. . ."Protests continued for several months, and the Shah was ousted by a massive revolution on February 11, 1979. I left Iran to continue my graduate studies in sociology in California. It was quite evident to me that the West was totally blindsided by the removal of the Shah, who was perceived as irremovable.
"The revolution had been all about freedom and democracy, but Ruhollah Khomeini hijacked its leadership to pursue a different agenda. Soon, he established theocratic rule and showed that he had zero tolerance for democracy and democratic tendencies. Unbridled terror and executions started just a couple of years after the Shah’s downfall.
"A hot summer day in July 1983 was another moment that I will never forget. A phone rang and I answered it to hear one of my friends crying and telling me in a broken voice that Habib Khabiri had been executed. Habib, with his constant smile, was the rising star of Iranian soccer who had started playing at a very young age and soon earned a place on the national team, ultimately becoming its captain. I still vividly remember his unbelievable shot from 30 meters away during the qualifying match against Kuwait in 1978.
"Habib and I played at the same club and soon developed the same politics. He was an activist with the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (MEK), the principal Iranian resistance movement and the main target of the ayatollahs’ terror campaign. He was executed alongside dozens of the MEK activists. Since then, dozens of Iran’s other champions and national team players have been executed.". . .
Much more on this subject: Biden Repeats Obama’s Iran Errors Iranians know from experience not to trust America's support for freedom causes:
Why Obama Let Iran's Green Revolution Fail - Bloomberg . . ."There was a chance for a better outcome. There is no guarantee that an Obama intervention would have been able to topple Khamenei back in 2009, when his people flooded the streets to protest an election the American president wouldn't say was stolen. But it was worth a try. Imagine if that uprising had succeeded. Perhaps then a nuclear deal could have brought about a real peace. Instead, Obama spent his presidency misunderstanding Iran's dictator, assuring the supreme leader America wouldn't aid his citizens when they tried to change the regime that oppresses them to this day.
. . ."But Obama wasn't just reluctant to show solidarity in 2009, he feared the demonstrations would sabotage his secret outreach to Iran. In his new book, "The Iran Wars," Wall Street Journal reporter Jay Solomon uncovers new details on how far Obama went to avoid helping Iran's green movement. Behind the scenes, Obama overruled advisers who wanted to do what America had done at similar transitions from dictatorship to democracy, and signal America's support. Solomon reports that Obama ordered the CIA to sever contacts it had with the green movement's supporters.
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