[Mb-civic] Message from A Friend

[Michael Butler]

In Memory of My Brother
MOHAMMAD REZA PAHLAVI
The Late Shahanshah of Iran
Herald Tribune - July 27, 2004

July 27, 2004 marks the 24th anniversary of the passing of my beloved
brother Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the late Shahanshah of Iran. We Iranians
celebrate his life and mourn his death in remembrance of the buoyant years
of hope, confidence, and accomplishment we lived under his reign. He brought
us what we needed most, a sense of national pride and individual
self-confidence we had lost during the centuries of slumber while the world
moved on to new levels of awakening and achievement. With him, we
rediscovered our potential, not in opposition to the world but in harmony
with it, engendering a synergy that increased our capabilities and
accelerated our progress. Those were the years of development, prosperity
and peace. Together, we shared a vision of a future he called the "Great
Civilization," a society in which every man, woman and child was assured the
basic needs of life-food, shelter, healthcare, education, a decent job, and
the right to believe in a better future-enjoyed in freedom and security at
home and in peaceful and cooperative interaction with other nations of the
world.

The years since his passing have been cataclysmic for Iranians, excruciating
for the Middle East, and uncertain for the world. To catalog the hardships
Iranians have suffered requires more time and space than is available to me.
They run the gamut of human sufferings, from death and devastation to social
and economic privation to individual bondage. The leaders of the Islamic
Republic catch man, woman and child at the most intimate currents of life.
Theirs is totalitarianism par excellence, where, in principle, they would
enchain everything, even our thoughts if they could. Women have suffered
most, losing much of the rights they had achieved over the years. Our
children have been deprived of that most precious gift of youth, the hope
for a bright, successful and triumphant future. However, neither our women
nor our sons and daughters have yielded to the regime¹s tyranny. Our women
have fought valiantly for their rights and honor and on many a battleground
they have forced the regime to retreat. Our youth have braved the regime¹s
brutality and stood firm for freedom and democracy. The month of July in
Iran, indeed symbolizes the struggle between good and evil: on one side the
Iranian youth¹s intrepid and gallant striving for freedom and rights and, on
the other side, the regime¹s vicious and depraved assaulting, insulting,
imprisoning, and torturing in order to deny freedom and rights.

To recite the dangers of the Islamic Republic presents for the region and
the world also needs more time and space than is at hand. Suffice it to
state the obvious: Had monarchy in Iran not been replaced by the present
regime, we would have had no Iran-Iraq war, no invasion of Kuwait, no need
for overwhelming US military presence in the region, no US invasion of Iraq,
and consequently no anti-Americanism and anti-Westernism of the scale we
witness today. More importantly, we would not have had the structured
terrorism we have witnessed in the past quarter of century and which now
threatens the very fabric of life and law in free societies. The Islamic
Republic has institutionalized terror in human relations. This is a calamity
of the highest order for Iranians; it is also catastrophic for the
international community, though as yet its implications are only partially
noted or even understood.

As long as the Islamic Republic governs Iran, Iranians will not be safe.
Whatever the regime does, because it is a terrorist regime, will be viewed
with suspicion. When the stakes are high, the character of the regime puts
Iranians in extreme danger. Take, for example, the nuclear issue, now for
some time a matter of controversy between the regime on one side and the
west and the International Atomic Energy Agency on the other. Iran¹s seeking
nuclear energy for producing power is Iran¹s right. Under my brother,
Iranians acquired considerable knowledge in the nuclear energy field, built
to near-completion several safe nuclear power stations of the highest
quality with German and French assistance, and entered in several
cooperative arrangements for producing and obtaining nuclear fuel. Iran, of
course, acted within the Treaty on the
Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT), and was a leader in advocating a
nuclear-free Middle East. More importantly, the shah and his regime worked
within the international system and were not only trusted but also accepted
as leaders in promoting non-proliferation.

Iran under the shah was a force for peace. The situation now has reversed.
The present regime is viewed, rightly, as being a potential threat to the
world. Consequently, there is a concerted effort to deprive Iranians of
their indisputable right to mastering nuclear science and developing and
using nuclear energy. More ominously, because the regime is considered
belligerent, other powers are determined not to allow it to become a nuclear
power. This, of course, is already impossible because the knowledge exists
and it cannot be unlearned. Unhappily, the confluence of conditions puts our
country and our people in grave danger. They may have to pay, as they once
did in the Iran-Iraq war, for the sins of their usurper government.

The Iranian people will have to remain vigilant about the fate of their
country. They cannot control the world; they must make sure that the regime
will not put our country in the kind of horrendous peril it likely will if
unrestrained. They have now learned by experience that striving to change
the regime from within is striving after wind. Their best option is to unite
under a leader to replace this regime with one that sets them in harmony
with the world.

This, I believe, is what my brother would have wished. God bless his soul.

Achraf Pahlavi