tv Documentary PRESSTV February 8, 2024 9:00am-9:31am IRST
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mohammed razza shah had tough time during the mid-1978. he was straining every nerve to keep his relations with the carter administration, but the united states didn't seem to grasp the gravity of the situation in iran. i don't know enough about jimmy carter's mindset, maybe gary sick does. i mean, i don't know if jimmy carter really said to himself, if we got rid of the shah of iran, everything would be terrific in iran, because we'll bring a... democratic, libertarian, secular government, or whether jimmy carter didn't realize what he was saying, or didn't or thought that the show was so strong and powerful a character like ferdinand marcos, that this stuff would go over big in the united states, but it wouldn't matter the shaw, the ladder is my guess is that carter had no understanding of how weak the shaw was, i was the person that was responsible for reporting to the president of the united states. about what
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was going on, i wasn't the only person, but i was the principle, that was my job, and i wrote memos saying, there are demonstrations, uh, there are problems, we're seeing signs that things are not going well, it doesn't seem to be getting better, but i do remember vividly in august of 1978, which was quite a long ways into it, though the biggest demonstrations hadn't happened yet, uh... ambassador sullivan was on vacation and came home and and i took him into the white house to see uh mr. brizinski, the national security advisor, and he, i was in the room with brazinsky and and sullivan, and sullivan said to him, you know, brizinski asking what what's going on in iran and and what what's the situation, and he... said, don't worry
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دولت جناب آقای مفر شریف امامی رای اعتماد از امروز بنده شریف امامی ۲۰ روز پیش دیگر نیستم بنده نه به خودم نه به بستگارم نه به دوستانم دیگر فکر نخواهم کرد فقط به مصالح مملکت اختلافاتی که پیش آمده است به علت عدم تماس به وجود آمده اگر ما با دست جات مختلف هر چقدر باشن تماس پیدا بکنیم با هم مذاکره بکنیم صحبت of بکنیم تفاهم به وجود بیاریم رفع اختلاف خواهد شد اگر حرف حساب دارن باید ما بپذیریم اگه حرف ناحسابم دارن ما به اونها باید بفهمانیم که به این دلیل این کارتون یا این حرفتون یا این تقاضاتون ناحسابه و با این ترتیب بنده فکر می کنم که اونهایی که واقعاً حسن نیت دارند و...
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اما اگر یه گروه کوچکی باشن که قصد تخریب داشته باشن و اصلاً اهل منطق نباشند ما زیاد با اون ها کاری نداریم. چون به اون ها هر چقدرم که حرف حساب زده بشود اون ها قانون که خودشون رو نمیدانن. by september 1978, the shah had changed his tune on public. demonstrations, he called for martial law in the capital city of tehran and other big cities. demonstrations were prescribed, nighttime curfew was imposed and arrest warrants were issued for opposition leaders.
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که این تصمیمات گرفته بشه ولی ما کمال آزادی رو تامین خواهیم کرد همین طور که در مجلس هم من اعلام کردم از مجلس شروع خواهد شد که نمایندگان مردم در اونجا هستند تمام مذاکرات مجلس در رسانه های گروهی منعکس خواهد شد و مردم احساس خواهند کرد به اینکه اون وضعی که سابقاً مذاکرات مجلس در خارج منعکس نمی شد دیگه وجود نخواهد. 1978. vanished when a great number of demonstrators were slaughtered near jahles square in tehran. the day was called black friday.
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come on, let's forget he was pretty stupid during this period too. instead of going to his cherished allies for 30 years years and saying look, i've got a problem, he was attempting to deal with them in his own way, in fact the guy he picked his deputy inspector general of imperial guard had been a homani guy for five years, you know, or maybe three years, but he was and he went straight to home, that's why the raproshma with the religious leaders that he tried for in the spring of 78 didn't work, because the guy that was running it from his i was running to screwed up on homaining's benefit. i believe that the secret of understanding the shaw is to understand that in fact the shaw was very weak personality who had very low sense of self-worth, of self-esteem, he was not a powerful character, and the result
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of that was that he was partially for good reasons, partially for not so good reasons, eternally fearful of being overthrown. i mean, one has to remember. that his father was overthrown by foreign powers, one has to remember that he was the subject of assassination attempt in which bullets actually entered his body, so that would make one pretty fearful of future assassination attempts, that was in 1949, when has to remember that in 1953 the united states overthrew mos ofdeck with the cooperation of the british, not quite clear what the role of the cia was, what the role of the british was, but all that to the aside, and brought the shaw back to power, so if we were able to get rid of mosadek, we could probably get rid the shaw, and he was always concerned about the fact that in fact, he was not sufficiently important to america that he would be guaranteed to be kept in power. the
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country had passed the point of no return. in span of four months, from october 1978 to january 1979, momentous events happened. just to accelerate the downfall of the shah. the period was marked by widespend opposition, massive strikes and demonstrations through the whole country. during this period of time. the shah's men left the country one by one and soon the shah found himself alone, in deep depression and under the world's media spotlight. this time the united states seemed to be fair weather friend of the shah. the shah came to the united states for medical treatment in would have been i guess 19 early 198 when late. 1979, early 1981, somewhere helms went to see him in the hospital in new
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york, and the first thing that shaw said to him was, why did you americans turn against me? so certainly by the time the revolution got on the way, he had his doubts about us and i think it affected his ability to manage the crisis. sharife began a policy of meeting the opposition's demands. before being made, he did away with the unpopulary party and announced all political parties in the country legal. hundreds of political prisoners were released and freedom of expression became a civil right. the prime minister also curtailed powers and closed down casinos and nightclubs. the imperial calendar was also. آیا ممکنه که وجود بیان و دولت اونا رو خواهید. البته احزاب همون طور که اعلام شده است آزادن و می توانند که احزاب جدید
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به وجود بیان هیچکسشون during the day of the rastakis party mohammed riza shah once said the party will include all people of iran except those who are rebellious politically inapt the shif imami administration. able to appease the angry opposition, and as for the americans, they hadn't reached a consensus on what attitude they had to take towards the revolution. the disagreement between brezinski, carter's national security advisor and cyrus vans, the secretary of state, was just case in point. most americans couldn't find iran a map if they tried. they have absolutely no idea what's going on in europe in the last 300 years. americans are very, very, very... very paroquial, mean their greatest interest is who's winning the the super bowl or the in the world series right
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now, what's happening to their personal health insurance? uh, they just don't have any real appreciation for foreign cultures of any kind, and it's not just the the people, mean large numbers of people in the uh put into public office don't get it. you had a colleague that went in to see george bush reasonably after the election, it spent 45 minutes of his hour. with bush trying to explain the difference between sunnis and shiits and came out tearing his hair, and this was fellow that got elected president, you know, there's just very, very limited understanding of, foreign nations and cultures, we're superpower by the fact that we're super economic power and a super military power, we're not a superpower in terms of foreign understanding, problem was you had a regime, an administration, i should say, carter administration that had deeply divided council about countries like iran.
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what they did do is bring in a guy by the name of stan escadero who was later ambassador to i think azerbaijan and and some other one other country in the the caucasus after the break up of the soviet union and and escadero was kind of a controversial figure in the sense that he had been an outspoken critic in the mid-70s of our support of essentially of putting all them american national security eggs in the shaw's basket. the third problem was that the american embassy in tehran was wowfully ill informed about what was going on on the street. and escadero was critical of that. but it it almost terminated his career cuz it ran counter to what then secretary of state kissinger was advocating the us policy and the ford and and of the nixon administration, but he was also a fluent farcy speaker and... so when the revolution happens, solven asks for ascadero, or somebody like ascadero comes
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in to infiltrate them the the the crowds, which he does, specifically to try to get a sense of what the ground truth is with the demonstrators and escadero ends up reporting back repeatedly was sullavin on, he meets religious leaders, he meets student leaders, he he gets a very good sense of the opposition to the shaw, reports back to sullivan, and sent she convinced with sullivan's views that the shaw is done. "this is a widespread opposition movement, it it goes across not only religious, but all the stratus, from the bazar to the to the the gomm and the religious movement and even an element" within the military by autumn, popular support for the revolution was to the maximum, those against the revolution preferred not to speak out, that's while some predicted that the victory would be achieved by mid november. on the 6th of november 1978,
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general azhari succeeded sharifa mami. a military government was the last hope. a month later, general azhari had heart attack and he was in the hospital, and our ambassadorvin went to see him, and while he was there, the general waved him over to his bedside and said, and he whispered in his ear. he said, the country is lost, for the king cannot make. up his mind, and to me, i didn't hear about this until later, actually, but it is the single clearest description of the problem, the shaw had lots of of assets at his command, lots of resources that he could use, and he couldn't make up his mind how to use them, or to use them effectively.
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on december 2nd, the two million people in tehran took to the streets heading for azadi square. they called for the downfall of the shah and the return of imam khumaini. the time that almost everybody realized there was a problem that maybe it had gone too far was at the time of the ashua teshua riots in early december. news came out that they were going to have a massive demonstration. they said they were going to have it. the army threatened to to stop it and... things were getting bad uh and when the demonstrations took place at million 200,00 people in the streets and i did most of the count, i was experienced at berkeley where i used to count the demonstrators for the local press, about million 200,00, no violence, and everybody concluded the show was gone.
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few days later, on december 10th and 11th, reportedly around 9 million people throughout the country staged large demonstrations. even discounting for exaggeration, these figures may represent the largest protest event. in history, the world radically changed in 1979, mean even independent of the iranian revolution, you had the start of an islamic century, you had the soviet invasion of afghanistan, which ultimately showed that a small sort of religious power could in fact challenge militarily a super power and win,
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so the whole way the world was being perceived changed and one piece of it was the iranian revolution, so nobody knew how to deal with this, we didn't, the russians didn't, so the world radically changed in this very critical year of 1979. by mid-december, the shah's position had deteriorated to point that he wanted only to be allowed to stay in iran, but he was turned down by the opposition. in late december, he agreed to leave the country temporarily and still...
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an extended vacation and obviously he's leaving you with lot of problems to try to solve and well power to rule the country. in the end it was the shah was responsible in the sense that i think he came to believe that the greatest obstacle to his realizing his great ambitions for his people, the country of iran also, were the iranian people, and if it weren't for them, everything would be great. well, it's pretty
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hard for a king to stay in power when he thinks his people are the obstacle to the realization of his dreams to make a great country. scenes of spontaneous joy followed, and within hours, almost every sign of the pahalavi dynasty was eraised. on february 1st, 1979, ayatollah khumeini returned to iran in a chartered airfronts
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bowing 747. the welcoming crowd of several million iranians was so large that he was forced to take a helicopter after the car he was being transported in from the airport was overwhelmed by an enthusiastic crowd. now the undisputed leader of the revolution, ayatalah khumaini. was greeted with cries of khumeini, oh imam, we salute you, peace be upon you, and islam, islam, khumaini, we will follow
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among the most important surface vessels to navies around the world, but not all countries have the capability to build their own. iran's muhammad shah pahlavi decided for the first time to purchase number of destroyers from the united states, but when the 1979 islamic revolution happened, the us refused to deliver the purchase. in 1997, leader of the islamic revolution issued an order to iranian experts to build iran's own destroyer indigenously. in 2009, and after years of hard work, iranian... experts unveil the jamaran, the first home-built destroyer in iranian history, but western powers started calling it a frigate, litting iran in the 13 member destroyer manufacturing club was bitter pill to swallow. in 2012, iran launched its second destroyer, the jamaron ii in the persian golf. in the same year, iran designed new class of combat vissles named the persian golf cruiser. this time even the western powers wouldn't call it a frigate in
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the waters of west. iran's persian golf cruiser, is now the largest existing combat vissle. this is the story of nation that lived here for centuries until an obscure foreign regime emerged and began farming on their lands and brought in new people to replace the old nation. they picked the focal point of attention of different. religions in the region, a highly regarded place at the heart of this arabic, islamic setting. what would have happened if hizbullah had been vanquished? that's perhaps the most significant and upsetting question about the 2006 war. much has been said about the 2006 war, about its motives, the behind the scenes and the circumstances around it.
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st. louis ferguson, assassinations, they don't have nothing, they can't lose nothing, and i think the most dangerous person in the world, person don't have none to leave. black americans looking for justice, if this is a war then we're going to have to deal with it with the strategies that people in war are you. i saw his, i saw um, the never ending
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story. the headlines: uh, the us, israel, genocidal war on gaza is now in its fifth. month with the focus of the onslot being rafat, which hostts more than half of the gaza population. iraqies voice anger at the us over its new deadly strike on the capital baghdad demanding full withdraw of american forces from the country. and also in our headlines in pakistan millions head to the poles to vote for national and state legislatures despite a key opposition leader remaining.
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