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"IRAN"S SCORCHED ROADS"
An Appraisal
Forget it, this is no conspiracy theory, this is not a mystery wrapped in a riddle, this is stark reality. In a forthcoming document "Iran's Scorched Roads," Farhad Sepahbody, former ambassador of Iran introduces us to the dynamics of violence and International terrorism in particular, -- lethal conflicts that affect us all and have become inescapable parts of our present environment. The World Trade Center bombing, Oklahoma City, and why not the downing of an Iranian passenger jet were just further episodes in the long history of acts against mankind. The Iranian diplomat warns that in an era in which the threat of weapons of mass destruction has become a reality, the dangers inherent in all fundamentalisms, religious or otherwise, embody grave significance. Soon, there could be another D'hahran, Bosnia, Kosovo or perhaps much worse unless... we peacefully foster progress and democracy for the whole of mankind.
On New Year 1978, at Tehran's Niavaran Palace, President Jimmy Carter toasted the modernizer and allied Shah of Iran as "a solid rock of stability." Yet, a few months later the King was abandoned by all and his dramatic fall plunged Iran into a revolution which brought chaos to a region containing two-third of the planet's oil riches. Growing terrorism, the Soviets' invasion of Afghanistan, the Iran-Iraq war with horrendous human and material losses, the downing of an Iranian passenger jet by trigger-happy sailors, the PanAm jet tragedy in Lockerbie, Scotland, the invasion of Kuwait by an emboldened Saddam Hussein, Desert Storm, The World Trade Center bombing, the mess in Algeria, Afghanistan and elsewhere, the present sanctions on Iran affecting its beleaguered people, are all direct results of the Shah's dramatic undoing.
Some apprentice sorcerers (newbies, as we say on the Internet)
opened the gates but now their chickens have come home to roost. There were many ugly
players in the Shah's downfall, respectable voices plotting a regime's demise, --
Westerners with vested interests, communists, and some Iranians too, including a few not
so far from the throne. The plug was pulled when a severely ill and bewildered Shah and a
whole generation of progressive Iranians went down the drain. Today, the prevailing sentiment among Iranians is that they have been
betrayed by their elite and sunk by international politics. In addition, what's left of
the exiled elite and hapless technocrats feels shortchanged by the Shah. As for the Shah,
he was baffled by all, including the Iranian people whom he tried to bring into the new
millenium.
On July 16, 1996, when the participants at ABC's top-intellect television program
"Jeopardy" were asked who was the last person to seat on the Peacock Throne?
Nobody could answer! So much so for remembering history...
In "Iran's Scorched Roads," and before they become footnotes in history books, Farhad Sepahbody, with the help of new documents brings to task assorted corrupt villains, both foreigners and Iranians, including some notably uncaring individuals now living now in opulent exile. Some of these wreckers are still at work, others have disappeared into the dustbins of history. There is nothing wrong in Iran that can't be resolved by what is right in Iran. Our country is in dire need of changes and the time to map up a free, democratic, progressive future is at hand.
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1966, Iranian diplomacy in action - The Shah of Iran in
Belgrade with Tito.
I am sitting at the center next to Abbas Aram, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Iran, a good
man and a patriot.
Besides he loved cats as I do.
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Above, the Shah of Iran's grieving depature for exile.
Soon, on the ruins of the secular "Great Civilization" would stand an Islamic
Republic.
But most of the the King's work is bound to survive.
A MUST READ: Shawcross, William | "The Shah's Last Ride": The Fate of an Ally | 464 pages | cloth | "This is the story of a king's journey into exile and death, the story of the Shah of Iran, King of Kings, stripped of honor, adrift in a dangerous world of divided loyalties. The Shah's Last Ride is journalism with the power of myth and the classical dimensions of tragedy. William Shawcross captures the Shah in flight from his enemies, powerless in the wake of his government's collapse, dying of cancer, and seeking refuge with his once devoted allies. "Shawcross describes each step of the Shah's odyssey through Egypt, Morocco, the Bahamas, Mexico and the United States, Panama, and back to Sadat's Egypt to die. "A portrait of one of this century's most complex leaders and, more importantly, of the shifting alliances and tenuous loyalties that define international politics. The Shah's Last Ride is modern history at its most powerful." You can get this book published by Simon and Schuster at IRANBOOKS
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