Posted: January 29, 2009
1:00 am Eastern
© 2009
On Jan. 20, 2009, Jimmy Carter announced a new plan for peace in the Middle East and appealed to President Barack Obama to implement that plan. He met with Obama just days before the inauguration to attempt to sway him about what the former president called an "unnecessary war" in Gaza. Carter has long been a vocal proponent of establishing an ongoing relationship with Hamas' terrorist leaders. It appears his influence has already made inroads in Obama's Middle East policy plans.
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Today's society is replete with makeovers, everything from extreme home makeovers to extreme people makeovers – everything from plastic surgery, to botox, to liposuction and other cosmetic enhancements. However, one of the most extreme makeovers took place in France in the late 1970s when the dour Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini was transformed almost overnight into a VIP, the darling of the liberal Western media.
Khomeini received the makeover of all times. This son of an Indian fortuneteller was stripped of his past. His father became the leader of the Khomeini clan who, supposedly, was murdered by Pahlavi's father. Khomeini graduated from second-rate mullah to academic and renowned holy man. If he was the Eliza Doolittle of this scenario, who was the Henry Higgins? What country (or countries) was so determined to unseat the shah that it was willing to undertake the transformation?
Dominique Lorenz, a journalist for the French Libération, wrote that "having picked Khomeini to overthrow the shah, [the Americans] had to get him out of Iraq, clothe him with respectability, and set him up in Paris; a succession of events which could not have occurred if the leadership in France had been against it."
In France, Khomeini's Iranian visitors totaled more than 1,000 per day, all of whom the French blessed or, at the very least, turned a blind eye. The ayatollah became the "Guru of Hate" as he shared his vitriolic dislike for the shah with all who would listen and learn. These disciples, including a number from various American universities, were not coming just to sit at the feet of the "Teacher" and learn; their pockets, lined with money collected through the Bazaar, the commercial system in Iran, were empty when they left Khomeini's presence. Some estimates place the contributions at approximately 20 million British pounds.
The ayatollah's compound was reportedly surrounded by representatives of covert agencies from the major powers: the CIA, Britain's MI-6, Russia's KGB and the French intelligence organization, SDECE. One has to wonder why an unknown, uncultured, old cleric was the focus of such attention. Intelligence officers from Israel, France and the U.S. stated that the U.S. government wrote checks to Khomeini while he was in Paris in increments of approximately $150 million each. They were delivered through the CIA. One man with whom I spoke stated, "Jimmy Carter should have been tried for treason for aiding and abetting an enemy of the United States."
Carter perceived Khomeini more as a religious holy man in a grass-roots revolution than the founding father of modern terrorism. Carter's ambassador to the UN, Andrew Young, said, "Khomeini will eventually be hailed as a saint." Carter's Iranian ambassador, William Sullivan, said, "Khomeini is a Gandhi-like figure." Carter adviser James Bill proclaimed in a Newsweek interview on Feb. 12, 1979, that Khomeini was not a mad mujahid, but a man of "impeccable integrity and honesty."
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