(Grand Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini He was a strange Dude.)
On the 18th of October, 1979, I noted the situation seemed bleak because the Bazargan Government in Iran had packed cheeks and gone away. This left Khomeini and the Revolutionary Council as the only decision-making unit in the country, even they did not seem to be on top of the situation. Khomeini himself does not speak any English, and thus all statements by our Government- and others- must be translated and presented to him by his councilors.
There appeared to be no one to negotiate with, even if we were amenable to that approach. The Carter Administration seemed willing enough. There were reports that Ramsey Clark (of Vietnam fame!) had been tapped to go and meet with the Iranians, but at the last moment the powers-that-be vacillated and Clark was stuck in Ankara. Such luminaries as Andrew Young made bids to get in, but all seemed to stumble on the fact that no one knew what was going on, or who could actually make the hard decision.
The students who held the Embassy seemed to be the only people who were confident of their position, and in the great tradition of students everywhere, were in a non-negotiable demand mode.
Strange motions were made by all concerns. The reports were out that the PLO had been responsible for the actual planning of the operation. Yassir Arafat sent a delegation to talk and was rudely rebuffed. The Students seemed to be playing the Race Card in an effort to split the American opinion at home. Suddenly they announced that the women and the African-Americans could go free. A few days later they did in fact release twelve or thirteen hostages. At this late date it is still unknown whether all the women have been freed, as Khomeini added the kicker that known Spies, regardless of race or sex might be retained for trial.
It began to resemble the Soviet Union in the thirties. Anyone not in favor of the regime was immediately branded a Spy; the tactic being to unify the country against the foreign bogey-man. It appeared to be a successful tactic.
The circus at the Embassy continued with ‘spontaneous’ demonstrations that appeared to take on a legitimate popular flavor. In fact, the place assumed a carnival atmosphere with street vendors, mass prayers, the whole shot.
All of this had a clearly dilatory affect on the hostages. Early reports had them bound sixteen hours a day, with intense psychological warfare tactics used against them. They reportedly gained several concessions from one of the women, and revelations of conspiracy to admit the Shah into the United States. Lillian Johnson was the lady in question, but I bear her no ill-will, as she never got even the rudimentary resistance training we got at SERE School, much less the water-board.
What was particularly galling was the use of real and bogus message traffic by the Students to justify the seizure of the Embassy and the ‘nest of spies.’
Khomeini has already pronounced them guilty, with trial to follow if the Shah goes anywhere except back to Iran to stand before his accusers. He further called President Carter “insane” and his advisors “buffoons,” certainly arguable points.
I’m sure this got great press back home for him, but to a room full of blood-thirsty military pilots it was greeted with angry mutterings. All we wanted to do was launch one of the contingencies everyone was working on so hard behind the little locked curtains. Turn the Holy City of Qom into a picturesque crater district.
Amid all this hoopla, the most devastating news came in. In response to it I wrote an ill-advised letter home, because I was convinced that it was war within the next day or so. It was more complicated than I could know from the sketchy first reports; but here is how it went.
The strange business at Mecca, Islam’s holiest of holies. We were flying nights for some reason known only to the Staff in its infinite wisdom.
Actually, it was all very simple. We called it “practicing bleeding.” The CARGRU Staff knew that when USS Kitty Hawk finally arrived they would be hopelessly out of qualification for night flying, and they wanted to make sure that we were ready. Same principle as the all night and day EXTENDEX: in the event of war, we might have to fly around the clock for a few days.
Therefore, to be ready to do so in time of conflict, you should try your damnedest to kill people in peacetime. The problem with all of the above is that the crucial adrenaline factor is left out. In our little contingency mind-set it wasn’t that hard to get up for it, but being still peacetime, the ship and squadron authorities didn’t think twice about going on with the usual daytime ship’s business.
Our ‘stand-down’ days on the 8th and 9th of November were even worse. On the “no fly” day of the 8th, we only flew five events. On the 9th, we started flying at 0200, which didn’t even stop the All Officers Meeting, Squadron Pictures, and all-hands Quarters events from taking up the blessed afternoon rack hours.
But I can see that I am jumping ahead of myself. The issue is Mecca, and the implications are dramatic and far-reaching.
When you look at the map of the Middle East you may as well put the numbers ‘8’ over Iran and ’28’ over Saudi Arabia. That quickly covers the number of barrels of go-juice- black gold- that comes out of the ground of those barren desert nations. I have always been fascinated by the use of the phrase “Our Oil” which comes from the Middle East.
Wait a minute, how come those freaking fundamentalists have all our oil trapped under their blasted sand? Why did we put it there in the first place?
Anyhow, I was getting the morning briefs together to delight the aircrew as they stumbled in at 0340, eyes still screwed up at the blinding florescent light, rack scars still prominent on the cherubic faces. Eddie Chow came in from his station up forward, monitoring the traffic we don’t talk about. He said casually “Did you hear the news about Mecca? Some bunch of gorillas (sic) took over the Mosque there.”
“Holy Shit!” I exclaimed mildly. Only one of the biggest stories of the decade! Certainly the biggest blasphemy committed against a major religion since the Romans tore down the Temple in Jerusalem. The preliminary reports had the Iranians responsible- Shia versus Sunni. Great News, if those idiots had acted against the Holiest of all Islamic shrines they would be isolated as never before.
I was ecstatic. I was confident this blasphemy of Shia versus the Sunni protectors of the most holy site in Islam would change everything! I envisioned the huffers (air-start generators) beginning to turn all over the Saudi Airfields, the invitation coming for the Air Wing to use all Saudi assets in an all-out strike against Iran already being received at the Department of State.
It was as good as over, I thought. We would go to war and crush them in a few days. Vie would return triumphant, and the national balls would be restored. The glow of that development lasted for hours. Unfortunately it was not true. As has been so characteristic of this cruise, the manic cycle began. We were way up over the prospect of getting it on against the Iranians. Very high indeed until the second shoe dropped.
The true story in Mecca was considerably more sobering, and had a most arresting implication. The fanatics were actually Saudi Shias, or at the very least, Iranian-inspired. They were well-armed, and had occupied the sacred precincts of the Grand Mosque and the surrounding the Ka’aba. Tradition goes that the Kaaba was ordained by Allah to be built in the shape of the House in Heaven called Baitul Ma’amoor. Allah in his infinite Mercy ordained a similar place on earth and Prophet Adam was the first to build this place.
The idea of pocking it with bullet scars was most astonishing in and of itself. The very gaze of an infidel is enough to give the faithful the vapors.
Further, it seemed that the occupiers were students from the Islamic college located at the Mosque, and that they had been preparing for the siege for months. The leader was apparently of a disposition to believe himself the latest Prophet, the Caliph whose coming was foretold. He had apparently convinced his youthful followers of that revelation. Below the precincts of the shrine exist a maze of passageways and chambers, from which it was going to pose no small problem in removing the attackers in the holiest of precincts.
Naturally, the propaganda began to flow out of Iran the nasty Imperialists had engineered the occupation with their lackies, the Zionists. This was a Kafkaesque turn taken with some surprise by we Satanic Plotters and Schemers, but the time had come around for the Big Lie to be credible to the unwashed, and the season was ripe for belief.
The climate for Jihad was favorable, and it seemed that the sap of Islam was waxing wroth, or whatever it is that sap does. The picture for the Saudis was not good, although it seemed that they were more than ready to deal with the immediate problem. What they were to do with a sizeable portion of their miniscule population who were being educated that the House of Saud was nothing more than the creature of the Devil himself? Who actively pursued such decadent habits as the watching of television and the listening of Radio? A ruling family so irretrievably corrupt as to play Soccer?
The entire concept of the Islamic 14th century revival runs contrary to the spirit of the West since our own middle ages, not coincidently of the same era that Khomeini’s followers would so desperately like to revisit.
I was fascinated to see what the Saudis were going to with a Shia threat in their midst.
For our part, Carrier Air Wing Five seemed to be of the unanimous opinion that if they wanted, we would be happy to help them go back a couple centuries at least.
The plague of religious violence was spreading across the region. In Pakistan, the Cricket Tests were underway. Whether the word was spread by the broadcasters of the matches, or whether the contagion of Radio Tehran was sufficient to spread the call to jihad is a moot point. What happened plunged me into the deepest depression. On 21 November, busloads of demonstrators showed up at U.S. facilities all over Pakistan after rumors swirled that the Americans had bombed the Ka’aba. Consulates were burned, American cultural centers ravaged, and the ubiquitous sign of US capitalism, the American Express in Rawalpindi, were burned.
But the worst event by far was at the Embassy in Islamabad. stormed the US Embassy in Islamabad and set it alight The fire killed Army Warrant Officer Bryan Ellis and Marine Steve Crowley along with two local Embassy Employees. Several American women were assaulted by the howling mob.
The messages as they flowed into Main Comm depicted the events in over-graphic detail; the buildings burning, rioters on the second floor, over a hundred Embassy Staffers trapped in the secure vault with air getting thin. The British Ambassador protested, but General Zia, the Pakistani strongman, could not be reached.
In the end, the Army did act. They swept the demonstrators from the roof and evacuated the staffers to the British compound. It was a little bit late for the two American military guys. Their charred bodies were found in the rubble the next day.
If there was a moment when I would have lashed out with all the force at my command, this would have been it.
But not our President, Mr. Carter. I have to admire his restraint (if that is indeed what it was and not some total paralysis of the lower bowels, which renders him unable to act under any circumstance). I would have had the Strike Force moving north and west within the hour. I know, intellectually, that such an action could only lead to the immediate demise of the hostages whose lives we were present ostensibly to preserve, but I think a fundamental stage had been reached in the crisis where the hostages began to become irrelevant.
Past this point we could no longer stick with the Embassy occupation in Tehran as the sole cause. Now, it appeared to be Jihad writ large, and our response could only be taken by the zealots as an assault of Islam itself.
The focus in Iran politics seemed to be on the matter of a Constitutional Amendment to existing law which would enable Khomeini (who we have taken to our vision of the evil vizier of the Arabian Nights) to assume the power de jure he has hitherto exercised de facto. It is interesting to contrast his version of moral authority with President Carter; but I wander from the issue. They have shown the Mike Wallace interview with the grand Ayatollah, and there have been some interesting responses.
I personally was livid with anger for hours, and I am not certain whether it is because I was burned out with fatigue, or because I was overcome by loathing for the ministers who surrounded him, refusing even to pose certain questions.
The logic of the situation runs something like this: the shortages incurred by the drastic cutback in oil production have forced forward the inexorable pincers of inflation, of the hoarding of rice, the limited supply of kerosene, the slow drying up of the availability to carry on the commerce which fed the growing bourgeoisie. That, lingering effect of the Shah’s profligate ways, have left them in grim shape economically. The oil is a finite resource. At the Shah’s pace of something well over four million barrels a day, it would have been exhausted by the late eighties.
Even the greatly reduced production of the new Islamic Oil Ministry (to something under three) placed on the lucrative spot market is barely enough to cover the lean essentials of public services.
Inexorably, Khomeini is faced with a no-win situation, much like the sorry nations of Pakistan and India, who add millions to already burdened populations each year. Scarce resources preclude reaching the light-off point for capital investment.
I think it is inevitable that the enthusiasm of the Revolution would wither before the re-emergence of the eternal plagues of hunger and cold. The indicators I read pointed to a consistent erosion of Khomeini’s authority. The answer, and an astute one in the short term, was to drum up the foreign bogey-man.
There could hardly be a better one than the U.S. I make no breast-beating case for the horrible crimes of stabilizing a nation, and paying it the going rate for what was then a non-essential commodity. Our interests were well served by the listening posts that constantly read telemetry from the Tyuratam Proving Grounds in the USSR, and as our national oil-aholism grew, so did our need for a steady and dependable source of crude.
That we could also build a powerful ally on the very flank of the Soviet Union also was of great utility. Most important, it stood as a powerful bastion between the Bear and the vital House of Saud in the thinly populated sands of the Empty Quarter.
But we did fuck it up. We were guilty of wishful thinking as a national policy. What we hoped was true we formulated in concrete, and in the blood of the victims of SAVAK. The truth was there all along, had we but taken the time to look for it. As far back as ’71 , my pal George traveled the region and brought back the news that Iran was a police state; that giant portraits of the Shah emblazoned all the custom’s gates, and that to walk his path brought no trouble, but the hint of criticism could bring the agonies of prison.
The Shah’s enemies disappeared, were worked over and exiled, But we still believed that a bastion in our favor was far preferable to uncertainty. The military contracts were good business. They brought down the unit costs on the F-14 to a manageable level, where we could procure more for ourselves. The cruise missiles are there today, and provide an element of unease never present in the waters of Yankee station. Four-engine state-of-the-Art P-3 Charlie patrol aircraft fly out to do maritime surveillance on us.
Well, they are actually Foxtrot-models different (slightly) than the ones we fly, but there were only six constructed, and they carry U.S. Navy Bureau numbers still.
(The hanging Judge, a Khomeini insider since 1955.)
Khomeini’s people are projecting the message that the “Iranian Government policy has never been one to condone terrorism,” which is nonsense. The rule of law is gone, as demonstrated by the appointment of Sadegh Khalkhali, the Hanging Judge as First Chief Justice of the Revolutionary Islamic Court. He killed hundreds of the Shah’s people in the early days of the Khomeini regime.
He was famous for ordering the executions of Amir Abbas Hoveida, the Shah’s Prime Minister, and Nemotollah Nassiri, the former head of the feared SAVAK.
According to one report in the Foreign Broadcast Information Service (FBIS)reporting, after sentencing Hoveida to death:
“pleas for clemency poured in from all over the world and it was said that Khalkhali was told by telephone to stay the execution. Khalkhali replied that he would go and see what was happening. He then went to Hoveyda and either shot him himself or instructed a minion to do the deed. “I’m sorry,” he told the person at the other end of the telephone, “the sentence has already been carried out.””
That is the sort of scum we are dealing with. However one attempts to come to grips with the attractive self-flagellating argument of “How We Lost Iran,” that is not the issue. It isn’t even close.
I can grant the Iranians have many points. Some of them I heartily endorse, as a lover of Liberty in my own homeland.
But the real issue is so simple that in the last 37 days it has been entirely obscured. A civilized nation does not take hostages of persons under diplomatic immunity. It may, should it so choose, expel those who it considers active (or hyper-active, rather, as all nations engage in the collections of Intelligence in their embassies) and bid them good riddance as they pass through customs on their way out. It may not capture a sovereign building, on what is in point of law another nation’s soil, root about in it’s internal paperwork, and come up with evidence to run show trials.
Were that the case, I would dearly love to paw over the files the Soviets maintain at their embassies and consulates in the United States.
But there it was, and we are now in a strange new land where laws mean nothing, international custom is scrapped, and something medieval and savage is abroad
The big lie was again triumphant. They shouted ‘Espionage!’ and ‘CIA! and they shouted SO LOUD and so long that those two words became the issue, in part of the long self destructive retreat from Watergate that haunts us still. Even Ted Kennedy, damn his liberal hide, jumped on the bandwagon. It is the first time that a Presidential Aspirant has even had a hand in helping me lose my Christmas, and I suspected it would not be the last.
As it turned out, I was right.
Copyright 2014 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com
Twitter: @jayare303