Understanding Iran Quotes

“Casey promised that, if he was elected, Reagan would return the blocked assets and supply the requested equipment and supplies but that Iran must release the hostages to him, not to Carter.”
― William R. Polk, Understanding Iran: Everything You Need to Know, from Persia to the Islamic Republic, from Cyrus to Khamenei

“the arms-for-hostage deal that in the twilight of the Reagan presidency became known as the Iran-contra affair,”
― William R. Polk, Understanding Iran: Everything You Need to Know, from Persia to the Islamic Republic, from Cyrus to Khamenei

“Although some aspects of this scenario cannot be proved or disproved, the end of the story is public knowledge. As Captain Sick wrote, the Iranians released the remaining 52 hostages in January 1981 “exactly five minutes after Mr. Reagan took the oath of office,” and hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of “arms started to flow to Iran via Israel only a few days after the inauguration.”
― William R. Polk, Understanding Iran: Everything You Need to Know, from Persia to the Islamic Republic, from Cyrus to Khamenei

“In a television address, Khamenei blamed the riots on the United States.”
― William R. Polk, Understanding Iran: Everything You Need to Know, from Persia to the Islamic Republic, from Cyrus to Khamenei

“They were right. The detention would last almost 15 months.”
― William R. Polk, Understanding Iran: Everything You Need to Know, from Persia to the Islamic Republic, from Cyrus to Khamenei

“The questions Carter and his advisers had to answer were: How to negotiate? And with whom to negotiate?”
― William R. Polk, Understanding Iran: Everything You Need to Know, from Persia to the Islamic Republic, from Cyrus to Khamenei

“on November 4 a group of several hundred young people calling themselves “Students Following the Imam’s Line” rushed the embassy and took some 70 members of the staff hostage.”
― William R. Polk, Understanding Iran: Everything You Need to Know, from Persia to the Islamic Republic, from Cyrus to Khamenei

“the seizure of the American embassy by a large group of young Iranians on November 4, 1979.”
― William R. Polk, Understanding Iran: Everything You Need to Know, from Persia to the Islamic Republic, from Cyrus to Khamenei

“Obviously very worried about his decision, he faced his advisers on October 19 and, with uncanny prescience, “wondered aloud what advice they would give him when the Iranians took the embassy in Tehran and held the Americans hostage.”
― William R. Polk, Understanding Iran: Everything You Need to Know, from Persia to the Islamic Republic, from Cyrus to Khamenei

“Two weeks into the Bakhtiar government on February 1, after an absence of 13 years, the 76-year-old Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini returned to Iran.”
― William R. Polk, Understanding Iran: Everything You Need to Know, from Persia to the Islamic Republic, from Cyrus to Khamenei

“Three days later, the streets of Tehran were thronged with a million people who celebrated the end of the monarchy. Then, on February 1, the Grand Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini returned to Iran.”
― William R. Polk, Understanding Iran: Everything You Need to Know, from Persia to the Islamic Republic, from Cyrus to Khamenei

“From his exile in the Iraqi holy city of Najaf, Khomeini mounted a powerful propaganda campaign against the Shah’s government.”
― William R. Polk, Understanding Iran: Everything You Need to Know, from Persia to the Islamic Republic, from Cyrus to Khamenei

“A new figure had arisen among the ulama. Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini had become the most popular teacher in Qom.”
― William R. Polk, Understanding Iran: Everything You Need to Know, from Persia to the Islamic Republic, from Cyrus to Khamenei

“Twelfth Imam is in a sort of abeyance, ready to return to earth on the Last Day.”
― William R. Polk, Understanding Iran: Everything You Need to Know, from Persia to the Islamic Republic, from Cyrus to Khamenei

“Iranian Shiis believe that a sequence of twelve imams followed the Prophet Muhammad until, in AD 874, 242 years after his death, the Twelfth, Muhammad al-Mahdi, “disappeared.”
― William R. Polk, Understanding Iran: Everything You Need to Know, from Persia to the Islamic Republic, from Cyrus to Khamenei

“Ali was passed down from generation to generation among designated members of his progeny. These men became known as imams.”
― William R. Polk, Understanding Iran: Everything You Need to Know, from Persia to the Islamic Republic, from Cyrus to Khamenei

“These intense emotions are generally not shared by Sunni Muslims.”
― William R. Polk, Understanding Iran: Everything You Need to Know, from Persia to the Islamic Republic, from Cyrus to Khamenei

“In a battle between opposing Arab forces, Husain was killed and thus became a martyr for the true faith. His martyrdom forms the emotional core of the Shiism.”
― William R. Polk, Understanding Iran: Everything You Need to Know, from Persia to the Islamic Republic, from Cyrus to Khamenei

“Ali’s sons, particularly Husain, tried to lead the Muslims back to what they regarded as the true path.”
― William R. Polk, Understanding Iran: Everything You Need to Know, from Persia to the Islamic Republic, from Cyrus to Khamenei

“Shiis believe that Muhammad’s cousin and son-in-law, Ali, should have been his successor.”
― William R. Polk, Understanding Iran: Everything You Need to Know, from Persia to the Islamic Republic, from Cyrus to Khamenei

“first three caliphs, distorted his mission.”
― William R. Polk, Understanding Iran: Everything You Need to Know, from Persia to the Islamic Republic, from Cyrus to Khamenei

“Where Shiism most fundamentally differs from Sunnism is in its assertion that God chose to continue the mission of Muhammad. Continuation of the task was necessary, Shiis believe,”
― William R. Polk, Understanding Iran: Everything You Need to Know, from Persia to the Islamic Republic, from Cyrus to Khamenei

“They believe that Muhammad was the “Seal of the Prophets” and that the Quran completes the message of God.”
― William R. Polk, Understanding Iran: Everything You Need to Know, from Persia to the Islamic Republic, from Cyrus to Khamenei

“Sunni Muslims”
― William R. Polk, Understanding Iran: Everything You Need to Know, from Persia to the Islamic Republic, from Cyrus to Khamenei

“belief in the mission of the Prophet Muhammad. In the Quran, Muhammad is described as the “messenger” (rasul) whom God appointed to deliver the true religion,”
― William R. Polk, Understanding Iran: Everything You Need to Know, from Persia to the Islamic Republic, from Cyrus to Khamenei

“The Shiism”
― William R. Polk, Understanding Iran: Everything You Need to Know, from Persia to the Islamic Republic, from Cyrus to Khamenei

“After he had reconquered most of the territory of Iran ruled by the Safavids, Agha Muhammad Khan decided to take the title Shah in 1796,”
― William R. Polk, Understanding Iran: Everything You Need to Know, from Persia to the Islamic Republic, from Cyrus to Khamenei

“In 1779, Agha Muhammad escaped the prison in which he had spent 20 years to seek refuge in the northern Iranian”
― William R. Polk, Understanding Iran: Everything You Need to Know, from Persia to the Islamic Republic, from Cyrus to Khamenei

“Soleiman drank himself to death by the time he was 47 years old. But his successor was no better. Shah Sultan Hossein kept the old vices and added new ones. He sent agents around Iran to abduct attractive women for his huge (and very expensive) harem.”
― William R. Polk, Understanding Iran: Everything You Need to Know, from Persia to the Islamic Republic, from Cyrus to Khamenei

“For Ibn Khaldun, asabiyah meant “that emotional attachment to a group which causes men to overcome their selfish aims to act in the collective interest.”
― William R. Polk, Understanding Iran: Everything You Need to Know, from Persia to the Islamic Republic, from Cyrus to Khamenei