The Vision of the Anointed, part 2
April 23, 2010
Khamenei
What has the current [Twelver Shi’a] Supreme leader of Iran, Ayatollah Khamenei said about Islamic Government?
“It should be said that the first spark of incitement [motivation] of the Islamic Revolution was created in me by Navvab Safavi [the leader of the Shi’a Islamist “terrorist gang” that the CIA went to bed with], and I have no doubt the first fire in every one’s heart was lit by Navvab.”
“My entire existence was engrossed by this man [Navvab]. As I was listening to his statements, he began Vilifying the Shah and British agencies [organizations].”
“The basis [cornerstone] of his statement was that Islam must be [made] alive”…and…“Islam must govern.”
“I heard these statement for the first time from Navvab Safavi.”
He goes on to say, [At the time]
“I truly had this feeling that I would have liked to be with him forever.”
Ayatollah Khamenei, supreme Shi’a Islamic leader of Iran (Fars News Agency, January 4, 2010: Special Report on the Martyrs of Fedayyan Eslam, Devotees of Islam)
http://www.farsnews.com/newstext.php?nn=8810120844/
So, what is Khamenei really saying? That, “the first spark of incitement of the Islamic Revolution and that Islam must be [made] alive,” and that the Twelver Shi’a Islam must govern, “was created in [everybody] by Navvab Safavi?”
Here is how Navvab Safavi put it originally. In his 1945 declaration to establish the Devotees of Islam—the Crusaders of Twelver Shi’a Islam, Safavi stated:
“We are alive and God, the revengeful, is alert.
The blood of the destitute has long been dripping from the fingers of the selfish pleasure seekers, who are hiding, each with a different name and in a different color, behind the black curtains of oppression, thievery and crime.
Once in a while the divine retribution puts them in their place, but the rest of them do not learn a lesson…
Damn you! You traitors, impostors, oppressors! You deceitful hypocrites! We are free, noble and alert. We are knowledgeable, believers in God and fearless.”
Ibid. p.21. Also Behrad
This declaration according to Behrad, was an attack on those who damaged the foundation of the faith and Qur’anic knowledge in the name of religion:
“… have no mercy on the privation of the poor, throw dirt on the blessed blood of Hosein (peace on him) … make deals with robber barons and know of the degenerate morality of the youth of today and of their disgust with religion when they sow the seeds [of ruin and division].”
Ibid. P.22
The Declaration cites many verses of the Qur’an, including the famous martyrdom verse: ‘Never think that those who were slain in the cause of God are dead. They are alive, and well provided for by their Lord’ (3:169). Prof. Behrad adds:
“He goes on, ‘You filthy criminals! … You know the details of your crimes better than anyone else…. We have no fear and no need for any one’s help….You are the source of wretchedness, faithlessness, and oppressions.
By God! Our blood is boiling, and the blood of the devotees of the faith is boiling and need more blood. Giving our lives away is a delight for us, but we will not give our lives before we get yours.’”
Ibid. P.22
The amazing thing in Safavi’s declaration is that he makes no reference to Iran, the country or nation. Instead he identifies the [Twelvers Shi’a] “faith” and “Islamic nations.”
What Does This Mean?
In the non-Muslim world, we understand socio-politics and geo-politics in terms of a diversity of modern nation-states. Twelver Shi’a Islam understands EVERYTHING in terms of (their particular interpretative view of) the Muslim Nation. This is a global enterprise under Allah, which, by the way, the Twelvers are supremely ordained to lead and rule, bringing all into submission under Allah (or at least submission to them on Allah’s behalf).
These are mutually exclusive world views. And, since there is no compromise or deviation from (their view of) permitted by the will of Allah, there will be either submission or conflict. That’s it, folks.
What Ought US To Do?
In America policymakers have a distressing history of pursuing shortsighted political strategies and unsavory relationships at the expense of geopolitical progress and stability. And, this deadly game of kick the can down the road continues even now. If we are to make any progress, this has to stop! Are we going to rely on a bunch of whiz kids who understand nothing but fast talk, on bombardiers who want to use sanctions to twist un-twistable arms before they become nooculur, on apologists for foreign countries who their interests more at heart perhaps than America’s own, on talking heads who think they can reason with and persuade Allah’s Anointed Warriors, or what?
Ambassador John Limbert is the newly appointed Deputy Assistant Secretary for Iran at the U.S. State Department (November 2009). One of the 53 embassy hostages taken during the 1979 U.S. – Iran Hostage crisis that lasted 444 days,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kntsLP8Vg2g&feature=player_embedded,
He suggests that we can no longer rely on,
“Self-appointed individuals and groups” who act “on their own initiative from more questionable motives. Such persons/groups should be dealt with warily, if at all. They can and will drag their American contacts into the mud of Iranian political swamps and use their contacts to gain respectability and further their own political and financial fortunes.”
http://www.usip.org/print/resources-tools/negotiating-iran/the-lessons-fourteen-steps-success
Curiously, however, before appointment, Ambassador Limbert was a member of the advisory Board of National Iranian American Council (NIAC)! One of those “self-appointed individuals and groups” who act “on their own initiative from more questionable motives…”
NIAC founder, Trita Parsi, author of the 2007 book, Treacherous Alliance, depicts the hostage takers as “a hand-full of Iranian leftist students [who] stormed the U.S. embassy on November 4, 1979, and took all diplomats and employees hostage?” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jx6M0qporwc&feature=related
Therefore, the question is whether Ambassador Limbert finds such a depiction of the hostage takers to be accurate? He was right there with them and probably talked to them nearly every day. Were they leftist students? If so, whose leftist doctrine were those radical students following; Marx, Engels, Lenin, Mao? Or were they following (the line of Imam) Khomeini, mostly self-admitted Ali Shariati followers?
“Dr. Shariati, a deeply religious man who studied sociology in the West, was a beacon for [them]. In his lectures and essays, he led thousands of Iranian intellectuals who had become secularized back to Islam, and persuaded them to accept the leadership of Imam Khomeini with courage and devotion.”
Massoumeh Ebtakar, Takeover in Tehran: the Inside story of the 1979 U.S. Embassy Capture (2000) pp.44-45
In case you do not recognize that name, Massoumeh Ebtakar was the spokeswoman for the students who captured the embassy and later served as President Khatami’s VP. Today, she is one of the (try not to laugh) “reformists.” Is that why some of the current bunch of un-turbaned mullahs (Fokoli Ayatollahs), members of the so-called “Progressive” Islamist Intelligentsia, are now depicting Khomeini as a leftist Ayatollah? What kind of nonsense is this?
Now in the US, “spokesmen” for the Fokoli Ayatollahs, or Twelvers Shi’a “Intelligentsia,” are urging America to sit down with, “the most important leftist clerics…Ayatollah Seyyed Mohammad Mousavi Khoeiniha” to discuss future U.S.-Iran relations. They have presented Khoeiniha as “the power behind the scenes.” This guy was the spiritual leader of the hostage takers and even now, “has remained a strong defender of the hostage taking.” He believes that “episode was part of the process of reform in Iran, and a necessary response to the 1953 CIA coup.” Remember folks, that is the coup that the turban Ayatollahs carried out.
What kind of s— is this? Why the h— should America talk to these hostage-taking bastards?
Seyyed Mohammad Mousavi Khoeiniha also served as Khomeini’s Chief Revolutionary Prosecutor in 1988 when Mousavi was the Prime Minister. In that bloody summer the regime secretly executed over 5000 of its political prisoners. And here we have Khomeini’s execution order (in Farsi):
http://www.shahbaziir.blogfa.com/post-23.aspx
Let us not Forget Mousavi’s Bloody Past!
http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1905477,00.html
According to the Twelver Shi’a Islamists currently governing Iran, they are “looking for opportunity for broad and collective participation in the management of the world.” They were explicit about this in their response to President Obama’s offer to establish a dialogue. They want to dialogue on how Twelver Shi’a Islam can play an increasing role in determining how international affairs are to be managed (in the name of Allah, naturally) on an ever-expanding stage.
They are keen to talk about their God-given right as a partner on the world socioeconomic and political scene. The Twelvers Shi’a Islamist leadership of Iran, apparently is convinced that they could be an Islamic unifier that will rally the Muslim world as a solid block in dealing with the Imperialist West (China NIC). They consider themselves the “legitimate” Islamic leader of the (worldwide) Islamic Nation, and after thirteen centuries their time has come. They now are positioning themselves to discuss the “Political-Security issues,” of the world and “International issues,” like “Economic Issues.” (See Text of Iran’s package to 5+1 group, Sep. 2009)
http://payvand.com/news/09/sep/1141.html
Ambassador Limbert’s 18 point negotiating proposal with Iran looks pretty good–that is assuming the Shi’a Islamist leaders of Iran have the equivalent modern mindset. Perhaps we should keep in mind how the Twelvers Shi’a see themselves—as the army of Allah. They see Iran not really so much as their nation, but as the territory they now occupy and the facilities they now use on the road to building the greater Twelver Shi’a Islamic Nation. With all the rest of us intended eventually to be under that system. Can you dig it?
They don’t recognize boundaries and frontiers. They are out to convert people, even Sunni Muslims to Twelver Shi’ism, just as they forcefully converted the once dominant Sunnis in Iran to Twelver Shi’ism in the 16th Century during the Safavids Dynasty. Any guess why Navvab Safavi took the name?
An example of their tactics can be seen in the global publicity stunt that Khomeini pulled on February 14, 1989. He issued a Fatwa against Salman Rushdie, and did it on the 10th anniversary of the first hostage taking of American diplomats at U.S. Embassy in Tehran. This was not a random episode. The FIRST time the American Embassy in Tehran was invaded was on February 14,1979–eight months before the Shah was admitted into the US. Hostages were taken, including US Ambassador William Sullivan. Why has This obscure event was a model for the SECOND hostage taking at the U.S. Embassy on November 4,1979.
When Ayatollah Khomeini issued his Fatwa, he knew very well that no one among the 1. 6 billion Muslims, except the 13% Shi’a Muslim population would even care to acknowledge it. His act had a global objective: to remind America what he was capable of doing. Khomeini was fully aware of the power of propaganda (see above). So too the apologists for the Fokoli Ayatollahs, or Twelvers Shi’a “Intelligentsia” that currently are dominating the U.S.-Iran discourse in America’s mainstream media.
From the beginning, Khomeini and his Twelver Shi’a Islamist “terrorist gang” had a worldwide outlook in view. They want international recognition for their cause and they mean business. The sooner we realize that fact the more effectively and constructively we can deal with them. For centuries they have perfected this victim-martyr game as a strategic gambit. Letting them play this game at which they are expert will only play into their strength. Why do that? Let’s not make them look like victims with faulty foreign policy initiatives. We need to be smarter than that. Those people love nothing more than to be “Martyred.” That is their ultimate form of “achievement,” a core value of the Twelver Shi’a belief system.
America needs actual sentient beings, who know and understand the Twelvers Shi’a Islamic Republic (of Iran), to advise our foreign policy towards it. Not the likes of extra-terrestrial entrepreneur Reza Aslan, who actually claimed that Iran’s election protestors, took a few days off from protesting to mourn the death of Michael Jackson.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3036789/vp/31565220
Good God, how stupid do these kids think we are? MSNBC surely has a better use for our airwaves than to host some self-proclaimed Iran expert’s self-inflicted publicity stunt. We need to get serious. Too much is at stake here! And, think of all the deeply concerned, serious Iranians who had put their lives on the line in the streets of Tehran to express their outrage against the regime. Why should they be subjected to garbage like that?
Why does it seem that only in America can we have an associate professor of creative writing become a Middle East, South Asia, Israel, China, and most importantly, Michael Jackson expert all at once, and be invited to join the Council on Foreign Relations? Is anybody minding the store? What has happened to the CFR?
America desperately needs to rethink our policy towards Iran. To undo the huge wrong turn we took 57 years ago, and prevent a looming disaster.
Sincerely,
F. Mansoor
Los Angeles
Notes on Shi’ism: The Shiites (derived from the Arabic name shiat Ali, “the party of Ali”) is one of two major branches of Islam. The other, and the larger, being the Sunnites. Within three major subdivisions as well as numerous offshoots of Shi’ism, the Twelvers (Ithna Ashariyya) are the largest because of their recognition of 12 imams, beginning with Ali to the 12th Imam, who allegedly disappeared in 873 and will return as the Mahdi (messiah) to save the world. Twelver Shi’ism became Persia’s (Iran) official state religion under the Safavid dynasty in the 16th century, and except for one short interruption during Nader Shah Afshar rein, it has retained that position to the present. Today, however, is the first time in the history of Islam that the Twelver Shi’a religious establishment has its own government and a large scale modernized military force.
The other two major subdivisions of Shi’ism are the Seveners (Ismailis, also know as Assassins) and the Fivers (Zaydites). Historically, only the Assassins have been known to be very radical while Twelvers to were the quietest.
The emergence of the Shiites developed out of a dispute over the successor and leadership of Islam after the Prophet Muhammad’s (may peace be upon him) death. So, subsequent to the assassination of Ali, the fourth caliph, in 661, the Shiites (Ali’s partisans) were those Muslims who claimed Ali was the rightful successor to Muhammad directly. Hence, the three previous caliphs had been usurpers. They believed only the descendants of Ali whose wife, Fatima, was Muhammad’s daughter, were entitled to be Muslim rulers. The majority of Muslims—the Sunnites, soon rejected this doctrine that became known as legitimism.
Shi’ism was originally a political movement of its believers claim to the caliphate of Mohammad’s cousin and son-in-law Ali. Shi’ism became permeated originally by non-Islamic religious ideas in Iraq, including ideas both Iranian and non-Iranian in origin. The Shi’a came to believe that Ali’s descendants were infallible leaders, called imams, who had a hereditary title to religio-political rule of the Muslim world [emphasis by this author]. The resistance and martyrdom of Ali’s second son, Husain [also Hossein], at the hands of the Umayyad Caliphs [Yazid], became a central Shi’i event [Ashura; on the 10th day of Muharram; the Commemoration for Husain martyred by Yazid].
Turban Ayatollahs Vs. Fokoli Ayatollahs
The big fight today in Twelvers Shi’a Islam is over leadership. The Turban Ayatollahs (long beards, turbans, Quaranic education) vs. the Fokoli Ayatollahs or “Islamic Intelligentsia” (short beards, suits & ties, fancy college degrees). Followers of Safavi, Khomeini, Khameini et.al. vs. followers of Shariati, Bazarghan, Khoeiniha, Mousavi, et.al. In the early 1980’s, with CIA guidance, Khomeini consolidated his power and control of the government in Iran, and Sadegh Qotbzadeh, Abol Hassan Bani-Sadr, Mehdi Bazargan, Dr. Ibrahim Yazdi, Massoud Rajavi etc. all lost out. Today their spiritual next generation, Mir Hossein Mousavi, Massoumeh Ebtakar, Mohammad Reza Khatami, Mohammad Tavassol, Behzad Nabavi, Abodokarim Soroush, Akbar Ganji, Ali Akbar Mohtashami, Abdolkarim Soroush etc. are giving it another go. This time they have better marketing than Bani Sadr and his crowd had: “Green Movement, Reformists, Democracy Advocates,”–all that nonsense. They all believe in the “specificity of Twelvers Shi’a Islam,” regardless of superficial calcifications. The Twelvers Shi’ism, is political and knows nothing of the separation between politics and religion. The Islamist intelligentsia believe they are smarter and more progressive than the turbans, and better able to advance Twelvers Shi’a Islam in the Muslim world than the turbans, who have become “corrupt.” Probably true—which, by the way, makes them more dangerous than the turbans. And that will bring us to the current state of affairs between Iran and the US—future blog.
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