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He may yet turn out to be the avatar of Iranian democracy, but three decades ago Mir-Hossein Mousavi was waging a terrorist war on the United States that included bloody attacks on the U.S. embassy and Marine Corps barracks in Beirut.

Mousavi, prime minister for most of the 1980s, personally selected his point man for the Beirut terror campaign, Ali Akbar Mohtashemi-pur, and dispatched him to Damascus as Iran's ambassador, according to former CIA and military officials.


The ambassador in turn hosted several meetings of the cell that would carry out the Beirut attacks, which were overheard by the National Security Agency.

"We had a tap on the Iranian ambassador to Lebanon," retired Navy Admiral James "Ace" Lyons related by telephone Monday. In 1983 Lyons was deputy chief of Naval Operations, and deeply involved in the events in Lebanon.

"The Iranian ambassador received instructions from the foreign minister to have various groups target U.S. personnel in Lebanon, but in particular to carry out a 'spectacular action' against the Marines," said Lyons.

"He was prime minister," Lyons said of Mousavi, "so he didn't get down to the details at the lowest levels. "But he was in a principal position and had to be aware of what was going on."

Lyons, sometimes called "the father" of the Navy SEALs' Red Cell counter-terror unit, also fingered Mousavi for the 1988 truck bombing of the U.S. Navy's Fleet Center in Naples, Italy, that killed five persons, including the first Navy woman to die in a terrorist attack.

Bob Baer agrees that Mousawi, who has been celebrated in the West for sparking street demonstrations against the Teheran regime since he lost the elections, was directing the overall 1980s terror campaign.

But Baer, a former CIA Middle East field officer whose exploits were dramatized in the George Clooney movie "Syriana," places Mousavi even closer to the Beirut bombings.

"He dealt directly with Imad Mughniyah," who ran the Beirut terrorist campaign and was "the man largely held responsible for both attacks," Baer wrote in TIME over the weekend.

"When Mousavi was Prime Minister, he oversaw an office that ran operatives abroad, from Lebanon to Kuwait to Iraq," Baer continued.

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Originally posted by Bytemite:
Even though Mousawi has painted himself in his campaign as a progressive for his country, it's unlikely that supporting either candidate will help American diplomacy in the region.

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...difference was, Reagan really had a handle on the problems and a vision for how he would attack them.

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Originally posted by Kwicko:
By selling weapons to terrorists? That's how he "attacked" those problems - by appeasement.

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Originally posted by Hero:
Then again there is the very real question 'did Reagan sell weapons to Iran'? No. Again the goal was to fight communism, in that case Central American commies, so he sold weapons to Isreal, who sold other weapons (mostly outdated HAWK missile parts and some F-14 spare parts) to Iran. Isreal made a profit...which they kindly donated to the Contras. Oh, and Iran, seeking to help further this new era of cooperation, may have used their influence to secure the release of several American hostages in Lebanon.

It may have been arms for hostages...may have been diplomacy. I read Ollie's book, I don't think we have anything to be upset about. We were fighting commies and the strategy was successful despite the best efforts of the KGB and Democratic Congress (the two organizations that were doing the most to stop our anti-communist efforts).

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Originally posted by citizen:

Or, in other words, Reagan sold arms to terrorists through proxies.

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Originally posted by Hero:

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Originally posted by Kwicko:
By selling weapons to terrorists? That's how he "attacked" those problems - by appeasement.

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Reagan had a detailed strategy for dealing with all of the world's problems...but he considered the Commies a more immediate threat then "terrorists", most of whom bear little resemblence to the terrorist threat we see today.

Then again there is the very real question 'did Reagan sell weapons to Iran'? No. Again the goal was to fight communism, in that case Central American commies, so he sold weapons to Isreal, who sold other weapons (mostly outdated HAWK missile parts and some F-14 spare parts) to Iran. Isreal made a profit...which they kindly donated to the Contras. Oh, and Iran, seeking to help further this new era of cooperation, may have used their influence to secure the release of several American hostages in Lebanon.

It may have been arms for hostages...may have been diplomacy. I read Ollie's book, I don't think we have anything to be upset about. We were fighting commies and the strategy was successful despite the best efforts of the KGB and Democratic Congress (the two organizations that were doing the most to stop our anti-communist efforts).

H

"Hero. I have come to respect you"- Chrisisall, 2009.

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