The Iranian Revolution

Ex-Prez Jimmy Carter was interviewed today by the Washington Post.  During it, he offered up, "I think (Trump's) a disaster in human rights and treating people equal."  

Reading that quote gave me pause.  I was forced to recollect the events of some 40 years ago and how it changed everything that followed.  

Are you under the age of 40?  Then you likely have no recollection of how the Iranian Revolution started, and why we, America, are complicit in its founding.

You read that right.  We can blame ourselves for the mess in Iran, and for turning a friend into a foe.  How?  Why?  When?

Let's talk about it, in short, clipped, simple terms, no embellishment, just the stuff you need to understand what caused it and why.  So here goes...

Jimmy Carter gets elected POTUS in 1976.  Carter was a very fine man, a retired Navy officer, a submarine safety specialist, ex-governor of Georgia, a successful peanut farmer and Sunday school teacher.  

Oh yeah, and he was also a fool...

Carter was big into human rights.  He didn't think Shah Pahlavi, the Shah of Iran, sitting on the Peacock Throne, was treating his people right.  Oh, they were driving around in BMWs, and wearing Gucci, and loving their oil wealth, and living free and easy, but apparently the Shah had a habit of treating his political enemies harshly.  Like jailing them and tossing away the keys.  So, Carter gave him an ultimatum: treat your people better or we'll withdraw our military and political shield of protection.  He didn't.  We did.

The Shah was deposed.  He put his family on a plane and beat feet.  To first one country, and then another.  Seems no country wished to offer Pahlavi, sick with terminal cancer, a place to light so he could get treatment.

And immediately following "wheels up" for the Shah, there was "wheels up" for Ruhallah Khomeini, the Big Muslim Kahuna who'd been languishing in a penthouse apartment in Paris for years, just waiting for the chance to bring his dream of a Sunni Islamic Republic back to Iran.  

Carter finally relented and allowed the Shah to seek treatment at the Cleveland Clinic.  He then promptly died.

Upon the Big Mullah's arrival the Tehran, the Muslims took over.  Their first act was to storm our Embassy, taking a bunch of American hostages and holding them for 444 days.  Daily TV from Iran showed our folks being mistreated. They poked The Bear in the eye, and we the bear, blinked.  

Carter did try a rescue attempt, but our military by that time was so depleted and rusty from lack of funding and attention that the effort ended in a disastrous crash and a number of American deaths in the Iranian desert.  This was just another black eye that proved to some of us, at least, that we needed to man-up and grow a set. 

We did.  We elected Ronnie Reagan.  And on the day he was inaugurated, January 20, 1981, the Iranians blinked; they were so scared our Ronnie would bring Great Pee upon them, they released our prisoners and ended the hostage crisis. 

So, when you turn on the news today and see the Mullahs scream "Death to America!" at the top of their lungs, and threaten to close down the Gulf of Hormuz, and promise to eradicate the "Little Satan," Israel, and us, of course, "The Great Satan," and fund terrorism around the globe, including Hezbollah and the Taliban, frustrating our efforts to bring, and keep, peace.  

But of course we helped them do so with a jet plane full of $1.5 Billion in shrink-wrapped $100 bills as Barry Obama's kind offering to Middle East Peace.

So, if you're happy with the situation in Iran, thank a Democrat.  If you'd like to change it, vote Republican.  Your choice, your Country...

(BTW, this was all from memory (my long-term memory is pretty good, it's just the stuff from like, 3 minutes ago that needs help), so some of the time-lines might be tweakable, but overall, it's right as rain.  So, if it enlightens, I've fulfilled my Charter from God.  If not, consider you got what you paid for and stop bitching...)