Free Republic

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to be cloned--to have another you or part of you floating around somewhere in the world? Occasionally I have that strange feeling about my right leg, since I know that a flesh-colored cast of it exists, although at the moment I am not sure where. Originally, it was seen in "Passage II," a painting by Jasper Johns done in 1966. As many writers have observed, Johns's paintings are littered with the body parts of his friends, who were convenient models. Taking the idea of asking a subject to "sit" for a...

Mohammad Reza Pahlavi (1919-1980), A retrospective on his reign on the occasion of the twenty-fifth anniversary of his death. "They revere you in fortune - and trample you in defeat" - Moliere Some 25-years ago this summer, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi the Shah of Iran was dying in Cairo. Egypt's President Sadat had offered him his last refuge and helped him escape from a perilous exile in Panama. Historically, Egypt has been famous for providing shelter - even to those they do not approve - like the family of Yasser Arafart - at the time that Arafat was public enemy #1...

Two scions of the 1979 Islamic Revolution in Iran are emerging as emboldened opponents of the regime in Tehran, reviving the prospect that the son of the former shah may collaborate with the grandson of the ayatollah who deposed him.

Reza Pahlavi, son of the late Shah of Iran, told the editors of HUMAN EVENTS last week that in the next two to three months he hopes to finalize the organization of a movement aimed at overthrowing the Islamic regime in Tehran and replacing it with a democratic government. He believes the cause is urgent because of the prospect that Iran may soon develop a nuclear weapon or the U.S. may use military force to preempt that. He hopes to offer a way out of this dilemma: a revolution sparked by massive civil disobedience in which the masses in the...

Reza Pahlavi, son of the late Shah of Iran, told the editors of HUMAN EVENTS last week that in the next two to three months he hopes to finalize the organization of a movement aimed at overthrowing the Islamic regime in Tehran and replacing it with a democratic government. He believes the cause is urgent because of the prospect that Iran may soon develop a nuclear weapon or the U.S. may use military force to preempt that. He hopes to offer a way out of this dilemma: a revolution sparked by massive civil disobedience in which the masses in the...

Dateline 17 April 2006 For decades, western countries have propped up 'strongmen' in the Middle East. Some proponents of 'realpolitik' believe that this is still a viable and desirable policy. The only alternative to secular dictatorships is theocratic dictatorships committed to jihad. But where is the evidence for this proposition? The poster child for supporters of Arab dictatorships was not an Arab at all, but the late Shah of Iran. His régime was rated as the worst in the world by Amnesty International in 1978. As an idealistic teenager, I was worried at the implications of his fall for the...

Reza Pahlavi, the eldest son of the Shah of Iran, said he is "totally against” a U.S. military strike against Iran’s nuclear facilities – and defended his nation’s right to have nuclear technology. Appearing with John McLaughlin on his show "One on One,” the 45-year-old heir to the Peacock Throne was asked: "Under what circumstances would you permit direct military action against Iran's nuclear infrastructure?” He told McLaughlin: "I'm totally against it for many reasons. As a nationalist, as a patriot, I could not even think of a scenario which would involve any kind of military strikes on my country....

Under the azure dome, before Islam's arrival in the 7th Century, the Persians, in what is today's Iran, began battling evil with fire. Despite Islamic traditionalists' dislike of "superstitious" ritual, the practice of purifying one's body and soul has survived in Iran and thrived into the present-day Festival of Fire. The annual celebration is the one secular event — probably beside national soccer victories — that is celebrated by every Iranian regardless of religious affiliations. Last night, instead of leaping over bonfires, Toronto's 100,000-strong Iranian Canadian community ushered in the festival with fireworks at Sunnybrook Park and Mel Lastman Square,...

Revelers call for anti-Islamic Regime demonstration on Wednesday March 15th at 7pm Iran Time (GMT +3:30). Farsi language radio station KRSI in Los Angeles took calls live this Tuesday morning from people gathered in the streets in Iran and broadcasted them live to listeners all over Iran. Despite a total ban by the Islamic regime against celebrating an ancient Zoroastrian festival, traditionally on the last Wednesday of the Persian Year, by jumping over lines of smallish tumbleweed bonfires and chanting "your redness to me, my yellowness to you", crowds ignored the edict. And faced up to the attacks from the...

Ladies and gentlemen, It saddens me to reappear before you here today at a time when under the yoke of the clerical regime, my homeland is labeled as the greatest threat to international peace and security, and more importantly, from my vantage point, this threat comes at the cost of great pain and suffering for my fellow compatriots in Iran. Fear of the first state-sponsor of terrorism acquiring nuclear weapons, with all of its implications for nuclear blackmail and terror, even unconventional delivery of a nuclear device to Europe or to these shores, has been widely discussed. But let me...

The majority of Iranians believe that almost everything wrong in their country is rooted in fault with the British, The Guardian reported Wednesday. The suspicion has long and deep roots, going back before 1979 when many believe Britain had a hand in ousting Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, allowing the late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini and his conservative mullahs to take control. Even the deposed shah blamed the British for deposing his pro-German father before World War II, the report said. "Historically, people believe Britain engineered the coup which brought to power Reza Khan, who became Reza Shah (the last shah's father),"...

Jimmy Carter is off this week to save Cuba. With Carter on the loose, the American public needs to watch out. It seems that almost wherever he goes and whatever positions he pushes, Jimmy Carter leaves a wake of devastation and disaster. Carter, we should note, has been cozying up to North Korea for years. He helped the U.S. and the communist country come to agreement during the Clinton years to defuse a tense situation over North Korea’s nuclear weapons program.

AMERICANS will certainly have 9/11 in mind when they vote today. But they should keep another date in mind, too — one almost exactly a quarter-century ago: Nov. 4, 1979. A clear path runs to 9/11 from the day of the raid on the U.S. embassy in Tehran and the seizure of American hostages. The 1979 embassy attack came at a time when the administration of President Jimmy Carter was trying to prop up the new Khomeinist regime in Tehran. Carter had decided to support Khomeini in the context of the so-called "Green Belt" strategy developed by National Security...

NEW YORK (AP) - A bookstore owner and a jazz musician agreed soon after the Sept. 11 attacks to try to help terrorists in Afghanistan buy weapons and communications equipment to fight American soldiers, the government charged Wednesday. Assistant U.S. Attorney Victor Hou said Abdulrahman Farhane, 51, and the musician, Tarik Shah, 42, spoke with an FBI informant about the plot in Farhane's bookstore in December 2001 "while the ruins of 9/11 were still smoldering." The prosecutor asked that Farhane be held without bail on charges of conspiring to provide material support to terrorists and trying to cover up his...

It was too much to hope, it turns out, that for once James Earl Carter might just stand aside. But no, when the Palestinian Arabs go to the polls and hand control of their parliament to a terrorist organization that denies the right of Israel to exist and maintains overtly anti-Jewish and anti-American policies, who should show up to certify the elections and express his faith in the ability of Hamas to transform itself? None other than President Carter, most recently via his appearance on CNN's "Larry King LiveThe former president started by describing the Palestinian vote as a "beautiful...

Democrats may claim victim status for unintended consequences, but at the end of the day, their policies have ultimately produced our current problems with the Axis-of-Evil and their nukes. One only need go back to the Carter administration to reveal the ugly facts. Between World War II and 1979, Iran was the model of progressive Middle Eastern modernity and was undeniably our strongest ally within the Muslim world. However, after Carter’s election, he decided the Shah didn’t measure up to human-rights standards. A leftist mainstream media campaign ran stories of Iranian government-sponsored torture while willfully neglecting to report the Soviet...

OPERATION: ENDURING FREEDOM Taliban hunting an American? Opposition leader executed reportedly accompanied by U.S. agent By Toby Westerman © 2001 WorldNetDaily.com At the same time some 1,500 opponents of the Taliban – warriors and holy men – gathered in Peshawar, Pakistan, to lay plans for the next Afghan government, Taliban fighters located and killed one of their most influential opponents – and may be hunting for an American reported to have accompanied him. Abdul Haq, a well-known hero of the anti-Soviet guerrilla war and long-standing opponent of the Taliban, was found south of the Afghan capital, Kabul, captured and then killed, ...

Iran’s president has shot to the forefront of Holocaust denial in recent days, but it may seem more like self-denial: Mahmoud Ahmadinejad need only look to his country’s Hitler-era past to discover that Iran and Iranians were connected to the Holocaust and the Nazi regime, as was the larger Arab and Islamic world under the leadership of the mufti of Jerusalem. Iran’s links to the Third Reich began during the pre-World War II years when it welcomed Gestapo agents and other operatives to Tehran, allowing them to use it as a Middle East base for agitation against the British and...

Ahmadinejad is no Shah and Wears no Turban December 28, 2005 Iran va Jahan Cyrus Kadivar Nobody doubts the true essence of the tyranny that has overshadowed Iran’s proud culture since 1979 with its medieval bigotry, violence, militancy and disregard for human rights. In a recent article entitled “A shah with a turban” written by Thomas L. Friedman and published over Christmas in the International Herald Tribune the author’s poor choice of words undermined what was a damning condemnation of the current president of the Islamic republic of Iran. I totally agree with him that Iran is no “democracy” and...

Plans for the Queen Mother to fly to Iran in Concorde were blocked by Harold Wilson because he was worried about the plane's safety, it has been revealed. The Labour prime minister intervened days before the planned trip in April 1975 when told there was a problem with the engine. Aviation watchdogs said the plane could be flown by an experienced test pilot. But Wilson said the government's position would be "indefensible" if the engine fault became known. The episode is revealed in government records from 1975 which have now been released for the public to see at The National...