Today is the 25th anniversary of the day the jihadis declared war on America. On Nov. 4, 1979 Islamist students in Tehran overan the U.S. embassy and took 66 Americans hostage. The hostages were held for 444 days. They were released on Jan. 20, 1981--the day Ronald Reagan was sworn into office.
But the hostages were not released simply because the Iranians feared Reagan's wrath. Jimmy Carter may be responsible for our present woes. You see, Carter negotiated a deal with the terrorists. The deal was that the US would unfreeze $8 billion dollars in Iranian assets in return for the hostages. The jihadis learned a vluable lesson: <i>America will give in to their demands when American lives are on the line.</i>
The Iranian revolution was an Islamist revolution. It took secular and forward looking Persia down the path to the Middle Ages of barbaric Islamic law. While the Shia Islam of Iran may seem more moderate than Wahhabism to many in the West, the Islamic law of the Islamic Republic is that which routinely sentences people to death for blasphemy, adultery, or other religious crimes.
The worst part of the Iranian revolution was that it exported the notion of the Islamic revolutionary state. From Marxism it imported the notion that society could be completely revamped--that a sort of utopia could be found in Islamic law. And like Marxism, it took on a missionary zeal to export the Islamist ideal to the rest of the Muslim world.
Through funding and sponsorship of Hamas, Iran has destabilized an already volitile region. Through funding and sponsorship of Hizballah, Iran brought down an entire nation and thrust Lebanon into a bloody civil war. Iran funded those that murdered hundreds of American troops in the 1983 suicide bombing in Beirut. Iran continues to fund organizations that murder Jews wherever they may be found, revolutionary movements in North Africa, and is bent on turning any future Palestinian state into an Islamic Republic modeled after their own barbaric country.
Iran was a peaceful, forward looking nation until the Revolutionary zeal of the Islamist ideology gripped it. Like the French Revolutionaries before them, the Iranian jihadis were not content to murder their own intellectuals, businessmen, and non-orthodox religionists--they had a higher calling to spread the utopian Islamic state abroad. Napolean found that the English would not tolerate his Imperialistic goal of spreading the French Revolution, and so Europe was plunged into a war that would cost the lives of millions. The English people, though, were saved the misery of the Napoleonic wars by virtue of the English Channel. Enlish soldiers would bring the fight to the French Revolutionary Army and not wait for Napolean to bring the war to Brittain.
Like the English before us, America found itself in the position of standing between the Iranian revolutionaries and their vision of the global caliphate. The US became the 'Great Satan', the obstacle, the one nation with the power to stall the inevitable coming of Sharia law to all Muslim nations (and eventually beyond). So, the jihadis declared war on that day. Their war aims were simply stated and straightforward--weaken American resolve so that jihad could spread unchecked throughout the Islamic world from Morocco to Indonesia. Unlike the English before us, America retreated, only fighting the jihadis through our proxies and never fully aware of the dangers of this cancerous ideology. We had bigger fish to fry. The Cold War seemed much more imminent and the stakes certainly were much higher. We slept.
September 11th may have awakened us to the fact that we were at war, but that war had been declared long ago. It was declared 25 years ago today by the extremists in Iran. Today, the Islamic Republic of Iran is seeking nuclear technology--technology that could lead to the development of nuclear weapons--and the Europeans have taken the Carter route in dealing with the mullahs. For each concession given to them by the Europeans, the jihadis in Iran see Western weakness. They saw this weakness in the US as we gave them cash in exchange for the hostages. They saw this weakness as Reagan retreated from Lebanon. We can bear to show them weakness no more.
The time has come to realize when and who first began this Third World War of Islamists bent on taking one-third of the world back to the darkest days of the Middle Ages versus those that would see freedom and liberty become the inheritance of all mankind. That war was started 25 years ago today, and it was the Iranian revolutionaries that fired the first shot.
<a href="Earlier">http://1218.blogspot.com/2004/11/anniversary.html">Earlier today, a friend of mine said</a>: "<i>I'm incensed that I can't find a single word in any newspaper about today being the 25 year anniversary of an unambiguous but unrecognized declaration of war against America</i>." I'm doing my part. Please help spread the word.
(Cross-posted at <a href="Jawalandhttp://mypetjawa.mu.nu/archives/053496.php">Jawaland</a> and <a href="Demosophiahttp://www.demosophia.com/">Demosophia</a>)
Posted by Dr. Rusty Shackleford at November 4, 2004 11:33 PM | TrackBackDr. Rusty Shackleford,
C'mon, man. I realize you may be trying to make a larger point and this is just a blog, but you've done it so sloppily that it lacks any credibility to those with the slightest knowledge of history and of the Muslim world.
Here are the major problems:
Palestine would NEVER be an Islamic state modelled on Iran. The Palestinian Muslims are Sunnis -- Iran has a distinctively Shi'a form of government. Even the Shi'a leadership in Iraq, like al-Sistani do not follow the theories laid out by Khomeini.
What you're saying is as if there were a government ruled by the Pope and you were claiming that a Protestant society would be set up along the same lines. Many of the Sunni Islamists do not believe the Shi'a leadership (as apart from the common people) are even Muslim and for sure they believe that they have deviated seriously. While they may look to Iran for support and even for inspiration that an Islamic revolution can be successful, they do not look for Iran for a model of government.
There could never be a "global caliphate" led by Shi'a. This is like suggesting there could be a Global Christian Empire ruled by the Mormons.
This idea that Marxism invented the idea of revolution or that society could be reshaped in a better way so that everyone who wants to change society is suddenly a Marxist or Marxist inspired is old, tired, and silly.
This is not to say that Iranian revolution had no Marxist influence, I'm sure it had some as the original revolution was carried out by a coalition that, while led by Imam Khomeini, had support from leftist groups in Iran as well in the early stages when it was opposing the Shah.
You're state that Iran was a "peaceful, forward looking nation" before the revolution and that
those who baked the Shah are now suddenly the proponents of freedom and liberty for all mankind.
Again, I say C'mon Dr. Rusty-- do you really believe this stuff?
Here's a brief bit about the Savak, the Shah's secret police force, written by someone on the web who is also very opposed to the current Iranian regime:
"Savak, the Shah's secret police force
The Chief of Savak, General Nematollah Nassiri, who was imprisoned by the Shah and executed by the people after the 1979 Revolution
The Shah's brutal secret police force, Savak, formed under the guidance of CIA (the United States Central Intelligence Agency) in 1957 and personnel trained by Mossad (Israel's secret service), to directly control all facets of political life in Iran. Its main task was to suppress opposition to the Shah's government and keep the people's political and social knowledge as minimal as possible. Savak was notorious throughout Iran for its brutal methods.
The interrogation office was established with no limit of using horrific torture tools and techniques to break the arrested dissenters to talk in a matter of hours.
The censorship office was established to monitor journalists, literary figures and academics throughout the country. It took appropriate measures against those who fell out of the regime's line.
Universities, labor unions and peasant organizations, amongst others, were all subjected to intense surveillance by the Savak agents and paid informants. The agency was also active abroad, especially in monitoring Iranian students who publicly opposed the Shah's government.
Interrogation, torture and long term imprisonment by Savak for reading or possessing any forbidden books. The prohibited books were removed from the book-stores and libraries; even the Tozih-ol-Masael written by Ayatollah Rouhollah Khomeini was forbidden.
Over the years, Savak became a law unto itself, having legal authority to arrest, detain, brutally interrogate and torture suspected people indefinitely. Savak operated its own prisons in Tehran, such as Qezel-Qalaeh and Evin facilities and many suspected places throughout the country as well. Many of those activities were carried out without any institutional checks.
The monarchy was toppled in Iran on February 11th, 1979 (22nd day of Bahman 1357, Persian calendar). The Savak dissolved and then the Iranian people along with the political prisoners tasted the blossoms of freedom (Bahar-e Azadi) for a few months. The banned and forbidden newspapers, magazines and books started republishing until the religious dictatorship took place then Savama was created that resembled Savak in different forms of oppression."
Dr. Shackleford, it is right to criticize many aspects of the Iranian regime. I am not a supporter of that regime although my criticisms are probably different than yours. At the same time, to make statements suggesting that Iran was a beautiful place of freedom and forward looking liberty under the Shah show that you are either completely ignorant or that all that matters to you is whether a regime is pro U.S. or not and all that blather is about freedom and liberty is hypocritical codespeak for "pro-U.S."
The overthrow of the Shah and the return of Khomeini was achieved through and met with tremendous popular support and mass celebrations broke out throughout the country upon the Shah leaving. These are simply historical facts and you can't cancel them out by making something else up.
The notion that the U.S. ignored Iran during the 80s is just as nonsensical and historically ignorant. Instead, the U.S. instigated and supported your old friend Saddam Hussein to invade Iran, starting a war which resulted in the deaths of more than a million Muslims.
The people of America can choose to be ignorant of the facts of its own role in supporting the dictators in Iran and Iraq but the people of those countries and the whole Muslim world know the truth. You see, they lived (or in many, many cases died) through it.
Abu Noor al-Irlandee
Posted by: Abu Noor al-Irlandee at November 5, 2004 10:08 AM