Iran, the Clash of Ambitions :

Frontpage Interview’s guest today is Houchang Nahavandi, former Minister of the last Shah of Iran. From 1974 to the time of the Revolution, he served as President of the “Iranian Problems Study Group.” He was described by Pierre Salinger as “His Majesty’s Opposition Group.” Together with a certain number of personalities, such as Amir Aslan Afshar and Adeshir Zahedi, Mr. Nahavandi opposed the departure of the Shah -- favouring instead a backing up of the army as a last and only viable resort to restoring a balance and social peace.


Mr. Nahavandi was condemned to death in absentia after the Islamic revolution. The reward for his capture was the equivalent of $200,000 at the time (he thought he was worth more than that). He is the author of the new book Iran, the Clash of Ambitions.

FP: Houchang Nahavandi, welcome to Frontpage Interview.
Nahavandi: It is always with great pleasure that I address the American public through you, Jamie. Thank you for receiving me.
FP : Tell us what inspired you to write Iran, the Clash of Ambitions, what it’s about and what its primary thesis is.
Nahavandi : My aim was to expose more than two centuries of Iranian history, the sources of current problems. There are more than nine hundred references in the index of the book. I tried to be totally objective about the key problems. I addressed Khomeini's life, the Savak, the history of Iranian communism, and the part that the West played in the Iranian revolution.
FP: The United Nations Security Council will most certainly vote for new sanctions against Iran for its nuclear activities. Remind us how the Islamic Republic reacted to previous sanctions and whether these measures had any effect.
Nahavandi: Previous sanctions were ridiculous and only gave the regime’s leaders a respite.
FP: So will new sanctions be of use? There are credible sources saying that Tehran’s nuclear enrichment activities are making significant progress and that they could possibly be achieved very very soon.
Nahavandi: We will shortly be presented with a fait accompli. European Union’s experts have already shown in a study that an already “integrated” fait accompli exists in Brussels’s diplomatic approach. At least diplomatic gesticulations keep the audience amused. According to confidential sources, a new resolution would strengthen nothing. The West simply has to display much more firmness.
FP: Can you elaborate a bit on the ingredients of this dangerous situation?
Nahavandi: First of all there is one principle that not a single Iranian could compromise: that acquiring and mastering atomic energy is an absolute and inalienable right of Iran. The country should have nuclear energy for its functioning. The process was already at an advanced stage way before the 1978-1979 Revolution. Without the stupidity or destructive betrayal of its revolutionary leaders, Iran would have become a leading nuclear power provider long ago. At the time the nuclear program was led in accordance with international treaties -- under the surveillance of the IAEA -- Iran had no intention to acquire nuclear weapons. That seems no longer true - hence the danger.
Tehran’s regime is subversive out of its borders, consider Iraq, Palestine, Lebanon, Somalia) and repressive domestically. Twenty eight years after the Islamic Revolution the evaluation is totally negative. The people are discontented. Youth rumbles. Nuclear weaponry is nothing but a means to establish the regime. Then the propaganda heads tell the public: “You may have nothing but at least you will have nuclear technology and even the bomb.” This is played as a nationalist card.
FP: Where do you think Iranians themselves stand on the nuclear issue?
Nahavandi: There is national unanimity in opposing the bomb. Iran, as a nation, is not threatened by anyone and I dare say, especially not by Israel. No threat, whether past or present. Iran, may I remind you, is not an Arab country. Israel was always, and still is, well considered by Iranians. Nevertheless we have always been involved in the defence of legitimate Palestinian rights. An independent and viable Palestinian state is a historical and political condition. The reason why Tehran’s regime aims to acquire nuclear weapons is to dispose of means of intimidation and blackmail in order to perpetuate its power within a subversive state -- a terrorist state -- protected by its bomb. Let us bear in mind the growing danger of nuclear proliferation in the area. There lies the real threat. The key factor is not just the bomb that is in the wrong hands, but most certainly to allow the main hotbed of radicalism and violence to shelter it.
FP: What are your thoughts on a U.S. military intervention or surgical strikes?
Nahavandi: That would be the worst scenario; an extremely serious political mistake. I dare say that Tehran’s leaders, with their constant provocations, seek nothing but that outcome. That would create a patriotic reaction. Do not forget that Iranians are very patriotic, and nationalist. The whole Middle East is currently dealing with religious oppositions that address anti-American ideas. What happens in Iraq and Palestine is good for them, and the fire is spreading. In North-Africa for instance. In Iran, it is quite the opposite in fact. The opinion is, in its majority, secular and democratic, and even though the elderly might still resent President Carter’s support of the Revolution, young people (60 % of the population is aged less than 25) are too young to have known that period, and are not anti-American. Washington should preserve that political value.
FP: Is Ahmadinejad isolated within the regime as some might say?
Nahavandi: I agree with John Bolton who recently expressed his analysis on BBC. If the leading figures of the regime, including Ali Khamenei, did not agree with Ahmadinejad’s dangerous policy, then that policy could not be conceived or executed. Indeed, there are arguments, but the rest is pure propaganda. The West has a taste for searching for radicals and moderates within totalitarian or even authoritarian regimes. Tehran’s skilful disinformation plays that game.
FP: Who backs that dangerous game in Europe?
Nahavandi: This is a matter of major economical interests. Identify who made good money with Tehran’s regime, and then you will understand. Now let us focus on the Left, especially in France, that supported Khomeini, and would not want to reverse its judgment. They are the same people who supported the Khmer Rouge in the first place. Also, there is a certain anti-Americanism, anti-Zionism, which cannot assume itself openly, even though it exists and keeps a tender eye on Tehran and its extravagances. Some in Europe treat Islamic radicalism like they treated Hitler at the time. They had to pay tribute. If tomorrow radical Islamism badly hits North-Africa and then some European districts or entire cities, Europeans would realize their mistake, but it would be too late.
FP: Let's go back to Khomeini for a moment. Tell us a bit about who he was as a person and the evil he perpetrated.
Nahavandi: Unfortunately. many of the different works published about Khomeini's life are wrong and inaccurate. His Indian origins were ignored when he was in Paris. There is nothing wrong with being of a different origin than Persian but even now it is forbidden to talk about it in Iran. The title 'Imam' was given to him by two French journalists, where as in shiism this title belongs only to the twelve direct descendants of the Prophet. He was not a cultured man. Most probably you have read in some papers that he gave the order to the Iranian Air Force to destroy American satellites, and to the Ministry of Agriculture, to flood the American market with Iranian wheat so as to make the economy of the ‘Great Satan’ become totally dependent.
Khomeini was presented to world opinion as a “brilliant philosopher and theologian” who was some kind of “example for all” that even supposedly his worst enemies could never contest. The various mandates he made especially dealt with “the way to urinate and to defecate,” “purity and impurity,” and “women and their periods.” In the others, one could here and there find a few thoughts of a philosophical, religious or political order, such as: “It is proven that the Western physicians are totally ignorant,” “Women from the Prophet of Islam’s lineage have their menopause at the age of sixty. The others at over the age of fifty.” As for political issues:
“Islam alone is to govern.” “Those who want to set up democracy want to drag our country into corruption and perdition. They are worse than the Jews. They must be hanged. They are not men. They have the blood of animals. Be they damned’. All the laws in the world, except those of the Islamic republic, come from a handful of idiotic syphilitics. They are null and void. Islam does not recognize any other law but its own in the world.” Finally, here are a few examples from the culture of the “great theologian and philosopher’: “Socrates, a great theologian. He learnt philosophy from Pythagoras and devoted himself totally to theology and ethic. He discarded worldly pleasures, took refuge in a cave in the mountains where he fully dedicated himself to the only God. He tried to convince people of other gods than the real one. After what he had said, the people demanded from the Sultan that he should be put to death. The latter was forced into it and poisoned him.” “Aristotle was the son of Nikomachos from Stagira, one of the greatest philosophers in the world. Avicenna said that nobody was ever able to contradict his theories. Yet, the French Descartes thought he had discovered flaws in them later on; specialists, however, can easily realize how childish and groundless Descartes’s claims in philosophical and theological matters were. Woe betide us Muslims for being intimidated by the West, for taking our own level of knowledge lightly when the Westerners will not be able to reach it before a thousand years.” Other words, on the contrary, did not make people smile:
“We must give rise to repeated crises, and give a new and better value to the idea of death and martyrdom... If Iran disappears in the future, it is not important; what is important is to drown the whole world in a situation of crisis.” “All the existing forms of corruption are the products of the nation and of nationalism.” “Those who think they are Iranian and who believe they must work for Iran are wrong.” “Blood must be spilled, for the more Iran bleeds, the more the revolution will triumph.” “Blood must flow.” “The mother who reported her son so that he would be tried and hanged is an example for the people. It is a model of Islam. If your children, brothers and sisters do not follow the given advice, report them so that they can be chastised.”
“Our dear pupils must keep a close watch on their teachers. The teachers must keep a close watch on themselves. The pupils, my dear children must keep a close watch on one another and report any deviation.” “Israel must burn to ashes.” Hundreds of other sentences could be quoted. The regime that originated in the revolution applied Ayatollah Khomeini’s ‘real discourse’ with a frightening zeal. The people with a good conscience who had shown enthusiasm for the man looked away, kept quiet and let things happen, as had been the case long ago with so many other bloodthirsty dictators. In his interviews, Khomeini was presented as a democrat and liberal man, but the public ignored that the interviews were written by experts who just said what had to be said. In France, all was prepared for his arrival, including transmitters in his residence. His anti-Semitic and anti-Zionist writings are even stronger than Hitler's. When he finally arrived in Tehran from Paris with two hundred journalists in an Air France aeroplane which had been named Liberté (‘Liberty’) on the occasion. He granted an interview to the representatives of the Iranian national Radio and Television while he was on the aeroplane. The journalist asked him, among other things: “What are Your Holiness’s feelings on finding His way back home after so many years?” “Hitshi” (“Zilch”) “His Holiness” answered. Everything had just been said, in substance and form. The future was to prove it. There is much more to be said about Khomeini, and you will find lots more on him, with documents and references, in my last book "Iran, the Clash of Ambitions". The aim of the mystification of Khomeini was to bring down the previous regime. But time has come for the truth to be revealed to history.
FP: Why do you think the Left, which is supposedly dedicated to democratic ideals, venerated this despot and leader of a death cult? It appears the Left has followed in that tradition by siding with radical Islam in our terror war. How would you explain this morbid pathology of the Left?
Nahavandi: The leftists, especially in France, had always shown sympathy to the revolutionary regimes. Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, Michel Foucault were leaders of Khomeini's support committees. Michel Foucault went to Iran twice – in September and in November 1978 – and wrote a series of eulogistic articles on Ruhollah Khomeini in the quality Western press, notably in Le Monde. He met him at least once in Neauphle-le-Château, and analysed his philosophical stands. Simone de Beauvoir also went to Iran to support the Islamic revolution. Jean-Paul Sartre contented himself with Parisian stands. The socialist Party led by François Mitterrand proclaimed its “resolute support” to the movement. The French Socialist Party organized a public demonstration in its support and its executive office saluted the victory of the Islamic revolution on February 14, 1979: “a popular movement of an exceptional dimension in contemporary history.” Many European leftist movements sent their delegations to the international conference held in Tehran in favour of the hostage-taking operation of November 4th 1979. Khomeini was not “a sort of social-democratic saint, a religious figure who was to be fundamentally admired,” as the American ambassador to the UNO had said [Ambassador Andrew Young]. Professor Richard Falk, who was very a popular academic from the highest spheres of Carter's power circles said: “Imam Khomeini is a miracle in the whole history of human kind, there has never been a leader who could compare, and I do not think there will be another one,” before adding that “he had made the most beautiful moment in the history of Islam come true, the model of a peaceful revolution without a bloodshed, the example of a humanist government.” These individuals’ words represented blindness, insincerity or simply hatred for their own country. There was not the slightest regret shown on the other side of the Atlantic either. When things went wrong and when the truth broke out, none of these good souls, with the exception of one or two, expressed any regret. They looked away. They forgot everything, but they did not learn anything. It seems that the Left, "democratic" epigone of the bloody French Revolution (600,000 dead peoples with children, women and old peoples atrociously massacred) has shed into the world and among the Nations a real mob fuelled by a sort of hysterical rage against the any idea, concept, expression related to harmony, beauty, balance, liberty, order. There is an inner principle of death that moves their "souls". One could even think that the leftists feel vaguely or precisely something already corrupted in their roots, deep into their souls. They just don't want to fall "alone", but to bring down with them the whole world into their dedicated chaos. That would then be a "transcendental" pathology. To destroy or to subvert is for the Left a challenge similar to a chess party.
FP: So what are your recommendations in terms of what to do with the Iranian theocracy's threat today?
Nahavandi: The West must be unanimous. I know that it is wishful thinking, for the moment at least. But sanctions against Tehran have to be political and should concern the leaders and spare the people. This is feasible providing we do know Iran. Moreover, we would have to give a political and media support to patriotic Iranians, whether abroad or still there; support their fight for a secular, united and democratic Iran. True opponents are not necessarily those who tell Washington what they want to hear. Give Iranian patriots a portion of support and sympathy that were given to Khomeini during his time, and the Islamic regime, corrupted from head to toe, detested by a majority of Iranians, will collapse like a house of cards, keeping the nuclear issue away. Then the East will be getting on well.
FP: The problem is, what if the regime does not fall and acquired the bomb? This is a scenario we cannot allow. A military option would have to be used at that point.
Nahavandi: The international community has already lost about four years in useless negotiations where as the result was very clear. The U.N. still continues useless negotiations. If this regimes acquires the bomb, it is not very probable that it would use it for attacking other countries because the consequences are obvious for Iran. But the bomb can allow the regime to become still more harmful. A totalitarian and terrorist state protected by the bomb. The world has two or three years to evaluate and find a political solution for changing the situation. A military intervention is the worst option.
FP: Well then we better keep our fingers crossed for a democratic opposition in Iran to overthrow the tyranny and that the U.S. can support such an opposition effectively.
Houchang Nahavandi, it was a pleasure to speak with you.
Nahavandi: Same for me Jamie.