Over at PJ Media I discuss Iran’s rationale for its ongoing and constant practice of deception:
Newly declassified State Department cables revealed that, in January 1979, Ayatollah Khomeini sent a secret message to the Jimmy Carter White House. He promised that if Carter did not stand in the way of the mullahs taking power in Iran, the new Islamic Republic would safeguard U.S. interests there.
Khomeini was lying, of course.
The Carter administration had not been willing to allow for that possibility, any more than the Obama administration is willing to admit that Iran today is lying about the nuke deal. (Given that Ben Rhodes and the rest of the Obama team was busy lying to the American people about the deal, it is odd they would assume the Iranians were being truthful.)
Washington policymakers in both eras — tightly bound to the politically correct dogma that Islam is peaceful and benign — failed to consider the importance of the Shi’ite doctrine of taqiyya.
Yet if any of our political leaders had dared bring up taqiyya in connection with the deal, it might have been much clearer to the nation why the deal had to be stopped.
No one can say we weren’t warned that the whole thing was a lie. The warning couldn’t have been clearer.
On November 24, 2013, Iran, the U.S., and its allies concluded a preliminary agreement on Iran’s nuclear program that paved the way for the later deal. Several weeks later, Iranian political analyst Mohammad Sadeq Al-Hosseini — who had been a political advisor to the “moderate” Mohammad Khatami, president of Iran from 1997 to 2005 — gave a revealing interview.
Hosseini was contemptuous of the notion that the Geneva deal represented a new friendship between the U.S. and Iran:
There is no honeymoon. We are engaged in a fierce war with the Americans on all levels. This is the Treaty of Hudaybiyya in Geneva, and it will be followed by a “conquest of Mecca.”
This was a clear admission of deception.
Muhammad, the prophet of Islam, concluded the Treaty of Hudaybiyya with the pagan Arabs of Mecca at terms disadvantageous to the Muslims — but only to give them time to gather strength. When the Muslim forces were much stronger several years later, he broke the agreement, marched on Mecca, and conquered it. The treaty, with its unfavorable terms, was based on a lie, and Muhammad discarded it when he didn’t need it anymore.
Hosseini boasted openly about Iran’s long-term plan:
The Geneva agreement was achieved due to three things. The first was our strategic patience. Iran has maintained strategic patience for a very long time — 10 or 11 years. We have been patient, preparing for the day that comes after those 10 years.
Hosseini was referring to the day when the deal lapses, and Iran is completely free to pursue nuclear weapons without the deal’s sham restrictions. More:
When you conduct political negotiations with Iran, you lose even when you think you have won.
Hosseini — again, an advisor on policy for a prior “moderate” Iranian administration — was admitting that deception is a core element of Iranian foreign policy. It has been right from the beginning of the Islamic Republic, when Khomeini sent his secret cable to Washington.
Deception is a frequently used weapon of the Islamic Republic because it is a core element of Shi’ite Islam.
Although deception of unbelievers is found in the Qur’an (3:28) and is thus acceptable among all Islamic sects, taqiyya (concealment) is a particularly Shi’ite doctrine. When he gave his assurances to Carter, Khomeini, as a Shi’ite leader, was using taqiyya in its classic sense.
The concept of taqiyya developed during the time of the sixth Imam, Jafar al-Sadiq, in middle of the eighth century. The Shi’ites were being persecuted by the Sunni caliph al-Mansur. Taqiyya allowed Shi’ites to pretend to be Sunnis in order to protect themselves, as Sunnis were killing Shi’ites.
Until the conversion of Persia to Shi’ism, taqiyya was an important element of Shi’ite survival. Sunnis, in the majority almost everywhere, would not infrequently take it upon themselves to “cleanse” the land of those whom they referred to as Rafidites, or “rejecters.” The Shi’ites “rejected” the caliphates of Abu Bakr, Umar, and Uthman.
Later, some Shi’ite thinkers turned the secrecy that had become a necessity into a virtue.
The medieval Shi’ite scholar Ali ibn Musa ibn Tawus, who died in 1266, taught that Allah had revealed Shi’ism secretly, and it was incumbent upon the believers to practice it in secret. At the end of days, Allah will admit them secretly into Paradise. Some secrets were never to be revealed under any circumstances.
The fifth imam, Muhammad al-Baqir, who died in 732, once gave a book to one of his disciples, telling him:
If you ever transmit any of it, my curse and the curse of my forefathers will fall upon you.
The sixth Imam, Jafar Al-Sadiq, who died in 765, had a servant who was suspected of having revealed some of the secrets of the faith. The Imam lectured:
Whoever propagates our tradition is like someone who denies it.
…
Conceal our doctrine and do not divulge it. God elevates in this world one who conceals our doctrine and does not divulge it and he turns it in the next world into a light between his eyes which will lead him to Paradise. God abases in this world one who divulges our tradition and our doctrine and does not conceal it, and in the next world he removes the light from between his eyes and turns it into darkness which will lead him to hell.
Taqiyya is our religion and the religion of our fathers; he who has no taqiyya has no religion.
Other imams also emphasized the cardinal importance of taqiyya, apparently not only because Shi’ites were under constant threat from Sunnis, but because Shi’ite Islam contained doctrines that must stay hidden from outsiders.
Some other sayings of the imams regarding taqiyya include:
“He who has no taqiyya has no faith.”
“He who forsakes taqiyya is like him who forsakes prayer.”
“He who does not adhere to taqiyya and does not protect us from the ignoble common people is not part of us.”
“Nine-tenths of faith falls within taqiyya.”…
Read the rest here.

mortimer says
Hatred of Shi’ites is part of the religion taught in Saudi schools. There is no Sunnite mosque in Tehran.
mortimer says
Because taqiyya is considered an honorable part of Islam, the American treaty negotiators should have spoken about taqiyya openly, rather than pretend they knew nothing.
They should enlist world opinion against the practice of taqiyya. All countries are discussing the word ‘transparency’ which is the opposite of taqqiya.
Public opinion is on the side of TRANSPARENCY and NOT on the side of taqiyya.
vivienne Leijonhufvu (@goldaleijonhufv) says
All I can say is the generosity of the Shah allowing Khomeini just be deported was a seriously bad decision. Had Khomeini been executed in 1979 perhaps all that is happening today could have been avoided. However Corrupt people at the time believed the Shah was, he was nothing like the Mullah’s in Persia today. Where will all this lead?
Angemon says
Indeed.
SBJ says
The US lies as well. Check mate.
Jay Boo says
But Obo lies FOR Muslims.
He is supposed to be defending US interests but is sacrificing his pieces in groveling appeasement.
SBJ says
The only thing he’s defending is US COrporate interests. and their need for world dominance. The guys bombed 7 countries in 8 years, to expand the US Imperial regime.
Westman says
It seems that Iranian political analyst Mohammad Sadeq Al-Hosseini skirted right around taqiyya in 2013 by plainly laying out Iran’s goals of annihilating Israel and taking control of Mecca from the Saudis.
Very ambitious and suicidal, yet well within Shiah Islamic acceptability of a dreary, no-fun, no-joy life crowned with martyrdom.
Manuele says
IT IS A DUTY OF A MUSLIM TO TELL LIES. THEREFORE OBAMA IS A LIAR THE AYATOLLAH IS A LIAR OBAMA ARE LIARS AS WELL.
duh Swami says
Taqiyya sunshine…In a movie the native chief says to a British officer…’Why I would lie to anyone if I thought it would do me any good, but I would never lie to you Mr Sandy…
I wouldn’t bet on it…
Jean-Francois Morf says
Search on Google:
Allah Satan
Muhammad Antichrist
669 million non-muslims massacred
Satanic sharia
Do you better understand islam now?
UNCLE VLADDI says
Taqiyya isn’t only a “Shi’ite” dogma, it’s source is right in the Qur’an itself!
And, re: “Given that Ben Rhodes and the rest of the Obama team was busy lying to the American people about the deal, it is odd they would assume the Iranians were being truthful.”
They’re not IDIOTS – they are criminals protecting others’ “rights” to be criminals, too!
After all, “it’s not a crime because we (i.e: you) all do it!”