Friday, January 15, 2016

Musa As-Sadr and the Shah: who was behind his murder?

Look.  I was never a fan of Musa As-Sadr, although he was very close to my father and to my aunts ever since he stepped foot in Lebanon in the late 1950s (he also was very close to the Mufti Sharaf Ad-Din family in Tyre, which was also close to my father's family).  By the way, here is my first book review ever, a review of Fouad Ajami's book on Musa As-Sadr.  But Israeli intelligence is now spreading rumors that seem to be politically motivated, and part of its campaign against the Iranian regime.  The story in the New York Times is attributed to an Iranian defector who is now residing in Israel.  The same story now appears in a new book by Andrew Cooper, The Fall of Heaven. There is no evidence in the book about a relationship between As-Sadr and the Shah's regime.  As-Sadr was in fact close to the people around Khumayni, and not to the Shah and his men.  In fact, once this happened: Musa As-Sadr was visiting my father in his office in the Lebanese parliament and there entered the Shah's ambassador in Beirut, who had an appointment with Kamil Al-As`ad (the then speaker of parliament who was close to the Shah's regime, and who was a rival of As-Sadr).  As-Sadr never greeted the ambassador and would not even look at him.  I count this story as an stupid intelligence story which first appeared in Kai Bird's The Good Spy. The notion that Qadhdhafi would kill As-Sadr on behalf of the Iranian regime is not plausible.  Qadhdahfi had his own reason to kidnapp and kill As-Sadr and it had nothing to do with the PLO (this weird New York Times story is a Mossad spin intended to damage both: the PLO and the Iranian regime in the eyes of the Shi`ites).  By the way, is there any Israeli intelligence planted story that NYT can resist? Any?