Debacle: The American Failure in Iran
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Source: Bahá'í Library Online (bahai-library.com), curated by Jonah Winters. Used by permission of the curator. Original citation: Michael Ledeen, Debacle: The American Failure in Iran, bahai-library.com.
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Michael Ledeen                          DEBACLE
& William Láewis                        .The American
~
ALFRED A. KNOPF   NEW YORK   1981
Failure in Iran

'"'-:,.,_
-'•II
THIS IS A BORZOI BOOK
PUBLISHED BY ALFRED A. KNOPF, INC.

Copyright © 1980, 1981 by
Michael Ledeen and William Lewis                     To Kathleen and Barbara

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copy-
right Conventions. Published in the United States by Alfred A.
Knopf, Inc., New York, and simultaneously in Canada by Ran-
dom House of Canada Limited, Toronto. Distributed by Random
House, Inc., New York.

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING IN PUBLICATION DATA
Ledeen, Michael Arthur. (Date)
Debacle, the American failure in Iran.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. United States-Foreign relations-Iran.
2. Iran-Foreign relations-United States.
I. Lewis, William Hubert, joint author. II. Title.
E183.8.155L42    1981   327.73981   327.73055   80-2714
ISBN 0-394-51657-7       AACRI

Manufactured in the United States of America
First Edition
DEBACLE                                                                               The King of Kings                            31
would learn the virtues of moderation in a different environment.                                  of the revolution has observed, "the clergy was the only group in Iran
This was not always a successful operation. In fact, Khomeini's three                              equipped to engage in oppositional activities. It possessed a function-
closest associates during the revolutionary period all returned to Iran                            ing system of communication; local facilities in the form of mosques
from foreign universities: Ibrahim Yazdi from Texas, Abo! Hassan                                   and related buildings ... close daily contact with the masses and the
Bani Sadr from Paris, and Sadeq Ghotbzadeh from Georgetown                                         possibility of including political themes in the Friday sermons. With
University in Washington, D.C. Even college graduates--or drop-                                    all this, the high-ranking clergy enjoyed a certain degree of immunity
outs, as in the case of Ghotbzadeh--could retain the intense faith of                              from the shah's grip." 1'
the Shi'ites. *                                                                                       While the shah challenged the mullahs indirectly-by enactment
of the legislation that made up the White Revolution-he had no
Concentration of strength in the hands of the religious leaders:                              stomach for the kind of unholy war that would have been necessary
While Khomeini had been exiled in the early 1960s (first to Turkey,                              to bring the Shi'ites to heel. His father had been far more forceful,
then to the city of Najaf in Iraq), the shah never took decisive action                            and there were many around him who urged Mohammed Reza to
against the mullahs, who bitterly resented his programs. Like Reza                                 emulate Reza Shah. Yet paradoxically, the greater the shah's author-
Shah, Mohammed Reza provided for civil judges (thus depriving the                                  ity (and authoritarianism) in secular matters, the less he seemed
mullahs of financial and political opportunities) and greatly en-                                  inclined to challenge the mullahs.
hanced civil rights for the populace at large, particularly for women
and minorities. These measures flew in the teeth of the Shi'ite leaders'                              The hostility of the bazaaris: The bazaar merchants, who made up
convictions that women should be unseen and unheard outside the                                    a traditional merchant class of considerable power, had long resented
home, and that the governance of the country should remain in                                     the shah's modernization program. His introduction of the Western
purely Shi'ite hands. Perhaps the most provocative of the shah's                                  banking system threatened the bazaaris' income from moneylending
actions was to appoint several Baha'is (followers of a nineteenth-                                (at rates much higher than those permitted by the banks), and his
century religious movement considered heretical by Islamic leaders)                               plans for the creation of cooperatives also menaced their traditional
to cabinet-level positions.                                                                       activities. Worse yet, the shah proposed the construction of a new
Beginning in 1976, there were large-scale demonstrations demand-                               commercial and shopping area precisely on the site of the traditional
ing greater adherence to fundamentalist Islamic practices. Rather                                 bazaar, thus threatening the bazaaris with physical removal from
than meeting the Shi'ite challenge head on, the shah alternated be-                               their business places. Along with these hated steps, he periodically
tween harsh measures and attempts at appeasement (as, for example,                                called for crackdowns on price-gouging. It was thus not surprising
his return to the use of the Arab calendar in the autumn of 1978).                                that many bazaaris supported the revolution, both for their own
This was only understandable, for the struggle with the Shi'ites                                  self-interest (often of a highly avaricious sort) and to a certain extent
would have been enormously difficult even under the most favorable                               out of religious conviction. Lastly, there was an unpleasant "ethnic"
circumstances, and in the second half of the 1970s the shah found                                component to the bazaaris' anti-shah activities: they hoped to re-
himself on the defensive in many areas. As one of the best analysts                              move their Jewish and Armenian competitors by supporting
Khomeini-hopes that were to be fully realized after the revolution.
•Shi'ism has its roots in the disputes that erupted after the death of the Prophet Mohammed
as to who should wear his mantle as leader of the religious community (Umma). The Shi'ites           The physical presence of a foreign community: If any Iranian
are those who remained loyal to Ali in the line of succession. Widely distributed throughout      needed a physical symbol of the changes the shah had wrought upon
Iraq and Iran, as well as the Persian Gulf and Pakistan, the Shi'ites proclaimed the legitimacy
of the Caliphate within the family of Ali. In time, however, various schools of interpretation
the country, it was readily at hand in the large foreign ghettos in
evolved, reducing the homogeneity of the Shi'ite religious community. The various schools         Tehran, and to some extent other cities as well. The most obvious
include the Qarmats, the Ismai'ilians, the Nusayris, and so on.                                   of these groups was the American community, composed of business
!02                            DEBACLE

(they had in fact urged that publication be postponed, or that it be
printed in an unobtrusive corner of the paper), and they had to deal
with the rage of the ayatollahs and mullahs. Even the most moderate
'                                   The Crisis, I
which had religious significance or stood for secular influence or a

Western life-style in the eyes of the demonstrators. Others were chosen
because they were seen as symbols of capitalism and social inequality,
of the ayatollahs, Kazem Shariatmadari, condemned the article for                 or of the power of the regime. Many targets fell into more than one
"besmirching the faith," and suggested that the publication of the                of these categories. Recurrent attacks were made on cinemas and
attack had "shocked all Muslims in Iran." Under the circumstances,                theatres, liquor stores, television sale rooms, shops for luxury goods,
expensive cars, banks, the headquarters of women's organizations,
no one could defend the article in Ettela 'at, and the alliance of
police stations, and the offices of the Rastakhiz party. A different
convenience between religious and more secular religious leaders
religious element came to the fore in the attacks on businesses owned
opposed to the shah became even stronger.
or headed by members of the Bahai sect. ... Yet another indication
The publication came at a time when violence was once again                   was that riots usually started at centers of religious life .... Sermons
erupting in the streets. New demonstrations took place in the holy               and religious lectures were the principal means for spreading opposi-
city of Qum on January 7 and 9. Religious leaders claimed that the               tion propaganda. . . .1
actions were in response to the Ettela 'at article, while the govern-
ment maintained that they were timed to coincide with two of the                   In addition to all these targets, the demonstrations increasingly
most important dates in the history of the westernization of Iran:              centered upon the person of the shah himself, and upon his deviation
January 7, when women had been formally emancipated in 1935; and                from Islamic standards of behavior and belief. In particular, there
January 9, when the shah's agrarian program had been formally                   was a growing demand that the shah abandon the Imperial calendar
launched in 1962. Whatever the actual explanation, the demonstra-               (dated from the accession of Cyrus the Great) and reinstate the
tions were serious, with the second leading to violent clashes with             Islamic one (starting with the hejira of Mohammed in 622).
police. At least six people were killed in the fighting.                           In the face of this heightened violence against him, the shah re-
The deaths in Qum marked the beginning of six months of periodic             versed his tactics by attempting to appease his religious enemies.
violence throughout the country. Once the mandatory sixty days of               Military commanders were instructed to show maximum restraint in
mourning had passed, demonstrations were launched anew, produc-                 dealing with religious-led demonstrations, and it was not until an
ing new clashes with government troops, fresh martyrs, and the                 outburst of unusually destructive violence swept Isfahan in early
beginning of another cycle of forty days. This relentless rhythm               August, shortly after the beginning of the holy month of Ramadan,
continued until June, when the pattern was broken and violence                 that martial law was temporarily declared in that city. The shah had
became almost nonstop.                                                         once again gotten the worst of both worlds: having provoked the
The violence was not limited to religious centers, although it al-          wrath of the mullahs, he then backed away from their challenge. The
most always had some religious ingredient. For the first time since            impression in the eyes of his enemies was of a man who was losing
1963, there was an antigovernment protest in the Tehran bazaar,                his grip on power, unsure of his strategy, and vulnerable to attack
where the shopkeepers staged a strike in the face of official threats         -an impression that had been heightened in June when the shah
to revoke the licenses of all participants. And as always, there were         announced that the dreaded chief of SA VAK, General Nematollah
periodic explosions on university campuses.                                    Nassiri, had been relieved of his responsibilities. There are many
In June, the crisis took on a new dimension. Both the number of            versions of the reasons for Nassiri's removal, and it is impossible to
demonstrations and their clear religious content pointed to a guiding         select any one of them with confidence. Some experts, including at
hand with single-minded resolve:                                              least one high-ranking official of the U.S. State Department, believed
that the shah was responding to direct American suggestions that
The dominant role of the religious leader in the events of 1978 was       Nassiri should be removed. The general was the symbol of human
emphasized by the nature of the targets attacked by rioters, many of        rights violations to many in the American foreign policy establish-
106                          DEBACLE                                                                        The Crisis, I                           107
Tripoli, providing logistical help, funds, and sanctuary for Iranian           of his own son if he steals, and would flog and stone his near relative
exiles and their friends; and a far-flung network of acolytes and              if he fornicates." Prior to the revolution, Khomeini's many apolo-
supporters throughout the Arab world and the West, organizing                  gists in the West suggested that one should not take such words
similar movements for purposes of propaganda and exerting pressure             literally, but the course of events has shown that a literal interpreta-
on local governments to weaken the shah. Once in motion, the                   tion was closer to the truth. The same volume contains a preview of
movement acquired such tremendous gravity that it attracted                    the actions of some of the leaders of the Khomeini period:
the weaker secular political groups that had long been considered the
only true alternative to the Pahlavi dynasty by most observers; it also          If a just mullah is placed in charge of the enforcement of canonical
received support from the Soviet Union, although the full extent of              punishments ... would he enforce them otherwise than how they were
enforced in the days of the Prophet? ... Would the Prophet have
this assistance can only be guessed at.
The world view of the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini is contained               imposed more than a hundred lashes on the fornicator not previously
chaste? Can the mullah reduce the amount of this punishment, thereby
in two volumes: Islamic Government, a collection of his lectures in
creating a divergence between his practice and that of the Prophet?
Najaf published in Arabic in 1970; and Khomeini and His Movement,
Certainly not! The ruler ... is no more than the executor of God's
a collection of his speeches and harangues published in Farsi in 1975á          command and decree.'
The central theme is the same in both volumes-the shah must fall,
for he is an enemy of Islam. In the 1975 book, Khomeini put it in                Furthermore, Khomeini attacked the shah for his close working
unmistakable terms: "The rationale of [the shah's) government and             relationship with two foreign powers: the United States and Israel.
some of its members is the abolition of the laws of Islam." What              The latter is singled out for intense hatred, and the former is linked
precisely were the shah's sins? First and foremost was the effort to          to Israeli schemes for the destruction of Islam. Israel, "through its
westernize Iran, thus depriving the country of its moral base and the         evil agents ... has dealt a blow to us. It strikes at you, the nation;
mullahs of their rightful place in society. Khomeini condemns the             it wishes to seize your economy; it wishes to carry off your commerce
hiring of women in boys' high schools, and of men in girls' high              and agriculture; it wishes to make itself the owner of wealth ... the
schools, "the moral wrongness of which is clear to all." Moreover,            Koran bars its way-it must be removed .... The Iranian govern-
it is wrong to have women in high places, which the shah had                  ment [of the shah] in pursuance to the purposes and schemes oflsrael
permitted.                                                                   has humiliated us and continues to do so." Those not familiar with
But some of the harshest language is reserved for the practice of          the relationship between Israel and Iran might well wonder at the
appointing lay persons to high positions in the national courts: "In         intensity of Khomeini's rage in 1975á It is not widely known that
order to accomplish its own designs and to abolish manliness and             every Israeli prime minister from David Ben-Gurion to Menachem
adherence to Islam as qualities for judges, the government's Ministry        Begin visited Tehran during this period, as did other leading Israeli
of Justice has shown its opposition to the established law of Islam.         personages. Moshe Dayan and Yitzhak Rabin, for example, went
From this point on, Jews, Christians, and enemies of Islam and of            secretly to Iran to discuss matters of joint interest with their Iranian
the Muslims must interfere in the affairs of Muslims .... " The words        counterparts. And there was considerable cooperation between the
"enemies of Islam" are a code-phrase for the Baha'is, who were               two countries. Iran was Israel's most reliable oil supplier; Israel
targeted by the Khomeini movement as early as the demonstrations             responded by assisting Iran on military preparedness, a certain de-
in 1977-78, and later singled out for violent treatment once the             gree of intelligence sharing, and even technical assistance. There was
revolution succeeded.                                                        no Israeli embassy in Tehran, but the head of the Israeli mission
The shah was criticized not only for his attempts at moderniza-           during the last days, Uri Lubrani, was as much an ambassador as any
tion, but also for his leniency toward sinners: "We want," said              diplomat bearing the official title. It is doubtful that Khomeini knew
Khomeini in the earlier volume, "a ruler who would cut off the hand          the full extent of bilateral relations, but he was not imagining the

~á
Notes

ONE     The King of Kings

1.  Robert Graham, Iran: The Illusion of Power (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1979), p. 53.
2. Arthur Arnold, Through Persia by Caravan (London: Tinsley Bros., 1877), p. 179.
3. Shaul Bakhash, "The Iranian Revolution," New York Review of Books, June 26, 1980,
p. 23.
4. Graham, Iran, p. 57.
5. Ernest R. Oney, The Revolution in Iran: Religion and Politics in a Traditional Society.
International Association of Chiefs of Police, 1980, pp. <)-II.
6. This, along with much of the information in this book, comes from diplomatic cables, made
available to us on a confidential basis.
7. Diplomatic cable.
8. Official text of John F. Kennedy's toast at a dinner in the State Dining Room at the White
House, April 11, 1962.
9. Diplomatic cable.
10. Nikki R. Keddie, "The Iranian Power Structure and Social Change 1800--1969," Interna-
tional Journal for Middle East Studies 2, no. 1 (January 1971): 17.
11. Manfred Halpern, "The Revolution of Modernization" (draft ms., Princeton University,

April 24, 1964).
12. Diplomatic cable.
13. Mohammed Reza Shah Pahlavi, Mission for My Country (London: Hutchinson, 1974),
p. 321.
14. Diplomatic cable.
15. Yair P. Hirschfeld, "Decline and Fall of the Pahlavis," Jerusalem Quarterly, Summer 1979,
p. 27.
16. George Lenczowski, "Iran: the Awful Truth," American Spectator, December 1979, p. 2.

Notes                                                                                            Notes                                       247
12. Joseph Kraft, "Letter from Iran," New Yorker, December 18, 1978, p. 159.
IJ Text of President Carter's press conference, November 13, 1978.

Two      The Washington-Tehran Axis                                      I4. Newsweek, March 5, I979. p. 43á
I5. US. News and World Report, May 7, I979á p. 32.
1. Graham, Iran, p. 66.
2. Robert Pranger and Dale Tahtinen, United States Policy in the Persian Gulf (Washington,
D.C.: American Enterprise Institute, I979), p. 7.                                                                               FIVE      The Crisis, II
3. Roland A. Paul, American Military Commitments Abroad (New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers
University Press, I973). pp. 27-28.                                                                 Robert Moss, "Who Burned the Rex Cinema?" Daily Telegraph (London), November 6,
4. Pranger and Tahtinen, US Policy, p. 9.                                                           I978.
5. Diplomatic cable.                                                                             2. David Menashri, "Iran," in Colin Legum and Haim Shakhed, eds., Middle East Contempo-
6. Stanley Hoffmann, Primacy or World Order (New York: McGraw-Hill, I978), p. 47.                   rary Survey, vol. 2 (I977-78), p. 483.
7. U.S. Congress, Senate Subcommittee on Foreign Assistance, "U.S. Military Sales to Iran,"      3. Kraft, "Letter from Iran," p. I62.
July I976, p. xi.                                                                             4. Sharif Arani, "Iran from the Shah's Dictatorship to Khomeini's Demagogic Theocracy,"
8. Ibid., p. 32.                                                                                     Dissent, Winter I980, pp. I7-I8.
9. Ibid., p. 32.                                                                                 5. Herman Nickel in Fortune, March 12, I979. p. 98.
6. Cited in Menashri, "Iran," vol. 3.
7. Arani, "Iran," p. I4.
8. Robert Shaplen, series on Newsom, New Yorker, June 2, 9, and I6, I979á
THREE       Carter and Iran
9. See George Ball's interview in Politique Internationale, Autumn, I979á
1. Unpublished ms. by a member of the Human Rights Bureau.                                       IO. Washington Post, November I9, I978.
2. Richard Sale, "Carter and Iran: From Idealism to Disaster," Washington Quarterly.             II. Washington Post, November 20, I978.
Autumn I980, p. 80.                                                                           12. Official text of President Carter's press conference, December 7, I978.

3. U.S. Department of State, Bulletin, November 9, I977á                                         I3. Arani, "Iran," p. I9.

FOUR      The Crisis, I                                                                           Six     The Revolution

1.   David Menashri, "Iran" in Colin Legum and Haim Shaked, eds., Middle East Contempo-          1.    Kraft, "Letter from Iran," p. I68.
rary Survey, vol. 3 (I978-79) (New York and London: Holmes and Meir, I98o). Since we        2.    Confidential interviews.
worked from galley proofs of Menashri's article, we cannot cite a printed page number.      3.    Confidential interviews.
2.   Confidential interview shortly after the shah's departure from Iran.                        4.    Washington Post, June I8, I980.
3.   Cf. Michael Ledeen, "Khomeini's Theocratic Vision," Wall Street Journal. January 5,         5.    Confidential interviews.
I979á For an example of the reaction from Khomeini's supporters in the United States, see
the letter to the Wall Street Journal from Mahmoud Rashdan, the Secretary General of
the Muslim Students Association of the U.S. and Canada, January 22, I979á                                               SEVEN     The Ayatollah's Revenge
4.   Joseph Alpher, "The Khomeini International," Washington Quarterly, Autumn I98o,
p. 6I.                                                                                       1.   See Bazargan's interview with Oriana Fallaci, New York Times Magazine, October 28,
5.   The most careful analysis of the phenomenon is found in Ervand Abrahamman, ''The                I979á
Guerrilla Movement in Iran, I963-I977," Merip Reports, no. 86 (March-April I98o).            2. Kayhan International, July IO, I979á
6.   Oney, Revolution in Iran, and Robert Moss, "How Russia Plots Against the Shah,"              3. Menashri, "Iran," vol. 3.
Sunday Telegraph (London), November 5, I978.                                                 4. L 'Express, June 2I, I98o. For some excerpts in English, see Michael Ledeen, "Presswatch,"
7.   Michael Ledeen, ''The KGB Radio Hour," American Spectator, February I980.                       American Spectator, August I980.
8.   Stansfield Turner on ABC's "Issues and Answers," February 4, I979á                           5. Cited in Congressional Research Service chronology prepared by Clyde R. Mark and by
9.   Mohammed Reza Shah Pahlavi, "How the Americans Overthrew Me," Now!, December                    members of the Iran Task Force.
7, I979á p. 33.                                                                               6. BBC broadcast September ll, I979• and Ette/a 'at, May 24, I979á
IO. U.S. Congress, House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, "Iran: evaluation of         7. Ette/a'at and Kayhan, May I6, I979á
U.S. intelligence performance prior to November I978," staff report, pp. 4 If.                8. Radio Tehran broadcasts, September 6 and 7, I979á See also International Herald Tribune,
II. Washington Post, November 20, I978.                                                              October I5, I979. and Menashri, "Iran," vol. 3.
-- Debacle: The American Failure in Iran (Used by permission of the curator)