Robert Parry (A Special Report): Iran Divided & the 'October Surprise'

[laststeamtrain]

Iran Divided & the 'October Surprise'

By Robert Parry (A Special Report)
June 24, 2009

Iran’s current political divisions can be traced back to a controversy nearly three decades ago when Iran faced war with Iraq and became entwined with U.S. and Israeli political maneuvers that set all three countries on a dangerous course that continues to this day.

In the election dispute now gripping the streets of Tehran, Iran is experiencing a revival of the internal rivalries born in the judgments made in 1980 and later that decade about how and whether to deal with the Little Satan (Israel) and the Great Satan (the United States).

Former Prime Minister Mir Hossein Mousavi, who claims he is the rightful winner of the June 12 presidential election, was part of the group (along with his current allies former President Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani and former House Speaker Mehdi Karoubi) that favored secret contacts with the United States and Israel to get the military supplies needed to fight the war with Iraq.

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the country’s current spiritual leader and the key supporter of reelected President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, was more the ideological purist in the early 1980s, apparently opposing the unorthodox strategy that involved going behind President Carter’s back to gain promises of weapons from Israel and the future Reagan administration.

Khamenei appears to have favored a more straightforward arrangement with the Carter administration for settling the dispute over 52 American hostages seized by Iranian radicals in 1979.

In 1980, the internal Iranian divisions played out against a dramatic backdrop. Iranian radicals still held the 52 hostages seized at the U.S. Embassy in Tehran; President Jimmy Carter had imposed an arms embargo while seeking the hostages’ release – and he was struggling to fend off a strong campaign challenge from Republican Ronald Reagan.

<more>

http://www.consortiumnews.com/2009/062409.html

[Democracyinkind]

1. Thanks for posting. I couldn't wait for Bob to bring this up. Maybe DU will notice now.

[laststeamtrain]

5. DU is acting like the 'gals' at the salon chewing over the latest schmutz...

...dragged up by the gossip rags.

Alas...

[Octafish]

2. Parry got his career trashed for producing FRONTLINE's October Surprise

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/programs/info/1016.html

Bush's people in Corporate McPravda did all they could to give Robert Parry the treatment they gave Gary Webb.

Thank-a-you big, laststeamtrain.

[Democracyinkind]

4. Parry was the man to nail the neocons since he uncovered their very first evil deeds.

Kinda makes you think how the Bush coup and regime could have such a stunning success while there was Bob Parry going around telling everybody exactly what the game was about. perception management, discernible reality, Raygun reloaded.

[slipslidingaway]

3. knr nt

[tom_paine]

6. This needs to be seen by as many people as possible. K & R!

Things make a lot more sense about current events in Iran.

Mousavi is a Bushie Ally. And always has been. Once again he forgets how swiftly the Bushies betray their patsies. Maybe he just doesn't care anymore. Maybe he's playing a game of his own and thinks he can beat them.

It does indeed look more and more like this Green "Revolution" is just another destabilization game so Mousavi the Bushie can sell his people and their oil to the Bushies.

Just a pity that, as always, it's the innocent who are pawns in this Bushie Grand Chess Match.

[laststeamtrain]

7. ,,,