Behind the Headlines/February 6

In tonight’s program we will look at the fortieth anniversary of the Islamic revolution and ask what consequences it has had for Iran and the Iranians and future awaits them with current regime inpower.

Our guests tonight to discuss these issues are commentator Ramin Parham and activist Mohammad Jafari.

Mohammad Jafari:

We must look at the Iranian revolution from two angles; one is its aims and objectives, and the other is what the new regime has done to those objectives.

I believe if the Islamic republic regime had only fulfilled 30 percent of its promises, our country of Iran would have been in a much better situation than it is today.

As soon as Khomeini returned to Iran he betrayed all his promises and established a religious dictatorship. He could do this because he could still manipulate the public’s mind.

So, we can safely say that the Iranian revolution has been deviated from its path by religious tyranny and as the late cleric Nainee has said, the worst tyranny is a religious dictatorship. The result has been the destruction of Iran and we now have a country in which one man decides the destiny of 80 million citizens.

Ramin Parham:

I can see the contradiction that exists among us Iranians in the comments of Mr Jafari.

I believe whatever we have said about the Islamic revolution so far has been incorrect. There is no logic in claimingthat all Iranians took part in that revolution. More than 75 percent of the 33 million Iranians at the time of the revolution were living in the country’s villages and had nothing to do with the people who were circling Khomeini in Paris.

The argument that the crowds in the streets of Tehran were demanding freedom and the revolution has been betrayed is misleading and wrong.

As far as Khomeini and his followers were concerned they had already made their objective clear many years earlier that they were after the establishment of Velayate Faghih, which is a religious dictatorship run by the Shia clerics.