1. I was aware of Iran when I was young. My uncle worked as a military attaché in one of our diplomatic posts in #Iran in the 50s. Some of my cousins were born there. In 1979, I was a line manager at the NY Hilton when the deposed #Shah checked in. I recall standing in the
2. front of the hotel watching US Iranian students protesting him. I knew why they hated him because I knew what Savak was. I always thought that our loyalty to the dying Reza Pahlavi radicalized Iran. At least it contributed to it. I never understood why the State Dept and CIA
3. didn't know what to expect from the radicalized students in #Tehran. I don't think we should have turned him over but we should have taken some responsibility for the hatred that so many Iranians felt for him and for the US. With most of the Islamic world now tiring of trying
4. to end the state of Israel, Iran and its proxies are the last to continue the call for war. That continuing view combines with Iran's decision to create a nuclear weapons capability to make Iran a pariah, sanctioned and outside of the world community. I admit I watched today's
5. victory over Iran with joy for our team but tempered with the bittersweet knowledge of what may be in store for the Iranian players. Iran overthrew the Shah because of his human rights abuses only to replace him and Savak with another brutal terror state security system.
6. The death of one Kurdish woman who was killed for showing her hair has turned Iran upside down. It's hard to say where it leads. I have a belief that Iran's brutal theocracy will eventually try to do what it believes is necessary to put down the calls for freedom.
7. The time may have come to stop standing-by idly awaiting the coming waves of Iranian state brutality, and instead decide we are willing to repay a debt long overdue by helping the Iranians to finally be free.
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