolve around some other sort of declared existential threat. Will it be biological warfare? Chemical weapons? Some sort of super hacking capacity? Time will tell, but try not to be shocked if the world suddenly ‘learns’ about a new Iranian wonder-weapon no one saw coming requiring an immediate overwhelming response.
Help is on the way. That was the message President Trump decided to share with the people of Iran of social media. At the same time the government’s crackdown on the major protests roiling the country, triggered by a currency collapse, continues to grow more and more deadly. We have no idea what kind of help Trump was referring to, but he’s apparently considering a another regime change operation. Which brings us to a grimly fascinating dynamic that has emerged among the Iranian opposition in exile. A very divided opposition already at war with itself. On one side, there’s the backers of the Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi, who has openly championed the protests and put himself forward as the future king willing to return to power and lead the nation. And on the other side there’s the National Council of Resistance of Iran and Mujahedin‑e Khalq (MEK), a group that officially calls for a democratic, secular Iran in recent decades, but reportedly operates as a mind-controlling personality cult. Back in 2018 during the first Trump administration, it was MEK that Trump officials was eagerly working with during the major Iranian protest of that year which were also triggered, in part, by a currency collapse. Then-National Security Advisor John Bolton was especially pro-MEK.
And here we are, in 2026, with hopes for regime change even possibly higher under a second Trump administration, and no John Bolton. Maybe the second Trump administration will adopted a MEK-favorable approach again, but that remains to be seen. The moment both MEK and the Pahlavi dynasty have long waited for is almost here. But it’s a moment the two movement can’t exactly share. Or at least aren’t willing to share. Which brings us to the following set of stories about that MEK/Pahlavi divide that looks likely to deepen the protests in Iran grow increasingly volatile and deadly. Starting with a bizarre story out of Los Angeles, where the largest Iranian community outside of Iran resides. A truck drove into a crowd of demonstrators who had gathered in support of the Iranian protesters. But it wasn’t a terror attack and fortunately there were no serious injuries. Instead, the truck was covered in slogans like “No Shah. No Regime. USA: Don’t Repeat 1953. No Mullah,” which was reportedly not the view of the crowd. We are told police stopped the truck as it approached the crowd and asked him to turn around. But then are told demonstrators tore the signs off his truck and attack him at which point he drove towards a group of LAPD officers, with some individuals jumping out of the way. Police appear to have concluded the driver intended to get a message out at the demonstration, but became overwhelmed by the situation.
That highly volatile situation serves as a backdrop for role Reza Pahlavi is offering Iran and the world community. A role that goes beyond serving as king under a resume Iranian monarchy, although Pahlavi suggests there could also be an elected leader too. Back in May of 2025, Pahlavi unveiled the “Cyrus Accords”, a plan focused on establishing deep economic ties between Iran and Israel, with Israel providing Iran with key water technology and the construction of major pipelines that would move natural gas to European markets. The name “Cyrus” wasn’t just flourish. Pahlavi and his backers are openly connecting the plan to the biblical role King Cyrus played in freeing the Jews and allowing them to return to Israel and build a second temple. Pahlavi embraces the idea of being a modern day Cyrus who finally brings piece to the Iranian and Israeli people and calls for the building of the third temple, an event many Christians believe is a sign of the End Times. Pahlavi is framing his return to the throne as a biblical event.
When it comes to persuading the Trump administration to pick an opposition group to back, the bible prophecy angle is a sadly pretty savvy move. There’s no way Trump wouldn’t be tempted to back that option. Except for one minor snag: Trump has already been declared the modern day Cyrus by many of his evangelical backers. It started in his first term, as a biblical metaphor to excuse devout Christians for defending someone as un-Christian as Trump. You can’t have two Cyruses at the same time. And Pahlavi returning to the throne, ushering in peace with Israel, would obvious be a much more Cyrus‑y biography. If Trump backs Pahlavi his Cyrus status is in peril. Whatever will he do?
The fourth article excerpt below is from a Times of Israel piece by Marziyeh Amirizadeh, an Iranian Christian convert who spent time in prison and escaped to the US. Amirizadeh unsuccessfully ran for congress in the 2022 GOP primaries. Her piece is written from a staunchly pro-Pahlavi view and all about how the MEK is fake opposition with no support, but also that the Iranian people are very excited for the monarchy’s return and are thankful for things like Israeli bombing campaigns and eager for some sort of foreign intervention. The Pahlavi crowd sees their moment and they are aiming for a full monarchical return. And while Pahlavi himself isn’t yet calling for US military intervention, his followers aren’t holding back. That’s the play we are seeing emerging from the Pahlavi forces as the fight to court the Trump administration gets underway.
Will the Trump administration turn to MEK like it did back in 2018? Or will Pahlavian End Times biblical agenda catch Trump’s fancy? Time will tell, but it’s looking like it’s regime change time for Iran, and replacement options are a cult and the crown prince eager to dabble in End Times bible prophecy diplomacy. These are our stupid times. Maybe stupid End Times. Ok, first, here’s a report from LA about the anti-Pahlavi truck that drove into Pahlavi’s crowd:
“Demonstrators attempted to remove a sign attached to the side of the truck that read, “No Shah. No Regime. USA: Don’t Repeat 1953. No Mullah.” The Shah of Iran was overthrown in the 1979 Islamic Revolution. In 1953, a coup ousted Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh.”
It’s not a surprise to find large protests in the largest Iranian community outside of Iran. Nor is it a shock to find a range of views among the protesters. But this truck incident was rather unexpected. It appears a truck covered in slogans protesting both the regime in Iran and the pro-monarchy supporters approached the protest, which was apparently heavily attended by a pro-monarchy crowd, resulting in the driver panicking as he slowly drove through the crowd. The slogan on the side of the truck, “No Shah. No Regime. USA: Don’t Repeat 1953. No Mullah.” was apparently quite triggering for what was presumably a pro-monarchy crowd:
And that truck incident brings us to the one of the facts that could end up playing a significant role in how this overall protest movement plays out: The exiled crown prince, Reza Pahlavi, is placing himself at the center of this protest movement and clearly has ambitions of being Iran’s next leader:
“Amid these events, Reza Pahlavi, the 65-year-old exiled crown prince and son of the late Shah, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, has re-emerged as a leading figure in the various Iranian opposition movements. In messages shared on social media, Pahlavi spurred protesters onto the streets Thursday night and Friday. He urged demonstrators to continue public street protests over the weekend, carrying the country’s old lion-and-sun flag and other national symbols used during the time of his father to “claim public spaces as your own.””
Reza Pahlavi clearly has significant support among the Iranian ex-pat community and he’s not shying away from not just playing a public role in encouraging the protests but putting himself forward as the future leader of the country. Specifically, the future monarch of the country. When people chant “No Shah. No Regime. USA: Don’t Repeat 1953. No Mullah,” they are chanting against Reza Pahlavi’s open ambitions:
It’s not hard to see why many Iranians might be vehemently opposed to the return of a monarchy. It’s not exactly a universally appealing revolutionary rallying cry. But as the following Israel365 piece describes, the ambitions behind the movement to reinstall the Pahlavi dynasty includes as lot more than a return of the king. With big plans for a normalization of relations with Israel, Pahlavi is apparently framing himself as a kind of modern-day Cyrus, the biblical Persian ruler who freed the Jews from their captivity, allowed them to return to Israel and rebuild their temple. Or at least that’s one way to interpret his grand “Cyrus Accords” proposed peace plan with Israel. In fact, Pahlavi appears to even envision that the return of his dynasty will do so much to improve regional ties to Israel that it will pave the way for the building of a third temple, an event prophesied by Christians to foretell the End-Times. Which raises the question of what Peter Thiel — who claims to be obsessed with holding off the End Times at all costs — would have to say about that. But there’s figure who could end up playing a very big role in how this plays out who might also be rather non-plussed to learn about Pahlavi putting himself forward as the modern day Cyrus: President Trump. Recall how a number of Trump’s prominent evangelical backers have been making comparisons between Trump and Cyrus for years now. You can’t have two Cyruses at the same time! In other words, Pahlavi is encroaching on Trump’s biblical prophecy turf:
“Iran’s exiled Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi told The Wall Street Journal this week that the Islamic Republic is collapsing from within and that Iranians themselves—not American military intervention—will bring down the regime. Speaking as nationwide protests against Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s rule intensified, Pahlavi rejected speculation that Washington might extract the supreme leader or engineer a power transition, as President Trump recently accomplished in Venezuela. The Crown Prince’s comments came alongside his unveiling of a proposed “Cyrus Accords” framework that would establish full diplomatic and economic cooperation between a future democratic Iran and Israel, marking what he called the restoration of historic ties severed by the 1979 revolution.”
As we can see, Pahlavi isn’t calling for direct US military intervention. At least not yet. But it’s the recent unveiling of his proposed “Cyrus Accords” that suggests he has plans to return to power with the backing of much of Iran’s regional adversaries. Notably, Pahlavi didn’t just openly praise President Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio for a shift in US policy towards Iran. He openly praised the Israeli government and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in particular. He is openly planning on returning to power as the new monarch of Iran on a platform of vocal support for Israel. It’s not hard to see why Israelis might be open to the plans, but what about Iranians? Who is Pahlavi even trying to appeal to at this point?
We’re also told that when the protests in Iran initially erupted, crowds were chanting slogans like “This is the final battle! Pahlavi will return.” Or slogans like “No to Gaza, no to Lebanon, I give my life for Iran,” which would purportedly indicate a populace that doesn’t really care about the post-October 7 slaughter in Gaza. Is this true? Because that the narrative getting pushed at this point:
Then we get to the proposed deepening of economic ties between Iran and Israel that would take place under the Cyrus Accords, including major new pipelines to transfer gas and oil to Europe. Pahlavi even sent a delegation to tour Israel water infrastructure. It’s not hard to see why many international players might be keen on sitting this come to fruition. It’s far less clear the Iranian public would back this, although that’s the narrative we’re getting:
But for all of the modernization plans put forward by these Cyrus Accords proposals, it’s the claiming of the biblical role of King Cyrus that makes this such a fascinatingly provocative proposals, seemingly edging in on President Trump’s “King Cyrus” status. And with his apparent hopes of the rebuilding of the Temple Mount, as foretold in biblical End Times prophecies, he’s effectively trying to cast his return as a kind of prophecy fulfilled. Again, it’s not hard to see why A LOT of international movement might be keen on events that could be cast as the fulfillment of prophecy. What’s far less clear is what the Iranian public feels about this:
And with that bizarrely self-aggrandizing Cyrus Accords proposal serving as Pahlavi’s offer to the global community should he be installed as king, here’s a look at how one of his US supporters is handling the public relationships dimension to this diplomatic push: according to Marziyeh Amirizadeh — an Iranian immigrant with a biography that involves converting to Christianity and spending time in an Iranian prison — the people are Iran are clamoring for a return of the Pahlavi dynasty. But you might not know that if you listen to the fake opposition who oppose him. In particular, the Mujahideen‑e Khalq (MEK), who are actually secret supports of the Iranian regime, according to Amirizadeh. And if this seems like over-the-top rhetoric between rival opposition groups, keep in mind how the first Trump administration’s Iranian regime change plans back in 2018 appeared to rely heavily on the MEK, with John Bolton viewing the MEK as a key ideological partner. And with the Iranian regime now looking more fragile than it did in 2018, we should probably expect this Pahlavi/MEK rivalry to only heat up the longer these Iranian protests continue:
“Ater 47 years, Iranians have had enough of the suffering and are demanding a change. The Islamic Republic has been brutal, destroying Iran and its potential in the world. Those who remember 1979 are having buyers’ remorse. Those whose protests then mistakenly ushered in the ayatollahs and their Islamic extremism regret being deceived and vowing not to be deceived again. That’s why across the board, Iranians are praying for the return of the monarchy, the system of government under which Iran, and Persia before that, existed for centuries.”
LOL, yes, Iranians are just praying for the return of the monarchy. Not a return to democracy. No, no. They want the monarchy. At least that’s the narrative we’re getting, this time from Marziyeh Amirizadeh, who goes on to claim that the MEK and its associated organizations are actually all fake and hated by the Iranian people. She even goes on to warn about the slogan “We want neither a king nor a leader (referring to Ayatollah Khamenei), Curse to both tyrants,” which sure sounds a lot like what was on that truck that drove into the LA protests:
But then we get to the messaging about the desires for a foreign military intervention. Unlike Pahlavi, Amirizadeh is adamant that Iranians do want a foreign intervention and were, in fact, thanking Israel for bombing the country last year. Those Iranian ex-pats warning against a foreign intervention are all part of the fake opposition, according to Amirizadeh:
Marziyeh Amirizadeh wasn’t delivering an ambiguous message. The people of Iran are calling for a foreign military intervention to reinstall the Pahlavi dynasty. That was her plea. The kind of plea the Trump administration is undoubtedly being inundated with from the Pahlavi crowd at this point. Along with the all of the pleas from MEK supporters, who are undoubtedly lobbying the hell out of the Trump administration right now too. It’s not clear what regular Iranians who don’t support theocrats but also aren’t in favor or reinstalling a monarchy or backing a cult think at this point. But this is a story about regime change schemes and the lunatics behind them. It was never really about the Iranian people.