Mark Dankof's Open Letter to Reza Pahlavi:
A Triune Strategy for Saving Iran
Sunday, September 03, 2006
H. I. M. Reza Pahlavi
Virginia
U. S. A.
Dear Sir:
At the risk of being presumptuous, since we are not acquainted with one another, I write you as a friend with well-intentioned advice regarding the present situation between the United States and Iran, and your own possible future role as a restored and repatriated Shah of Iran. This letter is prompted by your recent appearance on Fox News, which I watched from my home in Texas, but also by my own fond memories of your country when I spent time there in the 1970s. My father was a director of logistics for your father's Imperial Iranian Air Force. Both men were well acquainted with each other.
Let me speak openly and frankly with you. I have lost much sleep in recent months while considering the three (3) things that it is my conviction must be in the forefront of your mind at this present moment in history. I offer these ideas to you now in the proper spirit, in the hope that they will be received by you in the spirit of the King in possession of what the ancient Zoroastrians of your Persian Nation termed the Divine "Farr", or favor of God.
The first is simply this. I believe that you and your fellow Persian expatriates working for the recovery of your nation are in mortal danger---at the hands of the Neo-Conservatives who are attempting the co-optation of your movement for their own purposes, which involve the oil consortiums, the Western armaments industry, and the Israeli lobby. This idea does not originate with me. Ismail Hossein-zadeh's August 31st piece for the Asia Times entitled, "Behind the Plan to Bomb Iran," clearly identifies what Old Right American conservatives and Taft Republicans like me have been saying for months: that both American and Iranian foreign policy are being manipulated by the forces delineated in Mr. Hossein-zadeh's piece, to the present--and potentially catastrophic future detriment--of the innocent people on both sides. Evaluate your relationships with the people and organizations mentioned in the article with the discernment of King Cyrus. And beware. What is happening in Lebanon and Gaza today may well happen to your country tomorrow, at the hands of those who talk the correct talk about Persian human rights and autonomy today, but who may well be covertly planning the end of Iran as we have known it--if the minions of Big Oil and Zionism have their way. You and your subjects must avoid this trap and crossfire in any way possible. Your individual and collective lives depend upon it.
Point number two is simply this: I do not believe that a Persian human rights movement with an emphasis on restoring the Monarchy is credible, aside from concrete evidence that Iranians themselves under your direction are developing an expatriate military force with training, logistics, and proper funding for a future confrontation with the Islamic theocratic regime in Iran. Put another way, the perception that the Monarchy is simply waiting for the day when outside forces and powers restore its fortunes, must be replaced by the perception that those who wish the end of Islamic theocracy and fundamentalist government in Tehran are actively putting their own lives and fortunes in harm's way to achieve liberty for an entire people. Iran must be liberated by Iranians. It is their fight to win or lose. It cannot be won for the Iranian people by anyone else. The anti-Castro Cuban exiles would tell you exactly what I have. This is where it is.
And finally, I close with a third point. You must put together a team of advisors that has already proven their respective abilities to place the interests of Iran, and your best interest, ahead of their own. This team must be comprised of people whose sacrifice and suffering on the part of your country is beyond question. You will not find such individuals walking the corridors of the American Enterprise Institute (AEI).
I believe that one such person is Shirin Neshat of Sarbazan, the daughter of the late General Ali Neshat, the last Commander of your father's Imperial Guard, who willingly lost his life in the service of Iran and the Peacock Throne 3 months after your Father and Mother left on January 16, 1979. She has absolutely no ties to the forces mentioned in the Asia Times expose. Her integrity is known to Iranians throughout the world as on a par with that of her late father and mother. And most importantly, as the carrier of the torch and the keeper of the flame regarding the memory of those who lost their lives for your family and Iran while in the service of the Imperial Iranian Armed Forces, she has the committed contacts with the ideas and the personal courage to assist you with the creation of the expatriate force discussed in my second point. Yet I hear from many of these same people that they have a profound sense of discouragement, compounded by a sense that they lack the leadership and resources to ever recover their Nation after a 28 year exile. They need encouragement, organization, and financial backing as never before. And most importantly, they need you, and now.
These are my thoughts in these dark days. Only God and time will tell the final story on the outcome of these matters in human history.
Sincerely,
Mark Dankof
Link to the Original article
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