CENTRAL VIEW for Monday, February 13, 2006

President Carter, Radical Islam and France

As someone who marched in the 1960s in the Deep South for Civil Rights, I might have some standing to comment on how former President Carter turned the funeral of Coretta Scott King into a political circus.

Attempting to shift the focus from Mrs. King’s coffin to President Bush, Carter noted Dr. King had been “the target of secret government wiretapping and other surveillance.” But Carter failed to mention who authorized the wiretapping and surveillance of Dr. King. On October 10, 1963, U.S. Attorney General, Robert F. Kennedy, authorized the FBI to begin the wiretapping of the telephones of the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. Oops.

Holy wire recorder, Batman! You mean it was a big-time Democrat who authorized the FBI wiretaps of Dr. King? Can you imagine the furor in the Sinistra Media if President Bush had mentioned that a Kennedy had ordered the wire-tapping of Dr. King?

Ironically, the more former President Carter tries to divert attention from his failed presidency, the more Americans recall (or will learn) that it was Jimmy Carter who pulled the Persian Carpet out from under the Shah of Iran, leading to the Shah’s abdication which was soon followed by the storming of the American Embassy and the holding of 52 American hostages for 444 days.

But, in fairness, the late Shah must share some of the blame for his demise. Number one: the Shah was trying to liberalize Iranian society. For example, he hired Ross Perot’s computer services company to set up a social security system and health benefits for the Iranian people. But a healthier and happier life for Iranians on Earth would pose a threat to the Mullahs whose rice bowls depended on Iranians looking to the Mullahs for solace and for the promise of a better life -- after death.

Secondly, the Shah had not been able to eliminate the corruption endemic to Islamic societies where little gets done unless public officials are bribed. Of course, the same can be said of oil-for-food-scandal France and for the officials of the United Nations at all levels. Maybe, the Shah should have gotten a passing grade on fighting corruption, after all.

The Shah’s third problem was that he was dying of what the British euphemistically call “a loathsome disease.” A disease he contracted as a student in Paris. When U.S. intelligence told Jimmy-the-Baptist, of the Shah’s syphilis, Carter turned his back on a ruler who had been our true friend against Soviet expansionism and the only Middle Eastern potentate in a position to try to mediate Islam’s never-ending assault on Western Civilization.

Told that a clergyman was waiting in the wings in Paris to replace the Shah, Carter said, in effect: Send him in! Oh, did I mention the cleric’s name is the Ayatollah Khomeini?

If the Shah had lived and were still in power, then Saddam’s invasion of Iran might never have taken place. And, if it did, we would have been obligated by treaty to kick Saddam’s derriere decades earlier than we did. Either way, millions of lives would have been saved.

The Ayatollah Khomeini’s takeover of oil-rich Iran inspired radical Islamists world-wide, and fueled the aspirations of nascent terrorists such as Abu Nidal and Osama bin Laden. If a Koran-thumping cleric could displace a monarchy, maybe AK-47s, roadside bombs and suicide bombers could reverse the defeat suffered by the Muslim Turks at the Battle of Vienna in 1683 when the Polish (and very Catholic) King Jan Sobieski charged his cavalry to the rescue of the surrounded Viennese and, thereby, saved Western Civilization.

Historical footnote: Certain that defeat of the Christian Hapsburgs at Vienna by the Muslim Turks would leave France as the dominant power in Europe, the “Christian” King Louis XIV cut a secret deal with the Muslim Sultan that France would prevent any Christian relief forces from reaching Vienna. The French failed. And, like Jimmy Carter, never change.

William Hamilton, a syndicated columnist, a featured commentator for USA Today and self-described “recovering lawyer and philosopher,” is the co-author of The Grand Conspiracy and The Panama Conspiracy – two thrillers about terrorism directed against the United States.

©2006. William Hamilton.

Dr. Hamilton can be contacted at:

Email: william@central-view.com