fire control system and multi-purpose radar and that adds iran to the first list of countries that may fighter aircraft that the the americans didn't learn about it because در مقابل مخالفت.

on march 2nd, 1974, the rastaakiz or resurrection party, was formed at the shars instance, all legal parties and trade unions had to be merged into it. soon after, membership in the party became mandatory. in one of his speeches, the shah noted, all people are required to join the party if they want to show their good faith to the throne, otherwise they have to leave the country, and if they don't leave the country,... they will be sent to prison. the regime announced that passports would be issued for those not interested in the party. mahmoud jafaran, the vice president of rastahi's party, who was once involved in communist activities, said it doesn't make any difference to be leftist or rightest if you're going to be disloyal to your country. shah seemed to be reasonably in control, he had started new political system there called the rastiz or resurgence. party, of

the idea was you have one party, but different views could be expressed in the party. the revolution was still in its early stages and the authorities attacked religious and secular opponents on every occasion, but taking down the opposition groups got the regime really in trouble. show was immensely unpopular within the iranian uh within iran uh he was sick he was dying of cancer he wasn't at the end of he didn't have perhaps all his faculties the way he governed was flaught with everything centralized control so if anything happened to him the government was paralyzed to do anything uh i think i think he was he had serious problems no matter what happened his his son was uh was in no shape to take over after. him, nor did

the iranian people really want that, i think, i think it was a popular revolt. i've read professor zonas's book and i, i think it's a fascinating psychological portrait, but i've also talked to number of people who dealt with the shaw, iranians and american government officials, and their experience was of a an extremely arrogant figure who simply did not brook any kind of opposition whatsoever, and was in. of every meeting that he walked into, and so i don't have to reconcile these images, and it's certainly possible that this forceful proud presentation might have crumbled in the face of unprecedented popular unrest, in the face of his own illness, of course, having been diagnosed with cancer. in november 1977,

the shah made made a visit to the united states. the police had to use tear gas to disperse anti-shaf protesters during president carter's speech in front of the white house. the media captured the shah and the president shedding tears, a scene many revolutionary groups liked. during the visit, carter fully supported the shah, and the shah announced his agreement on fixing the price of oil, to make decisions himself based on no knowledge of anything, uh, how serious he in was, uh, and what would that have actually happened, have happened, it's hard to say, it's clear that he, he was not friendly toward the shah, in fact he refused.

admission to the united states, even to seek of medical treatment, and whether the us would have ceased arm sales to any dictatorship, probably... would not have happened since there are so many and they depend down, the us depends heavily on arm sales, uh, but who knowszinski? well, that will be very, we have to announce it on the air so it doesn't look peculiar. your majesty, are you being sold weapons in the united states in part so that you can uh defend our point of view? well, i can't. really uh see uh what that means, but if you say that we are allies, i can say yes, we are allies. in his official visit to iran,

president carter of the united states said, the military alliance between iran and america is indestructible. just a week later, itala art newspaper. published insult to ayatul khumeini an article by ahmed rashidi mutlaq. the article hurt public feelings and rocked the country. the epicenter was the city of qom.

one of the most staggering things to me about the revolution and the american attitude to the revolution was the failure of american policymakers to understand. just how weak the shaw of iran was, i'm not talking about weak militarily or weak in a sense of not having a good police force, i'm talking about weak in terms of a character structure. let me give you an example, so jimmy carter is the president of the united states and jimmy carter thinks that the sharan is really tough guy, and so how we going to deal with this really tough guy, i mean how do you deal with guy who's you know walking around these medals? right, how do you deal with tough guy? well, the united states has this ambassador in the philippines, and this ambassador in the philippines, william sullavan, he's been dealing with marcos and he's been doing a great job, and everybody knows marcos is really tough dude, so let's send sullivan from the philippines to tehron,

because he knows how to handle tough guys, we don't have anybody else who's as good with tough guys, so sullivan, who doesn't know anything about the middle east, who doesn't know anything about iran, and he admits... he wrote a book, then he says this in his book, didn't know anything about iran, he had never served in the middle east, he had always been out there in asia, he shows up in terron. now, what was the style with which american ambassadors dealt with the show? this was the style, american ambassador would go to see the show once a week, there was always a fixed time for a meeting, and the show would welcome him in the show, and they'd chat a little bit of small talk, and then the shaw would say, i have come up with this brilliant plan for the future of my country, we are going to build a super high from teron to masad all the way across northern tehron and it's going to cost us such and such and it'll take so long to build this and that's what's going to happen and the american ambassador would say something like your majesty this is a brilliant plan only you could have thought up the strategy for prosp making your country

prosperous it's going to be great but i have one slight suggestion maybe instead of building the super highway you should pay some roads from the villages to the main road so that far could get their crops out to market and that would increase the income of the poor villagers and the show it's exactly what i was thinking this was what i was going to do, that's it, and so then the shah would go out and make some roads from the villages to the main roads, well that was the way the americans tried to influence the shah's behavior, and everybody understood this was a solo of comes to terron, he tells this in his book, he sits down with the shaw for the first interview and the shaw says ambassador. "this is what i think i'm going to do, and he gives this whole thing, and ambassador looks at him and he says, your majesty, you're the shah, whatever you think is right, that's what you should do, the shah was stung, what do you think the shah heard when ambassador sullivan said, you're the shah, whatever you

want to do is you should do, sullivan was being honest, he didn't know what the hell to do in iran cuz he hadn't didn't know anything about iran, and he figured that shah's a tough guy, he had been there for a long time, if that's what." right, that's what he should do. the shaw didn't hear that. what the shaw heard was, you should do whatever you want to do, meaning the government of the united states doesn't care what you do, we don't give a damn, what, you do whatever you want. want to do, meaning we don't care about you anymore, your shaw was devastated. opinion is divided as to whether the shah was conscious of his illness, but one thing is for sure, during the last years of his reign, the shah was always in two minds, unable to

make right decisions. what's more was that he was half afraid that the americans would take him off the throne if they knew about his illness. man نیز پیام انقلاب شما ملت ایران را شنیدم. من حافظ سلطنت مشروطه که موحبتی است اله، که از طرف ملت به پادشاه تفییز شده است، هستم. in the spring of 1978, political prisoners in gas prison went a hunger strike. as the new iranian year of 1357 came in, ayatullah komeini issued a proclamation paying tribute to tabris martters and attacking the united states of america. he said, the u.s. is the root cause of the hardship we're suffering, because it supports the despotic shah. the shah had kept his cancer secret even from his. nearest and dearest, but the symptoms of the disease were undeniable, the shar's inability to make

decisions was one. the shah was ill, we did not know the shah was ill, uh, in fact, i've got a thing going with gary sick, i learned from very good source, um, that the the americans didn't learn about it until october. now, sick, who was the white? national security council person says that no, they never didn't hear about it till then, they didn't hear about it till almost six months later. clearly, if we had known the shaw was ill, we would have seen the problem not as one of political adjustment, but of regime survival, and we would have, everybody would have behaved differently in that case. there were rumors that the shaw was not well, but even after he left the country, he, he had pictures of him playing tennis - he he was a man who was very fit uh and uh he gave the impression of being in

perfectly good health and truly uh we didn't know about it and uh there are lots of people who say oh you must have known but we didn't, it actually would have made huge difference and the fact is the shaw fully understood that if people knew that he had cancer they would change their policy toward iran because they would know. that he wasn't going to be there in a few years, so they would change their policy, and uh, they, and it's true, but in fact, this the cia formally concluded in august of 1978, that the shaw of iran was in no serious trouble, and that he would be around for many years to come, for the next five to 10 years. if we had known something about his condition, we could have gone to him and said, look, "you we're talking about regime survival here, do you want your son to be slaughtered in the streets after you're

gone? well, then maybe we better, so i told charly noss, i could even write that set of talking points, that you meant, but nobody, nobody thought the unthinkable until it was too late, you know, absolutely committed to the shot, at least through the jailet square riots, either in my book or in one of the other stories about the times." that the jolly the shaw before the shaw moved against the jali square riders, you want to know if it was all right with the american, if it was okay with the americans and prezinski told him on the telephone, it's a it's a problem of order, of course we would be behind you if you do that, and then i learned from my iranian friends later some said, well the shat didn't really believe him, he says yeah yeah, we'll go around and kill him and then we'll take the heat later, as marvin zonas says he had no balls. on april 14th, 1978, asadullah alam died from cancer in new york

city. the shah lost his chief advisor. remember that the pillar of the regime, the really tough guy who really helped the shot to be strong and as tough as he needed to be, and i think we have to be very sympathetic here. it was not easy to be the shah of iran, and the shah was a weak character found it especially difficult to be the shah of. which is what's wrong with hereditary monarchies? mean, his father was a real tough guy, the show wasn't a tough guy, so who was the guy that made him tough? asadola alam, his boy at friend, the guy was... prime minister when i first arrived in iran and homani was arrested and the shahs didn't know what to do and alam said to the sha go out and shoot these guys and you'll stay in power and he did it. alam died of cancer before just before the iranian revolution began so the shah lost a tremendously important advisor. as the

revolution gained momentum in iran, the shah blamed the u.s. for withdrawing its support, having no idea how influential the clurgy were in leading the revolution. meanwhile, henry kissinger, the us secretary of state, came to iran to meet with the shah, but neither the americans, nor the shark's men had finger on the pulse of the revolution, barking on the... tree, they had been focusing their attention just on leftest forces for several years,

there is no doubt that... ayatollah komeini was successful in extending his influence over the whole middle east, and not just iran. as an iranian religious scholar and political leader, he managed to make his country the world's first islamic republic. being an outspoken critic of the regime, ayatollah komeini used to denounce the shah's programs. in a proclamation issued by him and undersigned by eight senior islamic scholars, the ayatollah specified the shahs violations the iraigning. constitution and condemned him for corrupting public morals and cowtowing to the us and israel. on the dawn of november 4th, 1964, the shah's commandos surrounded ayatullah komeini's house in kom. they arrested him and took him directly to mehrabad airport in tehran. soon after he was

flown out of iran to turkey. out of sight, out of mind. that was rational behind his exile. the stay in turkey was not congenial, for turkish law didn't allow ayat komeini to wear the cloak and turbin of the muslim scholar. on september 5th, 1965, he left turkey for najaf in iraq, where he would stay for 13 years. on october 23rd, 1977, mustafa komeini, ayatollah's son passed away in nazaretf. defending national independence, ayatullah komeini chastized the shas regime, saying, "we witnessed that while muslims were in war with israeli forces, iran's government recognized the israeli state on the shaas orders. in 1978, mass protests were organized

to support ayatullah komeini. the regime, as usual..." responded with iron fist, alarm bells had started to ring. i don't think on the part of official washington there ever was a much understanding of the ayatollah. there were some few academics who had tracked his sermons were aware of his his views uh from uh for those years he he was in exile in iraq. "and then that sudden appearance in the paris suburbs, it didn't really penetrate official thinking in washington, who he was, what, what he was, i mean, the shah knew him as an enemy, and that that was, i think that was it, black and white enemy.ini was in the

neighboring country of iraq, and it was too close for comfort, at the shaf'. instance, the iraqi regime asked the ayatollah to give up his political activities, otherwise he had to leave the country. in october 1978, ayatullah komeini flew from iraq to new exile a suburb of paris. by that time, the ayatollah had developed an international reputation as the spiritual and political leader of the iranian revolution. being thousands of kilometers away from his homeland, ayatollah komeini set the... force the revolution, urging iranians not to compromise, and ordering work stoppages against the regime. during the last few months of his exile, the ayatollah received a constant stream. of reporters, supporters and notable personalities, all eager to hear the leader of the revolution speak.

iran, nobody, beginning of 78, i decided to to try to go to iran, but then after my first trip i came back from iran, everybody laugh at me because i was full to imagine something would happen in a country like iran, you know, sometimes you never know, you know, you have something in your mind, and um, well... when really everything started, it was end at the end of august. my pictures were publish everywhere. the rest of the world started to

think something is going to happen. who is michelle? it's me. "i was a journalist during the revolution, they said, oh, the ayatollah homani is coming to paris, it's a very old story, 41 years ago, i arrive here, he just told me like a grandfather, you know, the the the interesting part of the story is not me, i'm not the one important, what is important is to continue what you have done in iran, someone called..." me telling me you should come to paris quickly because the imam khumani is going back to teran and we want you to be in the plane. the imam homani

during the flight was sleeping upstairs when the imam arrived from paris with a special plane, the first stop he made was here and it was a way to say now i am in charge, it's finished, the time of of the shah is over.

"we must not become part of south africa's problem. we must remain part of their solution. we must not aim to impose ourselves our solutions, our favorites in south africa. damn it, we have favorites in south africa. the favorites in south africa are the people who are being repressed by that ugly white regime. we have favorites. i also want to say a word about the situation in israel. the

more we learned about the attack. the more horrifying it becomes, more than innocent lives lost including at least 27 americans, these guys make, they make al-qaeda look pure, they're pure, they're pure evil, i said from the beginning, the united states make no mistake about it, stands with israel,

addressing foreign dignitaries attending event to marked anniversary of iran's islamic revolution, president ibrahim race says the tehon has managed to turn western threats and bans into opportunities. yes, it's really. incidal war on gaza is now in its fifth month un warning against attacks on rafa where half a gaza population is seeking shelter, and nicaragua threatens to take a number of european countries, including the united kingdom to the international court of justice over their complicity in us israely genocide of palestinians.