The charge has been made that the United States has shipped weapons to Iran as ransom payment for the release of American hostages in Lebanon. That the United States undercut its allies and secretly violated American policy against trafficking with terrorists. Those charges are utterly false. Ronald Reagan, televised address
We have had nothing to do with other countries and their shipment of arms. Ronald Reagan, news conference 19th November 1986
When the Iran/Contra scandal broke sixteen months later in November ’86 the big question was – What did the President know? Was he aware that his staff were breaking the law? Or did they have so much autonomy they could illegal sell thousands of sophisticated missiles without Reagan being aware of it? Altered Statesmen: Ronald Reagan, Discovery 2003
Although cleared of wilful deception the report did think Reagan was forgetful and unaware. It also described a situation in the White House of ineptitude verging on incompetence from the President down. ibid.
Under President Reagan illegal money was raised from drugs and from the sale of illegal weapons and the trading in human lives ... And Reagan was president of that secret government ... He was a regular habitual liar. And as for the economy, we are still living with his deficit. Christopher Hitchens, interview The Nation
There are two senses in which we are in confrontation over Iran ... illegally trying to acquire and to conceal its acquirement of thermonuclear weapons ... public opinion especially amongst the young is anti-theocratic. Christopher Hitchens, reddit online interview
You want a regime like that to have nuclear weapons? You’re welcome. Christopher Hitchens
When the Washington Post telephoned me at home on Valentine’s Day 1989 to ask my opinion about the Ayatollah Khomeini’s fatwah, I felt at once that here was something that completely committed me. It was, if I can phrase it like this, a matter of everything I hated versus everything I loved. In the hate column: dictatorship, religion, stupidity, demagogy, censorship, bullying, and intimidation. In the love column: literature, irony, humor, the individual, and the defense of free expression. Plus, of course, friendship – though I like to think that my reaction would have been the same if I hadn’t known Salman at all. To re-state the premise of the argument again: the theocratic head of a foreign despotism offers money in his own name in order to suborn the murder of a civilian citizen of another country, for the offense of writing a work of fiction. No more root-and-branch challenge to the values of the Enlightenment (on the bicentennial of the fall of the Bastille) or to the First Amendment to the Constitution, could be imagined. President George H W Bush, when asked to comment, could only say grudgingly that, as far as he could see, no American interests were involved. Christopher Hitchens Hitch-22: A Memoir
Yes, it was true that almost every stage of the Iranian drama had come as a complete surprise to the media. But wasn’t it also the case that Iranian society was now disappearing into a void of retrogressive piety that had levied war against Iranian Kurdistan and used medieval weaponry such as stoning and amputation against its internal critics, or even against those like unveiled women whose very existence constituted an offense? ibid.
When the day comes that Tehran can announce its nuclear capability, every shred of international law will have been discarded. The mullahs have publicly sworn — to the United Nations and the European Union and the International Atomic Energy Agency – that they are not cheating. As they unmask their batteries, they will be jeering at the very idea of an ‘international community’. How strange it is that those who usually fetishize the United Nations and its inspectors do not feel this shame more keenly. Christopher Hitchens
A version of the Inquisition is about to lay hands on a nuclear weapon. Under the stultified rule of religion, the great and inventive and sophisticated civilization of Persia has been steadily losing its pulse. Its writers and artists and intellectuals are mainly in exile or stifled by censorship; its women are chattel and sexual prey; its young people are mostly half-educated and without employment. After a quarter century of theocracy, Iran still exports the very things it exported when the theocrats took over – pistachio nuts and rugs. Modernity and technology have passed it by, save for the only achievement of nuclearization. Christopher Hitchens, God is Not Great p280
More than half the population is under twenty-five and they all hate the mullahs, so it’s what I call the baby-boomerangers. Christopher Hitchens, lecture Centre for American Studies University of Western Ontario March 2005, ‘The Axis of Evil’, Youtube 1.12.27
Frankly, I have been shocked at the lack of reaction to the media mindscaping which is effectively preparing the public for the impending attack on Iran. On the Edge with Ian R Crane: Iran
There is a drive certainly from Neo-Con political classes in America to try and find a pretext for attacking Iran. Annie Machon, interview 30th April 2010
The petro-dollar appears to be safe. But one other country has dared challenge the US control of black gold. Iran intends to invite all of the world’s oil producers to trade their oil in Euros. The same scenario that happened in Iraq is beginning to repeat itself. Conspiracies – Iraq, 2006
Diplomacy or military action? Is Iran next? Frontline: Showdown with Iran, PBS 2007
Iran could only watch as the US military crushed Saddam’s forces in a few weeks. ibid.
The Grand Bargain Fax never received a reply. ibid.
The hardliners now had the upper hand. ibid.
The Persian Gulf Summer 1988: The Persian Gulf swarms with US Naval vessels and aircraft. Just three months earlier an American ship had been badly damaged by an Iranian mine. The Navy’s goal is to protect US oil tankers from increasingly hostile Iranian forces. The centrepiece of the US presence was the USS Vincenze ... 290 passengers aboard a commercial Iranian Airline’s flight were dead. Unsolved Mysteries
Iran’s active pursuit of technology that could lead to nuclear weapons threatens to put a region already known for its [in]stability and violence under the shadow of a nuclear holocaust. We will confront this danger before it is too late. George W Bush 28th August 2007
That old Beach Boys’ song – Bomb Iran [titters] ... Bomb-bomb- bomb ... anyway … John McCain
What the Iranians did in that siege was to humiliate people who don’t believe they can be defeated, and the Americans have never got over it. Tim Llewellyn, war correspondent
With targeting aid provided by the CIA, 100,000 Iranians were killed by Iraqi chemical weapons during the war. Empire of Oil: The Hidden History of 9/11
Argo: a little known story made popular by one of the most celebrated movies in 2012. It’s November 4th 1979. The United States has been plunged into an international stand-off which has brought the country to the brink of war. Argo: The Inside Story, Discovery Channel 2013
Iranian students had stormed the American Embassy compound in Tehran and taken over fifty American hostages. ibid.
Six diplomats had escaped. ibid.
The Iranian Revolutionary Guard tightly controlled the movement of foreigners in and out of the country. ibid.
Mendez had an idea ... The [film] scouting party. ibid.
The name of the film was Argo. ibid.
Mendez encouraged them to discuss their options privately. ibid.
Iran Vows Revenge. ibid. New York Post front page
They’d missed out on the best story of all. ibid.
This is the Persian Empire known today as Iran. For twenty-five hundred years this land was ruled by a series of kings, known as Shahs. In 1950 the people of Iran elected Mohammad Mosaddegh, the secular democrat, as prime minister ... But in 1953 the US and Great Britain engineered a coup d’etat that deposed Mosaddegh. Argo 2012 starring Alan Arkin & Ben Affleck & Bryan Cranston & John Goodman & Tate Donovan & Clea DuVall & Christopher Denham & Scoot McNairy & Kerry Bishe & Rory Cochran & Victor Garber, director Ben Affleck, opening commentary
The United States’ government has just sanctioned a science fiction movie. ibid. boss
The Iran Hostage Crisis ended on January 20 1981, when all remaining hostages were released. They spent 444 days in captivity. ibid.
On the 8th October 2002 Fatemah Saharkhizan, known as Laleh, wife of one of Iran’s biggest football stars Nasser Mohammad Khani, is found murdered in her bedroom. Storyville: Death of a WAG, caption, BBC 2012
In November 2003 Khani’s mistress, Khadijeh Jahed, known as Shahla, is arrested. She is charged and held after confessing to the murder whilst in police custody. The case is in the Iranian media spotlight for more than two years. ibid.
15th June 2004 The judge announced his verdict. Shahla is condemned to death by hanging. ibid.
The verdict was overturned in 2008, but Shahla was again sentenced to death in February 2009. She was hanged on 1 December 2010. ibid.