Some in the US and the West have painted Iran’s opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi as a beacon for democracy, but he has a darker page in his biography, marked with the blood of Americans.
Last seen as the Iranian Prime Minister during the 1980s, Mousavi’s sudden explosive return to the world political stage comes after what the media dubbed “20 years of silence”.
Mousavi, who lost to a reelected President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, claimed the vote was rigged and has demanded a recount.
He led a wave of massive anti-government rallies, which saw fierce clashes before a clampdown by the Iranian government, which rejects any accusations of voting irregularities.
The Iranian Interior Ministry has warned opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi to respect what it described as “the law and the people's vote” and to stop calling for further protests after his presidential election defeat.
Moussavi and murdered Marines in Beirut
Mir Hossein Mousavi’s leadership back in the 1980s was not a peaceful one. It was at the time when Iran was actively trying to push its revolution abroad. Iranian dissidents were killed at the time, but for the past 25 years Mousavi has laid low on the radar and tried to step away from the political scene. Now that he is back, there is a piece of history from his past that many people are either unaware of, or are intentionally ignoring.
Mir Hossein Mousavi was the Prime Minister of Iran between 1981 and 1989. At the time there were a series of attacks on US property in Lebanon’s Beirut. Both suicide bombing attacks happened in 1983. The one on the American embassy there claimed more than 60 lives, primarily embassy staff and American Marines. Another one struck the American Marines’ own barracks, killing 299 American servicemen.
As the highest official in Iran in 1980s, Mir Hossein Mousavi was not only directly connected to the assassination of American citizens, but is also believed to have actually handpicked the men who later were held responsible for these attacks. The sources who state this aren’t his Iranian opponents, but Americans. The most notable are former CIA operative Robert Perry and the chief naval officer at the time Admiral James Lyons. Both men were privy to a lot of information, given their jobs. Admiral Lyons later said that at the time they were wire tapping the Iranian Ambassador to Great Britain and this is where they got their information from.
Both Perry and Lyons point their fingers directly at Mir Hossein Mousavi, saying there is blood on his hands.
Moussavi and the Iranian nuclear programme
For the American mass media, Iran’s post-election clashes have been hitting the headlines constantly, so much so that the US media can be seen to be backing Moussavi, but since Iran’s nuclear programme is of such a great concern to the US (as the Obama administration has stated on numerous occasions), Mir Hossein Mousavi is not that big of a change to the country. This is because that even if he manages to overthrow reelected Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Mir Hossein Mousavi has already proclaimed his firm belief that Iran, much like Ahmadinejad’s stance, has every right to proceed with its own nuclear programme.
If Iran’s nuclear programme is really such a concern for the US, then Mir Hossein Moussavi is not the right candidate for the US to be backing.