Rôle of US Former Pres. Carter Emerging in Illegal Financial Demands on Shah of Iran

Iranian Alert -- March 15, 2004 [EST]-- IRAN LIVE THREAD --Americans for Regime Change in Iran ^ | March 15, 2004 | Alan Peters

[Eala]

Defense & Foreign Affairs Daily
Volume XXII, No. 46
Monday, March 15, 2004
© 2004, Global Information System, ISSA

Exclusive. Analysis. By Alan Peters, 1 GIS.

Strong intelligence has begun to emerge that US President Jimmy Carter attempted to demand financial favors for his political friends from the Shah of Iran. The rejection of this demand by the Shah could well have led to Pres. Carter’s resolve to remove the Iranian Emperor from office.

The linkage between the destruction of the Shah’s Government — directly attributable to Carter’s actions — and the Iran-Iraq war which cost millions of dead and injured on both sides, and to the subsequent rise of radical Islamist terrorism makes the new information of considerable significance.

Pres. Carter’s anti-Shah feelings appeared to have ignited after he sent a group of several of his friends from his home state, Georgia, to Tehran with an audience arranged with His Majesty directly by the Oval Office and in Carter’s name. At this meeting, as reported by Prime Minister Amir Abbas Hoveyda to some confidantes, these businessmen told the Shah that Pres. Carter wanted a contract. previously awarded to Brown & Root to build a huge port complex at Bandar Mahshahr, to be cancelled and as a personal favor to him to be awarded to the visiting group at 10 percent above the cost quoted by Brown & Root.

The group would then charge the 10 percent as a management fee and supervise the project for Iran, passing the actual construction work back to Brown & Root for implementation, as previously awarded. They insisted that without their management the project would face untold difficulties at the US end and that Pres. Carter was “trying to be helpful”. They told the Shah that in these perilous political times, he should appreciate the favor which Pres. Carter was doing him.

According to Prime Minister Hoveyda, the Georgia visitors left a stunned monarch and his bewildered Prime Minister speechless, other than to later comment among close confidantes about the hypocrisy of the US President, who talked glibly of God and religion but practiced blackmail and extortion through his emissaries.

The multi-billion dollar Bandar Mahshahr project would have made 10 percent “management fee” a huge sum to give away to Pres. Carter’s friends as a favor for unnecessary services. The Shah politely declined the “personal” management request which had been passed on to him. The refusal appeared to earn the Shah the determination of Carter to remove him from office.

Carter subsequently refused to allow tear gas and rubber bullets to be exported to Iran when anti-Shah rioting broke out, nor to allow water cannon vehicles to reach Iran to control such outbreaks, generally instigated out of the Soviet Embassy in Tehran. There was speculation in some Iranian quarters — as well as in some US minds — at the time and later that Carter’s actions were the result of either close ties to, or empathy for, the Soviet Union, which was anxious to break out of the longstanding US-led strategic containment of the USSR, which had prevented the Soviets from reaching the warm waters of the Indian Ocean.

Sensing that Iran’s exports could be blocked by a couple of ships sunk in the Persian Gulf shipping lanes, the Shah planned a port which would have the capacity to handle virtually all of Iran’s sea exports unimpeded.

Contrary to accusations leveled at him about the huge, “megalomaniac” projects like Bandar Mahshahr, these served as a means to provide jobs for a million graduating high school students every year for whom there were no university slots available. Guest workers, mostly from Pakistan and Afghanistan were used to start and expand the projects and Iranians replaced the foreigners as job demand required, while essential infrastructure for Iran was built ahead of schedule.

In late February 2004, Islamic Iran’s Deputy Minister of Economy stated that the country needed $18-billion a year to create one-million jobs and achieve economic prosperity. And at the first job creation conference held in Tehran’s Amir Kabir University, Iran’s Student News Agency estimated the jobless at some three-million. Or a budget figure of $54-billion to deal with the problem.

Thirty years earlier, the Shah had already taken steps to resolve the same challenges, which were lost in the revolution which had been so resolutely supported by Jimmy Carter.

A quarter-century after the toppling of the Shah and his Government by the widespread unrest which had been largely initiated by groups with Soviet funding — but which was, ironically, to bring the mullahs rather than the radical-left to power — Ayatollah Shariatmadari’s warning that the clerics were not equipped to run the country was echoed by the Head of Islamic Iran’s Investment Organization, who said: “We are hardly familiar with the required knowledge concerning the proper use of foreign resources both in State and private sectors, nor how to make the best use of domestic resources.” Not even after 25 years.

Historians and observers still debate Carter’s reasons for his actions during his tenure at the White House, where almost everything, including shutting down satellite surveillance over Cuba at an inappropriate time for the US, seemed to benefit Soviet aims and policies. Some claim he was inept and ignorant, others that he was allowing his liberal leanings to overshadow US national interests.

The British Foreign & Commonwealth Office had enough doubts in this respect, even to the extent of questioning whether Carter was a Russian mole, that they sent around 200 observers to monitor Carter’s 1980 presidential campaign against Ronald Reagan to see if the Soviets would try to “buy” the presidency for Carter.

In the narrow aspect of Carter setting aside international common sense to remove the US’ most powerful ally in the Middle East, this focused change was definitely contrary to US interests and events over the next 25 years proved this.

According to Prime Minister Hoveyda, Jimmy Carter’s next attack on the Shah was a formal country to country demand that the Shah sign a 50-year oil agreement with the US to supply oil at a fixed price of $8 a barrel. No longer couched as a personal request, the Shah was told he should heed the contract proposal if he wished to enjoy continued support from the US. In these perilous, political times which, could become much worse.

Faced with this growing pressure and threat, the monarch still could not believe that Iran, the staunchest US ally in the region, other than Israel, would be discarded or maimed so readily by Carter, expecting he would be prevailed upon by more experienced minds to avoid destabilizing the regional power structure and tried to explain his position. Firstly, Iran did not have 50-years of proven oil reserves that could be covered by a contract. Secondly, when the petrochemical complex in Bandar Abbas, in the South, was completed a few years later, each barrel of oil would produce $1,000 worth of petrochemicals so it would be treasonous for the Shah to give oil away for only $8.

Apologists, while acknowledging that Carter had caused the destabilization of the monarchy in Iran, claim he was only trying to salvage what he could from a rapidly deteriorating political situation to obtain maximum benefits for the US. But, after the Shah was forced from the throne, Carter’s focused effort to get re-elected via the Iran hostage situation points to less high minded motives.

Rumor has always had it that Carter had tried to negotiate to have the US hostages, held for 444 days by the Islamic Republic which he had helped establish in Iran, released just before the November 1980 election date, but that opposition (Republican) candidate Ronald Reagan had subverted, taken over and blocked the plan. An eye-witness account of the seizure by “students” of the US Embassy on November 4, 1979, in Tehran confirms a different scenario.

The mostly “rent-a-crowd” group of “students” organized to climb the US Embassy walls was spearheaded by a mullah on top of a Volkswagen van, who with a two-way radio in one hand and a bullhorn in the other, controlled the speed of the march on the Embassy according to instructions he received over the radio. He would slow it down, hurry it up and slow it down again in spurts and starts, triggering the curiosity of an educated pro-Khomeini vigilante, who later told the story to a friend in London.

When asked by the vigilante for the reason of this irregular movement, the stressed cleric replied that he had instructions to provide the US Embassy staff with enough time to destroy their most sensitive documents and to give the three most senior US diplomats adequate opportunity to then take refuge at the Islamic Republic Foreign Ministry rather than be taken with the other hostages. Someone at the Embassy was informing the Foreign Ministry as to progress over the telephone and the cleric was being told what to do over his radio.

The vigilante then asked why the Islamic Government would bother to be so accommodating to the Great Satan and was told that the whole operation was planned in advance by Prime Minister Mehdi Bazargan’s revolutionary Government with Pres. Carter in return for Carter having helped depose the Shah and that this was being done to ensure Carter got re-elected. “He helped us, now we help him” was the matter-of-fact comment from the cleric.

In 1978 while the West was deciding to remove His Majesty Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi from the throne, Shariatmadari was telling anyone who would listen not to allow “Ayatollah” Ruhollah Khomeini and his velayat faghih (Islamic jurist) version of Islam to be allowed to govern Iran. Ayatollah Shariatmadari noted: “We mullahs will behave like bickering whores in a brothel if we come to power ... and we have no experience on how to run a modern nation so we will destroy Iran and lose all that has been achieved at such great cost and effort.”2

Pres. Carter reportedly responded that Khomeini was a religious man — as he himself claimed to be — and that he knew how to talk to a man of God, who would live in the holy city of Qom like an Iranian “pope” and act only as an advisor to the secular, popular revolutionary Government of Mehdi Bazargan and his group of anti-Shah executives, some of whom were US-educated and expected to show preferences for US interests.

Carter’s mistaken assessment of Khomeini was encouraged by advisors with a desire to form an Islamic “green belt” to contain atheist Soviet expansion with the religious fervor of Islam. Eventually all 30 of the scenarios on Iran presented to Carter by his intelligence agencies proved wrong, and totally misjudged Khomeini as a person and as a political entity.

Today, Iranian-born, Grand Ayatollah Ali Al-Sistani, the dominant Shia leader in Iraq faces Shariatmadari’s dilemma and shares the same “quietist” Islamic philosophy of sharia (religious law) guidance rather than direct governing by the clerics themselves. Sistani’s “Khomeini” equivalent, militant Ayatollah Mohammed Baqir al-Sadr, was gunned down in 1999 by then-Iraqi Pres. Saddam Hussein’s forces. Sadr’s son, 30-year-old Muqtada al-Sadr, lacks enough followers or religious seniority/clout to immediately oppose Sistani but has a hard core of violent followers biding their time.

According to all estimates, the young Sadr waits for the June 2004 scheduled handover of power in Iraq, opening the way for serious, militant intervention on his side by Iranian clerics. The Iranian clerical leaders, the successors to Khomeini, see, far more clearly than US leaders and observers, the parallels between 1979-80 and 2004: as a result, they have put far more effort into activities designed to ensure that “Reagan’s successor”, US Pres. George W. Bush, does not win power.

Footnotes:

1. © 2004 Alan Peters. The name “Alan Peters” is a nom de plume for a writer who was for many years involved in intelligence and security matters in Iran. He had significant access inside Iran at the highest levels during the rule of the Shah, until early 1979.

2. See Defense & Foreign Affairs Daily, March 2, 2004: Credibility and Legitimacy of Ruling Iranian Clerics Unraveling as Pressures Mount Against Them; The Source of Clerical Ruling Authority Now Being Questioned. This report, also by Alan Peters, details the background of “Ayatollah” Khomeini, the fact that his qualifications for his religious title were not in place, and the fact that he was not of Iranian origin.

[Eala]

No source link for this was posted and I can't speak for the veracity of the report (YMMV, OTOH NYT & Debka material appears on FR), but this seemed an item that shouldn't remain "buried" on the Iran Daily Thread.

[Diogenesis]

BUMP

Rôle of US Former Pres. Carter Emerging in Illegal Financial Demands on Shah of Iran

.
Anyone with more info?

[Andyman]

As much as I dislike Carter as a Pesident and an ex-President, I simply cannot see him doing this.

[Pan_Yans Wife]

Excellent characterizations. History will not be kind to Carter.

[hedgetrimmer]

And he, like Clinton keeps running around trying to define his "legacy".

[Fiddlstix]

[pepsionice]

I don't necessarily believe that Carter himself allowed it...but he was one of the worst presidents in 100 years when it came executive management and capable people under him. There were dozens of Carter appointees who were simply out of their league and allowed various special companies and special interest groups to walk all over the US government. This was Bill Clinton's problem too. There is something to be said about men who have managed large companies and realize that the people you bring in...often have agendas in mind. And you have to set these people in the right frame of mind on day one....and if they can't perform right....you have to be able to terminate them. Carter could not accomplish that...and simply ran a very-poor government.

[marron]

I once had a much higher opinion of Carter, I always said that he was a lousy president but a good man. But I've had 20 years since he left office to observe him and I have come to the conclusion that he is a vicious man, he has never hesitated to align himself with dictators against his own country, against all logic.

And the betrayal of the Shah goes down in history as one of the worst errors in a century filled with disastrous errors. He brought down a pro-west, pro-US modernizer and replaced him with Islamists determined to confront the US and destroy Israel, who took their country into a time-warp from which it has not yet emerged.

I remember the Shah, dying of cancer, going country to country and Carter using his influence to see that he was refused refuge in every one. It disgusted me then, but I continued to give him the benefit of the doubt. I don't now. I now see his treatment of the deposed and dying Shah as a window into a diseased soul.

[First_Salute]

Overthrow was a Soviet KGB operation; the pace was set by the Russians; the radio communications were all intercepted and read by the U.S. The Russians were intercepting our embassy communications, and we in turn were monitoring the Russians' subsequent communications with the Islamic fascists.

[Eala]

I have to say that the decline of my opinion of Carter tracks that of marron rather closely.

[Just mythoughts]

"IF" This is true it explains much about the Panama Canal.

AND further still, explains why JFKerry is sending emails to Iran.

Talk about a WOLF in SHEEP's clothing!

[Ditto]

I can buy some of his Georgia buddies trying to strong-arm the Shaw. Old Mr. Peanut played some rough politics and contrary to popular wisdom, he was never a "nice person." He was always and remains, and egocentric prick.

But I lost it with the embassy takeover. There was absolutely no upside for him that I can imagine to support that. As to allowing the Shaw to fall, I agree he allowed it to happen and probably was glad. Not out of any geopolitical interests, but he simply hated the Shaw because of his own moral smugness which prevented him from seeing the greater national interest in supporting the Shaw.

Jimmy Carter is above all, a self-rightous jerk.

[aShepard]

History is not being kind to Carter's totally inept legacy.

With the speed of modern electronics, let's hope that it doesn't take two decades to get the real info on the flawed Willard legacy.

I'd kind'a like Clinton exposed during this election cycle!

[kenth]

I'd kind'a like Clinton exposed during this election cycle!

He just lives for people to say that sort of thing...

[hoosierpearl]

I thought he was a good man but a lousy president for a long time too. Every time any president tries to do something good, there is Carter to knock him down. If he really was a good man, he wouldn't act like that. Going to another country to oversee elections and approving election fraud, going to Korea and doing that stupid giveaway with no proof the Koreans would do what they promised. Carter is just plain evil, the posturing of being a good man is a lie. He defends every Castro who comes down the road, every evil murdering Communist.

[<1/1,000,000th%]

Great post!

[Polyxene]

It will be the same if Kerry is elected -- worse maybe. He doesn't have a clue as to what it takes to be the leader of this country.

[syriacus]

I once had a much higher opinion of Carter, I always said that he was a lousy president but a good man. But I've had 20 years since he left office to observe him and I have come to the conclusion that he is a vicious man, he has never hesitated to align himself with dictators against his own country, against all logic.

I voted two times for Carter.

And I agree with your assessment of his nastiness. He likes to cause trouble.

[Southack]

Jimmy Carter Unmasked--Finally! - From KGB Ties To His Rigged Nobel Peace Prize

Book: Carter, Democrats Asked Soviets to Stop Reagan, Sway U.S. Elections.

 

http://www.americanpresident.org/history/jimmycarter/

 

James Earl Carter Jr. (1977-1981)
39th President of the United States Vice President: Walter Mondale (1977-1981) Born: October 1, 1924, Plains, Georgia Nickname: "Jimmy" Education: Georgia Southwestern College, 1941-1942; Georgia Institute of Technology, 1942-1943; United States Naval Academy, 1943-1946 (class of 1947); Union College, 1952-1953 Religion: Baptist Marriage: Eleanor Rosalynn Smith (b. August 18, 1927), July 7, 1946 Children: John William (Jack) (1947-); James Earl III (Chip) (1950-); Donnel Jeffrey (Jeff) (1952-); and Amy Lynn (1967-) Career: Soldier; Farmer, Warehouseman, Public Official, Professor Writings: Why Not the Best? (1975); A Government as Good as Its People (1977); The Wit and Wisdom of Jimmy Carter (1977); Keeping Faith (1982); Everything to Gain (1987); An Outdoor Journal (1988); Turning Point (1992); The Blood of Abraham (1993); Always a Reckoning (1995); Living Faith (1996); The Virtues of Aging (1998); An Hour Before Daylight (2001).

	Contributing Editor: Robert A. Strong, Washington and Lee University

Biography: A Life in Brief

James Earl ("Jimmy") Carter’s one-term presidency is remembered for the events that overwhelmed it—inflation, energy crisis, war in Afghanistan, and hostages in Iran. After one term in office, voters strongly rejected Jimmy Carter’s honest but gloomy outlook in favor of Ronald Reagan’s telegenic optimism. {The “morning in America” theme is from the 1984 presidential campaign, not from 1980.  Does it belong here?}  In the past two decades, however, there has been wider recognition that Carter, despite a lack of experience, confronted several huge problems with steadiness, courage, and idealism. Along with his predecessor Gerald Ford, Carter must be given credit for restoring the balance to the constitutional system after the excesses of the Johnson and Nixon "imperial presidency."

Carter was the first American president born in a hospital, and was raised on his family’s farm outside the small town of Plains, Georgia, where the family home lacked electricity and indoor plumbing. Jimmy was named after his father, a businessman who kept a farm and store in Plains. Carter’s mother, "Miz" Lillian, a nurse by training, set a moral example for her son by crossing the strict lines of segregation in 1920s Georgia to counsel poor African American women on matters of health care.

Jimmy graduated valedictorian of the class at Plains High School. Captivated by the stories of exotic lands that his uncle visited in the U.S. Navy, Carter enrolled in the U.S. Naval Academy. He graduated in 1946 in the top tenth of his class, and signed on as an officer under the tough but inspirational Captain Hyman Rickover in the Navy’s first experimental nuclear submarine. (Rickover was later to become an admiral, and build America’s nuclear submarine force.)

Sowing Seeds of Change

In 1953, Carter and his new wife Rosalynn faced a difficult decision. His father, Earl, had died of cancer, and the family peanut farm and his mother’s livelihood were in danger. Resigning from the Navy, Carter and his wife returned to Georgia to save the farm. After a difficult first few years, the farm began to prosper. He became a deacon and Sunday school teacher in the Plains Baptist Church and began serving on local civic boards before being elected to two terms in the Georgia state senate. There he earned a reputation as a tough, independent operator who attacked wasteful government practices and helped repeal laws designed to discourage African Americans from voting.

Though he had always stood up for civil rights and inclusion, and was able to win reelection to the state senate against a segregationist opponent, Carter was stung by a humiliating defeat in a run for governor of Georgia in 1966. He attributed this loss to a lack of support from segregationist whites, who had turned out in large numbers to vote for his opponent, a nationally known segregationist named Lester Maddox. In a bid to win their vote in the 1970 governor’s race, Carter minimized appearances before African American groups, and even sought the endorsements of avowed segregationists, a move that some critics call deeply hypocritical. Yet after he became governor of Georgia in 1971, he surprised many Georgians by declaring that the era of segregation was over!

Presidential Politics: Scandal, Conflict and Crisis

As Carter watched the defeat of Democratic presidential candidate George McGovern in 1972, he knew he would have to market himself as a different type of Democrat to have a shot at the White House in 1976. He was completely unknown on the national stage. In the aftermath of Nixon’s Watergate scandal, however, this became an advantage. It also helped Carter that the disgraced Nixon and Vice President Spiro Agnew were replaced on the republican ticket by Gerald Ford, a political insider with no charisma and an uncanny knack for falling down stairs on camera. Despite an ill-advised interview in Playboy magazine, which plummeted his rating in the polls, Carter squeaked out a narrow victory.

Carter’s newcomer status soon showed itself in his inability to make deals with Congress. Sensing his shallow public support, Congress shot down key portions of his consumer protection bill. Carter was determined to free the nation from dependency on foreign oil by encouraging alternate energy sources and deregulating domestic oil pricing. But the creation of a pricing cartel by OPEC, the oil producing countries organization, sent oil prices soaring, caused rampant inflation, and a serious recession. Carter was also deeply troubled by public scandals involving his family, including a mysterious $250,000 payment by the government of Libya to Carter’s brother Billy.

Foreign affairs during the Carter administration were equally troublesome. Critics thrashed both Carter’s plans to relinquish control of the Panama Canal and his response to Soviet aggression in Afghanistan by pulling out of the Olympics and ending the sale of wheat to the Russians. His recognition of communist China, which expanded on Nixon’s China policy, and his negotiation of new arms control agreements with the Soviets, were both criticized by conservatives in the Republican Party. But the most serious crisis of Carter’s presidency involved Iran. When the Ayatollah Khomeini seized power there, the U.S. offered sanctuary to the ailing Shah, angering the new Iranian government, which then encouraged student militants to storm the American embassy and take over fifty Americans hostage. Carter’s ineffectual handling of the much-televised hostage crisis, and the disastrous failed attempt to rescue them in 1980, doomed his presidency, even though he negotiated their release shortly before leaving office.

Carter is positively remembered, however, for the historic 1978 Camp David Accords, where he mediated a historic peace agreement between Israel’s Menachem Begin and Egypt’s Anwar Sadat. This vital summit revived a long-dormant practice of presidential peacemaking, something every succeeding chief executive has emulated to varying degrees. Nevertheless, because of perceived weaknesses as a domestic and foreign policy leader, and because of the poor performance of the economy, Carter was easily defeated by Republican Ronald Reagan in 1980.

Since leaving office, Carter has remained active, serving as a freelance ambassador for a variety of international missions and advising presidents on Middle East and human rights issues.

[P8riot]

LMAO!

[dalebert]

I can see Carter doing this.

[fella]

Just as Pesident Grant was manipulated and used by unethical political companions now it appears Carter was used in the same way. It is rather distrubing that it has take 25 years for this to come to light, it appears that secrets can be kept.

[F.J. Mitchell]

They say the good die young. Look how long poor ol' Billy Carter has been gone. Maybe he wasn't the evil twin after all.

[kahoutek]

Lilian Carter....isn't she known for having the 'two biggest boobs' in the world?

[blam]

"I don't necessarily believe that Carter himself allowed it."

Carter accepeted a $13.5 million 'donation' from the BCCI bank. POS!

[Calvin Locke]

I simply cannot see him doing this.

He had some pretty sleazy people in his Administration as I recall. Maybe one or more misrepresented the "demand" as coming from Carter.

OTOH, Carter was and continues to be completely oblivious to the results of his proven incompetence.

Maybe he thought he was doing it for the "good of the people".

In any case, he did go to the Soviet Union in hopes of getting help to defeat Reagan.

[piasa]

SEPTEMBER 1978 : (THE LIBYA CONTROVERSY : PRESIDENT CARTER'S BROTHER, BILLY CARTER, VISITS LIBYA TO MAKE DEALS; LATER BILLY HOSTS LIBYAN OFFICIALS SEEKING TO ESTABLISH A TRADE MISSION IN THE US; BILLY MAKES STUPID, BUT REVEALING COMMENTS) In September 1978 Billy made a highly publicized trip to Libya with a group of Georgia legislators and businessmen eager to make deals. Several months later, he hosted a delegation of Libyans in Atlanta, as they looked for a place to locate a permanent trade mission. When asked why he was involved, Billy said, "The only thing I can say is there is a hell of a lot more Arabians than there is Jews." He also argued that the "Jewish media [tore] up the Arab countries full-time," and defended Libya against charges of state-sponsored terrorism by saying that a "heap of governments support terrorists and [Libya] at least admitted it." President Carter tried to disassociate himself from the controversy that ensued, telling NBC News that he hoped people would "realize that I don't have any control over what my brother says [and] he has no control over me." Billy also apologized and explained he wasn't anti-Semitic, but the damage was done. The Atlanta Constitution remarked, "If [Billy's] not working for the Republican Party, he should be." Some time after this, Billy spent seven weeks at an alcohol addiction treatment facility in California. - "People & Events : Billy Carter (1937 - 1988) ", American Experience, PBS, http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/carter/peopleevents/p_bcarter.html

JULY 1980 : (BILLYGATE : PRESIDENT CARTER'S BROTHER, BILLY CARTER, REGISTERS AS A FOREIGN AGENT OF THE LIBYAN GOVERNMENT, AND ACCEPTS CASH FROM THE LIBYANS FOR 'OIL SALES' HE WAS SUPPOSED TO FACILITATE) Once sober, Billy was no longer in demand on the talk-show circuit, so he turned again to his Libyan friends for financial help. In July 1980 he belatedly registered as a foreign agent of the Libyan government and admitted to receiving a $220,000 "loan" for oil sales he was supposed to facilitate. The press rushed to find out whether the president's brother had hawked his influence with the White House, and a new presidential scandal, "Billygate," was born. As Jimmy himself later admitted, "He was the president's brother, and therefore fair game." - "People & Events : Billy Carter (1937 - 1988) ", American Experience, PBS, http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/carter/peopleevents/p_bcarter.html

[* My note: As history would unfold, by 2002 it was pretty clear that Jimmy's accomodating philosophy on terrorism is not unlike his brother's ]

JULY 22, 1980 : (BILLYGATE : PRESIDENT CARTER DISTANCES HIMSELF- AN ELECTION IS COMING UP) On July 22, the White House issued a statement disclosing what it knew and denying that it had interfered in the Justice Department's investigation of the matter. The president also released a personal statement saying that he did not think it "appropriate for a close relative of the president to undertake any assignment on behalf of a foreign government." While all this was basically true, a number of inaccuracies and omissions would surface in the coming days which kept the scandal alive and fueled the perception that something dirty had happened.
"In truth, the White House had concealed nothing," concludes historian Burton Kaufman. "But as [it] had to keep amending its July 22 account, there was doubt cast on Carter's forthrightness with the American people." While relatively few people doubted Carter's basic integrity, the whole thing did cast further doubts on his judgment, and what Kaufman calls his "presidential timber" in the midst of the president's uphill battle for re-election. "The damn Billy Carter stuff is killing us," complained Hamilton Jordan. It was the last thing the Carter campaign needed going into the Democratic convention in August. - "People & Events : Billy Carter (1937 - 1988) ", American Experience, PBS, http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/carter/peopleevents/p_bcarter.html

[happygrl]

The vigilante then asked why the Islamic Government would bother to be so accommodating to the Great Satan and was told that the whole operation was planned in advance by Prime Minister Mehdi Bazargan’s revolutionary Government with Pres. Carter in return for Carter having helped depose the Shah and that this was being done to ensure Carter got re-elected. “He helped us, now we help him” was the matter-of-fact comment from the cleric.

I find this to be unbelievable. The students in the street in Iran didn't differentiate between Carter and Reagan, they thought all of America was The Great Satan and wanted revenge for the CIA's assistance in overthrowing Mossadeh back in the 1950s.

There was speculation in some Iranian quarters — as well as in some US minds — at the time and later that Carter’s actions were the result of either close ties to, or empathy for, the Soviet Union, which was anxious to break out of the longstanding US-led strategic containment of the USSR, which had prevented the Soviets from reaching the warm waters of the Indian Ocean.

Carter’s mistaken assessment of Khomeini was encouraged by advisors with a desire to form an Islamic “green belt” to contain atheist Soviet expansion with the religious fervor of Islam. Eventually all 30 of the scenarios on Iran presented to Carter by his intelligence agencies proved wrong, and totally misjudged Khomeini as a person and as a political entity.

So which is it ?

Carter in sympathy with the USSR, of Carter wanting an "Islamic Belt" to encircle the atheistic Communists ?

This is the message that the "leakers" of this strange attempt at putting a spin on those events of 1979 are really about:

In 1978 while the West was deciding to remove His Majesty Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi from the throne, Shariatmadari was telling anyone who would listen not to allow “Ayatollah” Ruhollah Khomeini and his velayat faghih (Islamic jurist) version of Islam to be allowed to govern Iran. Ayatollah Shariatmadari noted: “We mullahs will behave like bickering whores in a brothel if we come to power ... and we have no experience on how to run a modern nation so we will destroy Iran and lose all that has been achieved at such great cost and effort.”

Today, Iranian-born, Grand Ayatollah Ali Al-Sistani, the dominant Shia leader in Iraq faces Shariatmadari’s dilemma and shares the same “quietist” Islamic philosophy of sharia (religious law) guidance rather than direct governing by the clerics themselves. Sistani’s “Khomeini” equivalent, militant Ayatollah Mohammed Baqir al-Sadr, was gunned down in 1999 by then-Iraqi Pres. Saddam Hussein’s forces. Sadr’s son, 30-year-old Muqtada al-Sadr, lacks enough followers or religious seniority/clout to immediately oppose Sistani but has a hard core of violent followers biding their time.

This is coming from Sistani's camp. It's their attempt at lobbying.

I agree with Andy, I thought Carter was a terrible president, but one thing that I am sure of, is that he was not motivated by money, nor were his backers. They were silly people, but they weren't mendacious.

[Southack]

"In July 1980 he belatedly registered as a foreign agent of the Libyan government and admitted to receiving a $220,000 "loan" for oil sales he was supposed to facilitate."

...Yeah, he registered in 1980 (after he got caught) for a "loan" that he got from Libya back in 1979...

[Southack]

"I find this to be unbelievable. The students in the street in Iran didn't differentiate between Carter and Reagan, they thought all of America was The Great Satan and wanted revenge for the CIA's assistance in overthrowing Mossadeh back in the 1950s."

You must be kidding. The whole world feared Reagan. Iran let the hostages go the day that he was inaugerated, rather than risk open atomic warfare with us.

In contrast, Khomeni was backed by Communists. This odd alignment of fundmentalists and athiests was possible only because both sides were weak and needed to ally together to oppose the power of the U.S.

Likewise, athiestic Communists openly support to this day the Palestinian terrorist organization PFLP (formerly Black September) in a region that only permits fundmentalism amongst its people.

Ditto again for the Communistic Basques in Spain and France as well as for the fundamentalists in Chechnya.

At every turn you will find that radical Islamic fundamentalists are financially backed by athiestic Communists and aided by Communists...to the extent that the athiestic Cubans permitted the radical fundamentalist Arabs to use the Cuban embassy in Lebanon to base their attack on Israel in the 1973 Yom Kippur war.

These people know full well who they are opposing; American nationalists. They also know that they can count on indifference, tolerance, and the occassional outright aid for their causes from the Socialist wing of American politics (Carter falls well into this camp).

Carter's own direct contribution to this anti-American nationalism movement was to give away the Panama Canal and permit the establishment of the illegal (price manipulations of commodities are forbidden by U.S. law, for instance) OPEC oil cartel .

[RaceBannon]

http://rescueattempt.tripod.com/hostagerescueattempt/id1.html

The older I get, the more I hate Jimmy Carter, too.

That website is mine.

[McGavin999]

That guy is dangerous and a very real obstical to Iraqi freedom. Perhaps the Iraqis will take care of him before he gets a chance to take away their freedom.

[RaceBannon]

bump for alan!

[RaceBannon]

alan bump

[RaceBannon]

bump

[RaceBannon]

bump

[an amused spectator]

Post-NewsMedia Conservative History ping - How Many Deaths In Iran & Iraq Was Nobel Prize Winner "Peanut Boy" Responsible For?

On, Off, or grab it for a Media Shenanigans/Schadenfreude/PNMCH ping:
http://www.freerepublic.com/~anamusedspectator/

[Rocky]

"Some claim he was inept and ignorant, others that he was allowing his liberal leanings to overshadow US national interests. "

I submit that, in Carter's case, these are not mutually exclusive.

He always sides with the wrong side of every issue. He sides with communists, ruthless dictators, Islamic radicals. Wherever people express hatred for America, you will find Jimmy there, cheering them on. He is a disgrace to our country and to the brave men and women who have risked their lives, have been disabled, or have died to preserve our freedom.

[Grampa Dave]

Carter was the first Manchurcian Candidate/President from the rats.

Next was the Clintoon. Now those who hate America here and abroad are running al Querry as their third and final anti American Manchurian Presidential Candidate.

[MEG33]

WOW!Very Interesting.Carter is a menace to America and always has been.I simply thought him inept when he was in office,I realize now that he is more dangerous.

[Barset]

save for later.

[FreedomPoster]

Your post says everything I would have said in answer to andyman's comment, and more. Well-mirrors the evolution of my view on Carter. Excellent post.

[Piranha]

If Carter thought that the Bani-Sadr administration would succeed the Shah, and that he could reach a political rapproachment with that group, then he may have believed that it was politically astute to change the regime. Later, as this article suggests, he was finessed by Ayatollah Khomenei, who did not remain on Olympus but instead got involved in the government of Iran in a significant way. (I believe that Bani-Sadr was murdered in Paris).

[philman_36]

Glad to see you've already found your way here.
I was going to say...Look who is making the news again.

[Grampa Dave]

The cause of much of the misery in today's world can be laid at the feet of Jimmy Carter. He started this entire cycle when he refused to kill the murdering mullahs who seized our embassy. Then, he started to dismantle our intel agencies which set up 9/11 with the help of Gorelick.

[shield]

bmp

[Beckwith]

Carter also demonstrated to Islamists that the US could be pushed around by taking hostages.

Carter should have told the Ayatollah to relaease the hostages instantly or face a devastating air assault on all of the government and Muslim buildings in the country.

[philman_36]

He started this entire cycle when he refused to kill the murdering mullahs who seized our embassy.
From the tone of the article he started it all when he set his money hungry buddies loose, well before the mullahs got loose. The loss of the Shah, even with his dubious nature, is what started the ball rolling IMO.
Note the emphasis on Billy's trip from piasa's reply.
In September 1978 Billy made a highly publicized trip to Libya with a group of Georgia legislators and businessmen eager to make deals.
Now, compare that with what is reported in the article...
Pres. Carter’s anti-Shah feelings appeared to have ignited after he sent a group of several of his friends from his home state, Georgia, to Tehran with an audience arranged with His Majesty directly by the Oval Office and in Carter’s name.
No time frame given for the Tehran visit, but I'm sure it is out there somewhere.

[MonroeDNA]

I now officially despise Jimmy Carter.

I thought he was a good-intentioned, naive, bufoon.

Manchurian candidate.