Recently His Royal Highness Reza Pahlavi (the Shah's son) sent a powerful letter to Ali Khamenei who is the leader of the Mullahcracy of Iran. The official French translation is here; but there is no official English translation. Luckily GM translated the letter into english for us.
H/T: GM
The translator's comments are italicized and enclosed in braces.
A warning to Mr. Khameneie [leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran] and his friends and aides
From: The Secretariat of Prince Reza Pahlavi
Date: June 2008
I, like the indisputable majority of my compatriots, have long considered your tyrannical and dictatorial rule
over my beloved Iran and its noble and honourable people void of any legal or moral legitimacy.
While the revolution [of 1979] derived a measure of legitimacy from the, albeit unwise, complacency
of the Iranian people; the start and the continuation of the nightmare of "The Guardianship of the Cleric", which you and your accomplices have subjected the Iranian people to, has by its filthy and bloodied robes erased any trace of that legitimacy.
Validity and legitimacy of any government is contingent not only upon its heeding the wishes of its citiznery; but also, more importantly, upon its competence in realizing their just wishes and anthropic goals.
A regime which neither answers to the people nor ameliorates their affairs, is about as valid and lawful as a
foreign occupying force. Thus, Mr. Khamenei, the shameful ledger of the actions of the past three decades of "The Guardianship of the Cleric" [the Mullahcracy] evidently betokens the presence of a such alien regime in our beloved homeland.
The evidences of your regime's complete disregard for the wishes of the Iranian people are so plain and numerous that there is scarcely anyone left in the world who has not heard of them. It is nearly thirty years that you and your collaborators have,
by resorting to endless violence, intimidation tactics and various deceits have robbed the Iranian people of any means of freely expressing their wishes and expectations. To wit, in that vast prison that you have turned our [once] great country into, you have erased all traces of free media that might have truthfully reflected the wishes of our people, and destroyed any independent parties who might have spoken out in the defence of the interests and the weal of any segment of the society.
The Iranian working class who, in these [thirty] years of unbearable hardship, have suffered the greatest privations are neither allowed to form their own syndicates or associations nor are they given the right to assemble and peacefully demonstrate to protest against the regime that has subjected them to all these miseries. Whenever millions of Iranian [university] students, these true representatives of the nation, these wise and inspired voices of the Iranian people, speak up about the truth of the bitterness of their lives, or write in the defence of the interests of their afflicted country, they receive no answer save imprisonment, torture and death. This same price has for years been levied against the lion-hearted women of Iran, the mothers and daughters of the homeland, for demanding their rights, for the [supposed] crime of overstepping medieval bounds and limitations, for the sin of labouring to break free of the chains of slavery and humiliation that your regime has imposed upon them. Even fairminded [Muslim] clergy who are
aware of your role in undermining the religious beliefs of a large segment of the Iranian population are not immune from vengeful retaliation should they voice any criticism or complaint.
You have reduced the only two institutions that could have been representative and expressive of the wishes of the people, namely the elections and the Consultative Assembly, to shameful and purely cosmetic devices for deceiving the populace. Without free [political] parties and free media, your elections are about as useful to the people of Iran as the Stalinist regime was to the peoples of the Soviet Union.
Now, Mr. Khamenei, one must consider the second reason for the utter ilegetimacy and complete invalidity of your absolutist "Guardianship of the Clergy" regime; namely, the [irredeemably] chronic incompetence of you and your predecessors in managing even the least of the economic needs of the people of Iran. The terrifying dimensions of this incompetence are made clear upon considering the enormous oil revenue of the past thirty years of Iran. In other words, your "Cleric Guardianship" regime in addition to depriving the Iranian people of all rights and liberties, and depsite access to a windfall of an enormous wealth, has pushed Iran, which just prior to the revolution was so prosperous and full of promise as to be the envy of all of our neighbours, down the precipice of economic bankruptcy; and have thus afflicted the hardworking and gifted people of Iran with the deadly ailments of inflation and unemployment. Throughout the world, the number of regimes, which like yours, deprive their citizenry of fundamental human freedoms and impoverish them can be counted on one hand. Little wonder then, that on the international scene, your friends are limited to the likes of North Korea, Sudan and Syria.
But, Mr. Khamenei, robbing the Iranian people of their rights and liberties and burdening them with backbreaking and ever increasing economic hardships, pale in comparison with the dangers and threats that you, through your ignorance and thuggery, have brought upon the security and the territorial integrity of our beloved Iran. It is a doubtless fact that even years before you and your collaborators succeeded in gaining control of the apparatus of government, you had schemed and fantasized about using the lever of religion to interfere in the interal affairs of all of Iran's neighbours. Indeed, the opening paragraphs of the constitution of your Islamic Republic, which more appropriately would be named "The Bill of No Rights", speaks quite clearly of such schemes.
Your efforts in creating crises and seeking confrontations for the purpose of manipulating the thoughts of the Iranian people have much older roots; do they not? From the moment you and your ilk assumed power, you have maligned our historical personages and heroes, belittled our ancient works, and regularly confirmed your adamant animosity towards Iran's ancient culture and identity which are the firm foundations for the millennia old unity of our people. From the very begining, by decimating the ranks of our once strong and well-equipped military and by shedding the blood of its commanders, you gave the [Baa'thist] regime of Iraq the opportunity and the excuse for bold aggression against Iran. Right from the start, by treading on the different ethnicities, and by intimidating and belittling followers of faiths other than Shi'ah'ism you have weakened the long held underpinnings of the unity and [amicable] coexistence amongst Iranians. Driven by ambitions of extending your dominance first to Iraq and then to Jereusalem, you unnecessarily prolonged the Iraq war at the expense of the lives of hundreds of thousands of Iranian youth and pre-youth and wastage of uncounted capital; so much so, in fact, that Iran which was originally the victim of aggression was seen in the eyes of the world and the United Nations as an aggressor itself [no better than Saddam]. In violation of one of the oldest and firmest principles of international law, you occupied the American embassy, held captive and tortured its staff, and forced that country to break diplomatic ties with Iran resulting in costly and unprecedented economic and political difficulties for the Iranian people.
By direct and indirect interference in the internal affairs of our neighbours, including Iraq, Lebanon, Palestine and Afghanistan, and by supporting, through financial military and propagandist means, the most extreme and most violent enemies of liberty and coexistence in these societies, not only have you made the name of Iran synonymous with such despised words as "terrorist" and "rogue"; but also made enemies of a large number of the nations of the world, great and small. If until now the naive peoples of the world have been unable to discern your direct and indirect roles in causing strife and bloodshed in foreign lands, near and far from Iran; the words spoken, for the first time, by your old friend Mr. Khatami [Ahmadi'Nezhad's predecessor] confessing and unveiling your current plots, have removed all doubt for everyone.
Still you are not content with all of this for realizing your primary goals of twisting the mindset of the Iranian people by making enemies of others and fanning the flames of conflict and strife. For this very reason, under the pretext of accessing nuclear energy for peaceful purposes, you are pursuing more terrifying weapons so that once again you can make Iran the target of threats and attacks of others. It is as a consequence of this scheme of yours that today our country is faced with an unprecedented and terrifying crisis; a crisis which our dear peace loving compatriots have not had the smallest role in creating.
The informed and long-sighted people of Iran see their own interests and welfare neither in armed and malicious interference in the fate of the peoples of Palestine, Iraq or Lebanon, nor in your animosity towards the free and advanced societies of the world, nor in your insane insistence on having a nuclear arsenal. The Iranian people have not forgotten that the preliminary steps for developing nuclear technology for peaceful purposes had already been taken before the revolution, since in that era no country in the world had anything to fear from the policies and aims of the government of Iran. You and your predecessors, however, have, by pursuing aggressive and provocative policies, not only completely destroyed that atmoshpere of trust and mutual understanding, but also by your willful ignorance has turned the majority if not all of the governments of the world into the enemies of Iran; and all of this just so you can give yourself further excuses for further oppressing the Iranian people.
Since, as I mentioned at the beginning of this letter, your regime is, in the eyes of my compatriots, devoid of any legitimacy; I ought not have addressed your and your regime. Nevertheless, my love for the sacred land of my ancestors and my concern for the future of my fellow countrymen leave me no choice but to warn you that the primary responsibility for every harm and injury which the territorial integrity and continuity of our beloved Iran may suffer from any world power lies solely with you and your collaborators.
Know this that in the event of such a tragic calamity, your fate and that of your cohorts will not be better than that suffered by certain autocratic rulers who in recent years were made to take the seat of the accused for crimes against humanity and received their just punishment. If refuse to learn from their fates, if the liberty and prosperity of the citizens of Iran do not concern you in the slightest, at the very least feel some concern for the land of your birth. If today, while you are able, you refuse to acknowledge the wishes of the nation and ask for their forgiveness, know this for certain that the power that you, like a Pharaoh, rely upon will not be able to withstand the ever increasing anger of the Iranian people; it will shatter and you will be made to answer for thirty years of calamitous tyranny.
May God be the Protector of Iran.
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No wonder China does not endorse sanctions to the Mullahcracy. China is one of Iran's largest trading partners.
