Advocacy piece that takes direct aim at Jimmy Carter. Has some damning quotes. Carter turned on the Shah and assisted Khomeini into power, after which Khomeini seized the Tehran embassy hostages. Author blames this event for much of our continuing middle east troubles.

A dangerous re-writing of history. The author completely ignores the fact the Iranians hated the Shah, and twists Carter's relationship with Khomeini. The reality was that most Iranians themselves did not realize the political aspirations of the cleric until it was too late. I wonder why the author does not instead blame Eisenhower, who gave the go-ahead for the coup that overthrew a democratically elected government in Tehran in the early 50's?

Evans is kinda wild in his assumption....the so called shah and the clerics are (were), to a big extent, out to lunch....It is very hard to understand why the greedy, bullies in DC can't take care of their (our) own country and leave the middle-east to tend to itself. Stopping the bleeding of tax dollars to people who don't want to get along. Who care about a rewrite of history, without any helpful suggestions.

I find it interesting that while I agree with many of the author's conclusions, I don't find this to be a very good piece of journalism. The problem with most journalism regarding the Middle East is that it only goes skin deep. This one does go one layer farther, but you need to have a much better understanding of the history of Iran and Iraq than even this article provides to draw any useful conclusions about what (if anything) we should be doing over there. This article is a good ... More »

Not good at all. This piece takes an unsupported suppostion - Carter, because of his liberal, Christian beliefs, was indirectly the cause of the the Fall of the Shah of Iran - presents it as fact, then proceeds to use THAT "fact" as support of the rest of the conclusions presented by the story. Very poor journalism.

This all comes on Carter as he is one of the VERY few willing to speak up about what is happening in Israel today.

This essay hits it out of the park. It clearly explains why, and how, we have come to where we are.

As an Iranian with fair knowledge of this subject matter, I have to say that this is a great example of poor journalism with a twisted agenda. Carter himself was reduced to nothing but a pawn during that chapter of sad history. The reason he is under attack today is only due to his outspokenness. The real truth will one day be revealed when all the responsible players have passed.

While much of the piece is written with an almost tounge-in-cheek attitude, the ultimate point that it makes about Carter is sadly accurate.