25 Photos of Iran Before the 1979 Revolution

"Before the Ayatollah became the Supreme Leader of Iran, the country experienced 

a period of secularism under the Shah—but his dictatorship eventually led to 

his downfall. "(With the help of Jimmy Carter)

By Annum Masroor in the National Journal

The courtyard of the Church of the Holy Redeemer in the city of Isfahan, circa 1948

A royal portrait of Princess Fawzia bint Fuad of Egypt, the first wife of the Shah. Known in newspapers worldwide as "one of the world's most beautiful women," she filed for divorce in 1948 and returned to Egypt, leaving her daughter, Shahnaz, in Iran. After her brother, King Farouk, abdicated the throne and fled Egypt, she led a quiet life in Alexandria with her second husband. Upon revisiting the royal palace 24 years after the abdication, she said, “Twice in my life I lost the crown. Once I was the queen of Iran, and once I was the princess here."(Public Domain/Wikimedia Commons)

The exterior of Tehran's Theatre Saadi, where a group of people study a billboard, circa 1950.

A student at a vocational-training school for seamstresses inspects her work, circa 1952. The school was one of the first for girls and was founded by the government in Tehran.(Three Lions/Getty Images)

Chirine Tahmassab, Iran's first female foreign diplomat, pictured on February 17, 1967.

Then came Jimmy Carter and this man who said “There is no humor in Islam. There is no fun in Islam.”:

More photos here.

Obama prepares to punish Israeli voters for rejecting him UPDATED

Netanyahu's Extraordinary Win Gives Him Bold Mandate  . . . "In his speech early this month to a Joint Session of Congress, Netanyahu played Winston Churchill, warning America and the world of the Nazi-like gathering storm in a soon-to-be-nuclear-armed Iran.

In this case, however, it was an American president, not a British prime minister, playing Neville Chamberlain's role of appeaser." . . 

Hot Air   "Following the upset in Israel that saw Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s party and its allies win a decisive victory in Tuesday’s parliamentary elections, a few postmortems have observed that Israeli voters did not merely fail to reject Bibi but they also delivered a resounding rebuketo the Obama administration. As any nigh-omnipotent being would, President Barack Obama and his administration have begun to suggest that retribution is imminent for the state of Israel, its profane government, and its idolatrous voters." . . .

UPDATE: U.S. Threatens Sanctions Against Israel, Makes Excuses for Iran  "The U.S. government might impose sanctions on Israel or allow its greatest ally in the Middle East to be tried in the International Criminal Court, according to Politico. Michael Crowley reports:

Obama officials must now decide whether more international pressure on Israel can help bring a conservative Netanyahu-led government back to the negotiating table with the Palestinians — or whether such pressure would simply provoke a defiant reaction, as some fear.

Obama has other diplomatic options. He could expend less political capital to oppose growing momentum within the European Union to impose sanctions on Israel for its settlement activity.

More provocative to Israel would be any softening of Obama’s opposition to Palestinian efforts to join the International Criminal Court, which the Palestinian Authority will formally join on April 1. Under a law passed by Congress, any Palestinian bid to bring war crimes charges against Israel at the court will automatically sever America’s $400 million in annual aid to the Palestinian Authority, although some experts suggested Obama could find indirect ways to continue some funding — even if only to prevent a dangerous collapse of the Palestinian governing body.

" Meanwhile, in other news, the U.S. government is making excuses for Iran's testing of its nuclear program. Bloomberg reports:" . . .

When nuclear monitors said Iran had started testing a single advanced centrifuge last year, some U.S. politicians and analysts jumped on the report as proof the Islamic Republic can’t be trusted. 

From Tel Aviv to Turtle Bay

The White House hoped a new Israeli prime minister would resume peace talks with the Palestinians. With Netanyahu holding on, the administration is weighing a turn to the U.N. to help force a deal.

Foreign Policy

"After years of blocking U.N. efforts to pressure Israelis and Palestinians into accepting a lasting two-state solution, the United States is edging closer toward supporting a U.N. Security Council resolution that would call for the resumption of political talks to conclude a final peace settlement, according to Western diplomats.

"The move follows Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s decisive re-election Tuesday after the incumbent publicly abandoned his commitment to negotiate a Palestinian state — the basis of more than 20 years of U.S. diplomatic efforts — and promised to continue the construction of settlements on occupied territory. The development also reflects deepening pessimism over the prospect of U.S.-brokered negotiations delivering peace between Israelis and Palestinians." . . .

SANCTIMONY AND GRANDSTANDING ARE MORE FUN THAN FREE SPEECH

Ann Coulter  . . . "After two separate, wide-ranging, phenomenally expensive, months-long investigations, including one by Eric Holder's Justice Department, it turned out: Brown had attacked Officer Wilson, he did not have his hands up, he was charging the officer when he was shot, and Wilson acted in justifiable self-defense. 

"Instead of the "brutal assassination" of a black man, Holder's big indictment of white America is that cops in Ferguson give blacks too many traffic tickets.

"Even that feeble proof of racism is clearly false. The only two serious studies of driving habits by race ever conducted -- one in New Jersey and one in North Carolina -- found that blacks are far more likely to speed than whites, and at much higher speeds.

"Indeed, the entire country is snickering at any report that treats as news the fact that blacks are arrested at higher rates than whites, whether in Ferguson, the Upper West Side of Manhattan or anyplace else. Blacks have a higher crime rate than whites, ergo, they have higher arrest rates. Ice skaters have more skating injuries than tennis players. " . . .

Full article here.

Reading list on the recent Israeli elections of March, 2015

Times of Israel: Netanyahu scores crushing victory in Israeli elections  "With almost 99% of votes tallied, Likud climbs to 30-24 seat win over Zionist Union in overnight drama; PM promises new coalition with other ‘nationalist parties’; Meretz head may quit over poor showing."


John Kerry Refuses To Even Address Netanyahu Election Victory…

. . . "In contrast to the EU’s speedy congratulations, US President Barack Obama has yet to comment on Netanyahu’s victory. ' . . .

The reaction of this petulant juvenile president: "Obama Won’t Congratulate Bibi — But He Congratulated Erdogan, Sisi, Rouhani … and Putin!

"Proof that his relationships with U.S. rivals and outright enemies are closer than his relationship with Israel.

"This morning, the White House conspicuously avoided sending any message of congratulations to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for his sweeping victory yesterday. Weekly Standard reports:" . . .

"While Obama has had public differences with Netanyahu recently, in the past he has made efforts to congratulate leaders that have a much more adversarial relationship with the United States as well as shamefully undemocratic electoral processes.

Uh-oh    President Obama’s hopes for a grand bargain with Iran took a plunge toward the rocks with the come from behind re-election of Benjamin Netanyahu as prime minister of Israel.  Breitbart called it somewhat incongruously, the “St Patrick’s day miracle in Israel”.  Obama had counted on teaching Netanyahu not to defy him.  Somewhere along the line the lesson went very wrong.

It's scary to think who the real winners of the Israeli election are  T"he biggest winners in today’s Israeli elections aren’t Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and his Likud coalition (the likely victors, despite the naysaying in the last week) or the Israeli Labor-Left (headed by candidate Isaac Herzog). It’s the Israeli Arabs, who now call themselves Palestinians. If the polls are correct on their showing today (and those polls appear to track more closely with fact than the ones that showed Netanyahu losing), the anti-Israel Arabs in the Israeli Knesset, bent on Israel’s destruction, will have gained more seats and more power." . . 

 The gathering storm around Israel.  "Sure, technically it was a win for Likud and the Israeli “right,” but it was all Netanyahu’s win on Twitter.

"Or rather, it was Obama’s loss. Domestically in the U.S. among those whom Obama has beaten twice, and stuck with weak Republican opposition in Congress, Bibi standing up to Obama is about all we have these days.

"And so too with the Europeans. As we watch the planned decline of Western Civilization in the cradle of Western Civilization, at least Bibi is willing to stand athwart the EU bureaucracy, yelling Stop!

"So whatever Bibi is in real life, he has come to represent a willingness to fight that is missing from our own political structure and politicians.

"Yet this victory celebration will be short-lived."  .

 . .

How Much Does Netanyahu’s Big Win Really Matter?  . . . "Netanyahu can either form a national-unity government of Labor and Likud, or seek another coalition of center-right and religious parties. But his last right-wing coalition fall apart in December because of friction with the leader of the Yesh Atid party (Yair Lapid) and that party dropped from 19 to 11 seats in the new Knesset, so Yesh Atid is almost certainly out." . . 

. Likud's win: The 'second Israel' has spoken   "Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu's impressive victory in Tuesday's elections can be explained by going back to the early days of the state. 
"The Ashkenazi immigrants from Eastern Europe* were seen as having an unfair advantage over their Sephardic counterparts from North Africa and the Middle East. The people who are called "the second Israel" have complained since then that the "elites" in the Israeli Left, the media and academia have discriminated against them. 

"The "second Israel" did not like the the way the media seemed to be deposing of Netanyahu and bringing to power the Left under the leadership of Zionist Union leaders Isaac Herzog and Tzipi Livni, who were raised not far from each other in North Tel Aviv and are both the children of former Knesset members." . . .

*The Nazis killed them by the millions. Ashkenazi Jews Rank Smartest in World

Albert Einstein, an Ashkenazi Jew 

. . . "Not to brag or anything, but according to USA Today, “Ashkenazi Jews comprise 2.2% of the USA population, but they represent 30% of faculty at elite colleges, 21% of Ivy League students, 25% of the Turing Award winners, 23% of the wealthiest Americans, and 38% of the Oscar-winning film directors.”

Wait, that’s not all!

According to the Institute for Ethics & Emerging Technologies, “Since 1950, 29% of the Oslo awards have gone to Ashkenazim, even though they represent only 0.25% of humanity. Ashkenazi achievement in this arena is 117 times greater than their population."

Do you take this _______ to be your lawfully wedded spouse?

Presbyterians latest church to affirm marriage equality

The Presbyterian Church (USA) has become the latest church to approved marriages for same-sex couples. The Presbyterian Church, USA now holds that marriage is between “two persons” rather than “a man and a woman.' ”  . . 

Documentary details Perth Amboy man's sexual relationship with dolphin

"Malcom J. Brenner has gone public with his love affair.

"It's not just any fling -- the 63-year-old from Perth Amboy claims to have fallen in love with a dolphin.

" 'My name is Malcom J. Brenner and this is the story of how I fell in love with Dolly the Dolphin," he says in a trailer for "Dolphin Lover," a new critically acclaimed, award winning short documentary.

"In 2010, Brenner wrote "Wet Goddess," a novel about a college student who falls in love with a captive, bottle-nosed dolphin. "Dolphin Lover," which is based on the book, premiered earlier this year at Utah's Slamdance Film Festival." . . .

Those unintended liberal consequences continue..

American Thinker  "Conservatives have long maintained that when liberal social policies are implemented by organizations and governments, there are inevitable, unforeseen, negative consequences that end up hurting the very people such policies are designed to help.  The definitive example of this principle is LBJ’s Great Society legislation, which has done so much to destroy the concept of family in the black community, just as predicted by New York U.S. senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan.  Moynihan, in his famous report, "The Negro Family: The Case for National Action," noted:

The steady expansion of welfare programs can be taken as a measure of the steady disintegration of the Negro family structure over the past generation in the United States.

. . .
"There’s an old saying that you should never foul your own nest.  Critics of black rioting have pointed out the truth of that old folk wisdom for years.  Sadly, too many black communities like Ferguson have learned that the hard way.  I suspect that the so-called black leaders and the liberal socialist do-gooders know it quite well.

"They just don’t give a damn, because it’s not their nest."   Full article

Race relations getting worse?  . . . "How bad are the public schools in Chicago?  Mr. Obama's daughters don't go to those schools, even before, when he was a relatively unknown Illinois politician.

"Look at black-on-black crime, the least talked about social problem in the U.S.
Where can you find evidence that black America is improving?   

"This is why the Obama administration is vocal about voting rights and the war on black young men.  They need to fan the fires of racism because they can't address the problems in black America.  

"They have no solutions except to play the race card!

"Very sad state of affairs in year 7 of our first black president!"

Netanyahu scores crushing victory in Israeli elections

THE TIMES OF ISRAEL

"Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party was the clear winner in Tuesday’s election, a near-final tally showed early Wednesday morning, defeating the Zionist Union by a margin of some six seats.  

"That margin was far more decisive than TV exit polls had predicted when polling booths closed at 10 p.m. on Tuesday. All three TV polls had put Likud and Zionist Union neck-and-neck, albeit with Netanyahu better-placed to form a coalition.

"On the basis of those TV polls, Netanyahu hailed a Likud victory, though Herzog refused to concede. As counting proceeded through the night, however, the Likud opened a growing margin of victory.

"By 4 a.m., with some 90% of votes counted, the Central Elections Committee was indicating a dramatic victory for Netanyahu, with the Likud heading for 30 seats, compared to Zionist Union’s 24 seats."  . . .

Kristol: Netanyahu's Victory and Obama's Defeat  The podcast here; it begins at .50
This podcast can be downloaded here. Subscribe to THE WEEKLY STANDARD's iTunes podcast feed here.

The next 22 months until President Barack Obama leaves office promise to be the most challenging period in the history of US-Israel relations

. . . "Now unfettered by electoral concerns, over the past week Obama exposed his ill-intentions toward Israel in two different ways.

"First, the Justice Department leaked its intention to indict Democratic Sen. Robert Menendez on corruption charges. Menendez is the ranking Democratic member, and the former chairman, of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. He is also the most outspoken Democratic critic of Obama’s policy of appeasing the Iranian regime." . . . Caroline Glick

Starbucks’ ‘Race Together’ roll out was a complete disaster -

Legal Insurrection    "Gee, who saw that coming?"

"Earlier this morning, we reported that Starbucks launched a new social justice initiative — encouraging baristas to chat with customers about race. The campaign called ‘Race Together’ was instantly a fantastic disaster.

"I mean, who would’ve imagined engaging customers on a highly politicized issue like race could have possibly gone awry?

"This afternoon, Business Insider reported that Starbucks’ Global Communications Senior VP, Corey "duBrowa, had shut down his Twitter account after going on a Twitter user blockfest. Why? Evidently he wasn’t interested in participating in the conversation Starbucks had started.

""Interestingly, those ‘attacking’ duBrowa (at least as reported by Business Insider) appear to be of the left leaning persuasion. DuBrowa told BI, “I was personally attacked through my Twitter account around midnight last night and the tweets represented a distraction from the respectful conversation we are trying to start around Race Together. I’ll be back on Twitter soon.' ” . . .

No conservative must ever, ever be seen as bullying a female candidate. On the other hand...

"David 'Rodham' Gergen says the Republicans should be very, very, very careful. They should not bully or overly criticize Mrs. Clinton. Would somebody explain this to me? How in the world does one bully the toughest, smartest and most presidential woman in the world. How is it even possible to bully Mrs. Clinton? She's got her own testicle lockbox, for crying out loud! How in the world do you bully that?"   Rush Limbaugh

I saw no sign whatever that the left suffered politically for their bullying of the following  Republican women. Where were the "fairplay independents" when these women were being trashed by the left?

“So sit back and enjoy!” – Smug CNN host can barely contain her excitement over new Palin ‘brawl’ audio

. . . "CNN host Carol Costello can barely contain her excitement over hearing the new audio of the ‘brawl’ in Alaska that involved Bristol Palin a few weeks back.

She started the segment by claiming it was possibly the best audio CNN had ever gotten:

“Okay I’m just going to come right out and say it. This is quite possibly the best minute and a half of audio we’ve ever come across.”

This liberal blog brims with satisfaction at the Danziger and Oliphant cartoons of Condoleezza Rice

 

Salon's back-handed defense of conservative women:  . . . "Examine the symptoms of this infection, beginning with David Letterman’s comments . . . “buying makeup at Bloomingdale’s to update her slutty flight attendant look,” as well as his joke about Palin’s teenage daughter: “Sarah Palin went to a Yankees Game yesterday … during the seventh inning stretch, her daughter was knocked up by Alex Rodriguez.” (Letterman insists he was talking about her 18-year-old daughter, Bristol. . .  not her 14-year-old, Willow, the daughter who attended the game.) . . .writer Guy Cimbalo published a list of 10 conservative women he’d like to “hate f--k,” a term that various observers interpreted as rough sex, sex tinged by rage, or rape. . . .Worse than the violence of the general sentiment was the graphic specificity of the “Hate F--k Rating” appended to each woman — a list that included Michelle Malkin, Elisabeth Hasselbeck, Dana Perino and Laura Ingraham. On Hasslebeck:  . . . On Malkin: “Worse than f--king Eva Braun.”

"Both cases were met with a tepid response from the left. Though Letterman apologized on Wednesday’s show . . . his tone was mock-serious, and his audience chuckled along.

Brent Bozell writes in Townhall: Smearing Republican Women  "In 1992, the feminists in the media rejoiced at what they called "The Year of the Woman," when 10 Democratic women (and one Republican) were running for the Senate in the aftermath of Anita Hill's unproven sexual-harassment allegations against Clarence Thomas. Just two years before, seven Republican women (and two Democrats) ran. But the media yawned.

Where were those cherished independents during all this?

Nice Deb's Weasel of the Week

Nice Deb

"It’s time once again for the Watcher’s Council’s ‘Weasel Of The Week’ nominations, where we pick our choices to compete for the award of the famed Golden Weasel to a public figure who particularly deserves to be slimed and mocked for his or her dastardly deeds during the week. Every Tuesday morning, tune in for the Weasel of the Week nominations!

"Here are this weeks’ nominees….

New York’s comedy Newspaper, The Daily News

The Noisy Room : My submission this week is the NY Daily News for labeling the 47 US Senators as traitors, all Republicans, who sent a signed letter to Iran pointing out the minor detail that any agreement made between Obama and Iran without approval by the Senate is unconstitutional.

Utterly Unhinged Lefty Whack Job Ed Schultz!!

"The Right Planet : Following the shooting of two police officers in Ferguson, Missouri, by a 20-year-old thug, Jeffrey Williams, MSNBC’s resident hothead, Ed Schultz, recommended disarming the police. Let the officers carry nightsticks instead, said Sgt. Schultz. Wuut? I can hear it now: “We’re taking fire! Grab your nightsticks!!

” Apparently Mr. Ed believes only criminals and thugs should be armed with guns. Brilliant. I mean, come on. He’s just trolling us now."

."Yep, you heard that right… The Associated Students of University of California (ASUCI), a California State University in the USA, wanted to stop flying the American flag on their campus." 

 Much more here.

Hillary's IQ and what it has wrought for our country

"Hillary may have a higher IQ than Bill and objectively be smarter, but man when it comes to optics and basic politics, she's pretty dumb."

"A tweet from Liz Mair — quoted in the earlier post about Scott Walker's hiring her as a strategist — prompted me to write this poll:" . . .

Victor Davis Hanson: Hillary or Bust!  . . . "Abroad, chaos in the Middle East, failed reset with Russia, leading from behind in Libya, and the deaths in Benghazi are no more winning issues than are, at home, the Obamacare fiasco, $9 trillion in new debt, and the alphabet soup of the AP, IRS, NSA, and VA scandals. The Democratic party has also radically changed in just the six years Barack Obama has been in the White House, as it suffered the greatest losses in Congress since the 1920s. Other than hoping for a serious Republican scandal, the Democrats can only cling to two assumptions. One is historic voter turnout by minorities. The second is bloc voting on the basis of racial and gender solidarity.

Hope n' Change  "As if Hillary Clinton's lifeless, laughable excuses for her email scandals weren't bad enough, there's increasing talk that presidential puppet-master Valerie Jarrett is actually orchestratingthe attack on the former Secretary of State. It's like one of those nature documentaries in which a scorpion is squaring off with a rattlesnake; it's hypnotically fascinating to watch, and you hope they'll both lose.

But with Hillary looking (at least temporarily) wounded and woeful, who do Democrats have waiting in the wings to possibly take her place? Right now, the choices seem to boil down to aNative American and a Naive American...