At long last, like a decades-long grumbling appendix, the radical Islamic mullahcracy which has ruled and ruined Iran for slightly longer than my daughter has been alive, is being suitably and righteously dealt with.
By the Israelis, and not the US, but I’ll take what satisfaction I can get and be grateful. Business is being settled at long last and after more than 40 years. The running sore of the Middle East, the funder, inspiration and director for so much terrorism against the non-Islamic world is being debrided and sanitized. I honestly wonder why that has taken so long, knowing full well of the specific animus that the mullahs of Iran had against both Israel and the US. I guess that we all had other fish to fry, metaphorically speaking, over the last four decades; settling the hash of the ayatollahs just wasn’t at the top of our ‘to-do’ list. As a member of the military and most often stationed overseas, I had plenty of reason for Iran-sponsored/funded terrorism to be on my mind, after the violent takeover of the US embassy in Teheran, and the holding hostage of embassy staff, as well as Americans who just happened to be in the wrong place on that day.
Invading a country’s embassy is on the same level as invading the country itself, and technically, we would have been well within our rights if we declared war right then and there. But of course, Jimmy Carter – on whose thick, sanctimonious, Jew-hating head responsibility for the hostage debacle landed – hemmed and hawed, whimped and simped his way through the remainder of his term as president. It has since been considered likely that Carter bears a large portion of the blame for the Shah’s overthrow.
Some time ago, there was a discussion on the blogger Diplomad’s place, where a number of long-time Department of State veterans were reminiscing on this topic. One who had been around in the late 1970s recollected that the sudden official animus against the Shah’s works and all his ways came up out of nowhere. This was much to the commenter’s surprise, and when he asked ‘why’ was told that it came from the very top. The general consensus among State Department veterans on that particular thread was that Carter pulled the rug out from under the shah at the bidding of Saudi Arabia; Carter’s good buddies with a vested interest in hamstringing a regional rival, especially a relatively tolerant and secular one. (Personal note – I was doing basic training at Lackland AFB during the time when the Air Force was also training Saudi and Iranian personnel, and I carried on a brief and very chaste flirtation with an Iranian tech school student. He was sweet and gentlemanly and poetical, and told me several times that the Iranian students looked down on the Saudis as being ignorant and uncouth country bumpkins. Hardly civilized at all, compared to proud and worldly Persians. Having had a couple of less than pleasant encounters with the Saudi students, my fellow female trainees and I agreed.)
The supposition of the Diplomad’s fellow diplomatic veterans seemed pretty logical, and I have the impression that “Blame Carter!” has percolated around the conservative side of the blogosphere for a while. If we had a national news media worthy of any respect, or even just academic historians of contemporary international relations who are not ashamed to cast shade on a prominent Democrat Party figure, they might have investigated the possibility and brought the hard evidence out then or since.
Oh, perhaps all the woes of the Middle East since the overthrow of the Shah can’t be blamed on Carter’s fat and sanctimonious head. Native progressives and communists did their part, as did the religious autocrats themselves, each party thinking to use the other towards their own ends. It just turned out that the Islam-addled mullahs were more organized, and had a wide, if not particularly deep pool of popularity among the rural elements. Or so I had read at the time. One does read reports lately that the Iranian mullahcracy has become increasingly corrupt, incompetent and resoundingly hated; that Iranian women are unhappy and protesting having to live under the restrictions of an Islamic version of The Handmaid’s Tale, that Iranians generally are rebelling against Islam’s various social cruelties and reverting to pre-Islamic Zoroastrianism, or even Christianity. I watched a recent video purporting to be of a currently popular outdoor sport in Iran – that of running up behind Islamic clerics and knocking off their turbans. The overthrow of the mullahcracy has been confidently predicted with increasing frequency – but has never managed to happen. With the surgical amputation of the whip hand by Israel (and perhaps quiet assistance from us) though – chances are better for an Iranian revolt against the power of the mullahs.
The main thing to keep in mind now, is that when the bombs and missiles stop falling and the drones return to their base, Iran’s future will – rightfully – be in the hands of the Iranians; both those in-country and those of the Iranian exile diaspora. Their problems are theirs to fix. Comment as you wish.
There was a good article on the Wall Street Journal today on what should happen if we kill the ayatollah.
Bottom line the revolutionary guard would probably take over and they embed every part of society and the economy
I can remember when the Shah around how the left used to despise him and his secret police
And they said virtually nothing about the Mullahs. Particularly amusing to me are the gays who support him not thinking about what would be their fate.
Of course I’ll bet you 99% of the Iranian people wish he were back now
You wanna get a chuckle look at Iranian Society during the Shah’s time with women in bikinis and now
Carter certainly could’ve done more to help him but would it have saved him?
Or we can blame the French for harboring the for all those years when he was an exile
It seems no one reined in the CIA. In ’63, Diem was sent to his reward with US approval, though I do not know if it included POTUS or was just CIA. In ’79, Iran pushed the Shah from the throne, supposedly with CIA approval, perhaps assistance. It seems they were playing power broker, and attempting to remake parts of the world to their liking.
I was too young for the first, and ignorant of the second, but do not believe the US citizenry would have approved of the shenanigans. I did not think the US government was in the practice of disposing of rulers of other countries on their whim. I do not think the CIA was operating with the approval of POTUS in all cases where they have intervened. I would not have minded Fidel C being introduced to the gates of the hereafter, and think he had a lot more ‘interaction’ with the US than either of the other two.
I *think* Iranian citizens are more likely pro USA than con, but the cons seem to be at the helm currently. Likely most would like some things to go back to the way they were, less the SAVAK(? I think) making midnight visits, etc.
The State Department and CIA seem to like think they can settle everything and make it become ‘static’ to a degree. Seems to me, without motion, being static loses all steerageway, and becomes something ‘out of control’ as different factors put in their bids for power in a static situation where there’s no real leadership.
Interesting times, as proposed.
Well the iranian revolutionary guards already run most of the businesses in the country
As Hilaire Belloc noted (in another context)
“And always keep a-hold of Nurse
For fear of finding something worse.”
As I remember, the anti-Shah lefty activists were all so very keen on replacing him… and it turned out to be so very much worse.
Yeah, sucks to be you, people.
I remember reading about one of the most prominent anti-Shah activists; he was some sort of professor of something-or-other at an American university, and had taken American citizenship. With great fanfare, he tore up his American citizenship and went flying back to Iran to take over some elevated office in the new government, celebrating his lefty credentials all the way and rejoicing in being part of the New Thing In Iran!
And a couple of years after that, fleeing the religious autocracy, returning to the US and asking for his citizenship back again. I think it went to a court hearing, and the judge told him, “Nope. Sorry – American citizenship is not a garment to be put off and resumed at leisure. Stay as a resident with a Green Card … but you made the bed – now lie in it.”
This was all from the early 1980s, maybe – I would have read of it in the Stars & Stripes, and this was more than 35 years ago, so no link, and I can’t recall the name or the year. But there were a lot of Iranian leftists who had serious regrets about who they got into bed with politically during and after the Shah’s exile and the Ayatollah’s return.
Can anyone really argue that 18th/19th Century European colonialism worked out for the benefit of people in Africa, China, South America — or even for Europeans, in the longer term? Can anyone argue that the US effort to spread “democracy” in the 20th Century benefitted the people of Asia, Libya, the Balkans?
Maybe the lesson of history is that we should all stick close to home. If someone attacks us, we have to respond and stop the attack. Otherwise, we should recognize that any intervention from the West is likely to make things worse for everyone — ourselves as well as those that Our Betters are supposedly helping.
The Shah made a lot of internal enemies, and didn’t seem to know how to attract real support. Also, the US alienated many Iranians with quasi-colonial behavior. (E.g. US personnel stationed in Iran driving recklessly with presumed impunity.)
But the suggestion that the US enabled the rise of the opposition is intriguing. There is a parallel with Cuba: Batista made a lot of enemies and discredited himself, but he was doomed after the US tacitly approved his overthrow.
The Saudi/Iranian culture clash is absolutely true. Arabia (the peninsula) is historically poor and backwards, while Persia, Mesopotamia, Syria, and Egypt were great civilizations long before Mohammed. After the Arab conquests of 650-1000 AD, these regions became the hub of Moslem culture while Arabia remained a backwater.
The effect of the oil jackpot could be compared to “The Beverly Hillbillies”: bumpkins becoming fabulously rich, but still bumpkins.
“Can anyone argue that the US effort to spread “democracy” in the 20th Century benefitted the people of Asia, Libya, the Balkans?”
Well, yes. The people of Japan, the RoK, the Philippines, and Taiwan all have decent democratic governments which almost certainly wouldn’t exist without US involvement. Indonesia, too, though the history is more obscure.
The US did nothing to “spread democracy” to Libya until the rebellion in 2011 and international intervention to finish off Qaddafi. (Which in my and others’ view was late, clumsy, and bungled, when it could have been early and decisive.)
As to the Balkans: without US aid, Greece probably would have fallen to Communism in the 1940s, and US efforts including NATO and Radio Free Europe contained and undermined Communism, which fell. Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary, Moldova, and Albania are free countries today.
The economist Peter Bauer pointed out that as a rule the countries that were western colonies are more prosperous than the places that were never colonized.
The Shah wasn’t a nice guy but he was leagues ahead of the mullahs. And he was a modernizer. It was his bad luck to be in a power struggle with Islamists at a time when the USA had just suffered a painful defeat in Vietnam and was led by a naïve moralizer who saw the anti-govt side in every non-western conflict as a variation on the US civil rights movement.
Who knows what comes ahead. It’s possible that the mullahs will be around for a while yet, in which case too bad for the Iranians, but Israel and the West will be OK with that outcome as long as Iran’s nuke programs get neutralized. Or maybe the mullahs will fall, in which case a successor govt could be better or worse than the current one. We shall see.
The main thing is to neutralize the nuke programs. If the USA contributes to the effort by dropping some big bombs there shouldn’t be a problem. There is no need for any US troop presence in Iran, and approximately no one in this country wants it. The nukes are the problem and they can be dealt with by bombing and raiding as necessary.
The diem coup re moyar was a brilliant scheme engineered by a viet cong asset who was the source for halberstam who influenced the state department as well as Kennedy the former counter insurgency was quite effective for chinese and soviet records
Remember the Mullahs are the Weapon of Mass Destruction
Everyone speaks of the two week pause in the Trump decision but given that Israel is still bombing, that Trump decision is more like the proverbial Sword of Damocles.
So why the pause? I’ll speculate…. it’s high stakes negotiation, just the way Trump likes it but it’s not Iran negotiating with him but rather various members, factions within the regime negotiating a way out, a personal exit strategy
Israel is still bombing and they just hit the secret police HQ. They have shown they can hack the TV system and Elon has turned on Starlink so people can connect their cell phones.
Every regime this side of Stalin and Kim has various factions that contend for power and I would imagine right now alot of them are weighing the regime’s chances of survival and thinking what their exit strategy might be. After all in this political system there are “think tanks” or cushy board positions for an out-of-power regime man to retire to….. victory or death unless you can find a way out. Maybe out of the country with part of the national treasury, perhaps to be a next-door neighbor of Assad in Syria, or perhaps you cut the deal to be the one who takes out the mullahs
The regime types have to be looking up and seeing Israeli jets roam their skies, look at people staring at their phones wondering if they are hooked up to Starlink, and see all the news about their fellow apparatchiks get whacked and wondering not only what the Israelis have planned next but who on their side is working with them
Once somebody runs for the door it will be a preference cascade and will end very quickly – nobody wants to be the odd man out. I bet that’s what is happening now
Once again speculating but I’m sure we and the Israelis would be more than happy for a non-theocratic regime type to set up a post-mullah government of national unity and then we’ll see from there
Jonathon: “The economist Peter Bauer pointed out that as a rule the countries that were western colonies are more prosperous than the places that were never colonized.”
Fair point — but is that an example of the “wet roads cause rain” correlation?
The places the Europeans chose to colonize were generally the places that had valuable resources, whether of minerals or agricultural land or people or other assets. It is hardly surprising that the more resource-rich places that got colonized are today more prosperous — they were probably also more prosperous than the never-colonized areas back in the days before colonization.
Could be. The other side of that thought is that colonization by Europeans didn’t seem to hurt the colonies in the long run.
I never heard of the CIA helping the Mullahs gain power – the US lost a valuable ally and lynchpin when the Shah was toppled. IIRC Carter wouldn’t even give him sanctuary in the US – he fled to Panama.
A bit of trivia – the Soviet Union was flying over Iran with MiG 25s – one of the fastest jets (outside of the SR-71) at the time and it was a request by the Shah to Nixon to sell him the F-14s – problem solved.
You want to see something wild – look at videos of Iran during the Shah – women in bikinis – very westernized.
The CiA had few sources inside the shia resistance more inside the old mossadecqists this was true in the nest of spies documents recovered they apparently didnt know the extent of the shahs illness
India which was Britains largest prize was seized in a fight with the French by Clive, most African expeditions like Ghana were punitive expeditions of a sort
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2025/06/20/earthquake-near-iran-nuclear-site-natural-event-or-hidden-test/
I suspect, whatever happens now, that Iran will remain a running sore in the Middle East that affects a sizable amount of regional, and world, politics for quite some time.
Were the citizens strongly interested in, and suitably equipped, to conduct a properly-managed “regime replacement” with an eye to the long term situation it would be different, but in the long run Israel should consider developing its own version of “Bunker Busters” in whatever form and capablity they can, in preparation for dealing with a wide variety of “bunkers” or facsimiles thereof, regardless of construction type or location.
Trump may have been a bit more diplomatic in his assessment of input from our “intelligence” community. According to ABC News,
“Trump, when asked about Gabbard’s testimony this week, dismissed it, saying: “I don’t care what she said, I think they were very close to having one.” Gabbard then insisted she and Trump were on the same page — that Iran was “close” to obtaining a weapon — and that her testimony was misconstrued.”
In fact, she’s right. It may be true that the Mullahs still haven’t decided to actually make a bomb, but the point is moot. Once they make that decision they could easily have a bomb in, at most, a few months. It’s generally agreed that Iran could enrich its existing stocks of enriched uranium into bomb grade material in a matter of weeks. It’s beyond me how anyone could seriously believe it would then take them years to make a bomb. Our scientists built a uranium bomb in less than three years after the very first demonstration of a sustained nuclear chain reaction. They tested the plutonium weapon dropped on Nagasaki. Not so with the uranium bomb dropped on Hiroshima. They were so confident it would work that testing was deemed unnecessary. Obviously, they were right. That was in 1945. Now, 80 years later, with vastly greater computer power and understanding of the fission process, building a similar bomb once you have enough enriched uranium is just a matter of fabricating the parts. I would be surprised if it took Iran more than a month to do that.
I don’t know what our intelligence people told Tulsi, but if they didn’t make the above very clear to her at the same time they told her that “Iran isn’t currently working on a weapon,” they need to be dragged out of their holes and forced to explain this unfortunate lapse. A lot of armchair experts on YouTube and elsewhere have seized on her comments to claim that the nuke argument is a red herring, and the US and Israel are really only interested in regime change. I’m sure we would like to see regime change, but the idea that we had no reason to worry about Iran getting the bomb is nonsense.
Meanwhile, Iran’s apologists are making all kinds of ludicrous arguments about why she needs uranium enriched to such high levels. For example, they wring their hands and tell us that it’s necessary to produce medical isotopes that will save uncounted lives, etc. In fact any isotope needed for medical purposes can easily be created in conventional reactors. There is no credible reason she needs such highly enriched uranium other than to make a bomb.
Great discussion here on choices, degree of efficacy of potential actions, and possible repercussions. I always exit this blog and its comments having learned something that I had not thought of…, but which bears consideration.
I’ve no doubt that we (whoever that “we” might include) can successfully do whatever we choose, militarily. We’re quite good at that. However, as I’ve seen asked in similar discussions elsewhere, “…and what then?”
As an earlier commenter noted, decades-worth of our post-military (and surreptitious CIA? et al.) political activities and support for “revolutionary” undertakings does not have a good track record. When we (or a proxy) knock off the top guy(s), the replacement tends to not be any improvement, and often proves worse.
A review of our efforts at “nation building” and “exporting democracy,” going all the way back to Diem in the 60s Vietnam, Mobutu in the 1960s Congo, through the “Color Revolutions”, and Gaddafi in Libya, Saddam in Iraq, the Taliban in Afghanistan, etc., etc., etc., does not offer much in the way of encouragement.
It may be a better course to re-read and further ponder on Washington’s words about foreign entanglements, and be very cautious with contemplation of further foreign commitments.
Another reading suggestion might be Angelo Codevilla’s “The Character of Nations,” in which he examines the difficulties encountered when trying to alter, adjust, change, democratize(?) the embedded culture of a national population that is, and has been for generations, habituated to some form of totalitarian governance and/or central command-driven economy.
At this point, if Iran doesn’t have enough uranium for a few bombs, it’s because they have made a deliberate choice. A uranium bomb is a big clumsy thing, so much so that they were removed from our production early in the ’50’s. They were too heavy for missile delivery. This was only one of the reasons they were scrapped.
Another, ironically, was that they were too simple. This is why Little Boy was selected as the first bomb used, it was too simple to fail. This simplicity worked against the system that maintained civilian control to the last possible moment, fail safe. Implosion devices were much easier to block.
If Iran has a bomb, it’s probably too heavy to deliver by air. That’s the bind of uranium fission devices. A rather neat symmetry with Israel, vis-a-vis bunker busters. Lots of pieces have been added to the puzzle since you could fight a war by handing long pointy sticks to a mob and pointing them towards the enemy.
The problem we have, once the immediate threat of nuclear weapons is eliminated, is that there are still millions of Iranians at well deserved, deadly peril from any sort of regime change. The same problem that defeated us in Iraq. They will not go quietly. The engine of oppression will not be dismantled from the air, no matter how many generals might succumb. Iraq déjà vu, redux. Nor will the Saudis and Emirates see a liberated Iran as a pleasant prospect.
I read something in passing that Canada was proposing to offer asylum to the mullahs. Something so stupid, it might be true and and very much to be discouraged by any means necessary.
I don’t know why no-one’s pointing out that the mullahs world view is apocalyptic. Their hidden imam (a messiah-equivalent) will return during a period of great chaos to rule the global caliphate. The mullahs intend to facilitate this period of chaos with nuclear weapons, during which they will begin by nuking Israel. They’ve said this.
They are religious nutters with nukes. We need to stop mirror-imaging them with our western view of what constitutes rational actors.
Occasional Commenter,
A valid point. Excuse me if the level of corruption and worldly aggrandizement of the regime makes me question their sincerity.
Well we see how many precautions the lead irgc commanders take (answer not many) some front line soldiers not so much
As we all should know, judge Trump by what he does, not what he says:
https://nypost.com/2025/06/21/world-news/us-launches-strikes-on-iran-joining-forces-with-israel-days-after-trumps-tehran-warning/
When I was in college, 1982, we had 2 Iranian student associations.
The pro Shah and pro Ayatollah groups would gather at the others meetings and fight with sticks.
I hope, after today, they only have sticks in the future.
Yes, I know, they have missiles and rifles, but that will be depleted soon. Let them live in their 6 th century heaven on earth.