You know, you look at the chaos in the conservative camp right now, it's only too tempting to blame it all on pot. But in fact, the Reagan revolution owes a lot to Reefer. For one thing, it's made the symptoms of senility socially acceptable.
If you look at the discourse before the revolution, whether it is the left communist, whether it is the right secularist...the entirety of this discourse was such that it encouraged the kind of ascendancy for a man like Ayatollah Khomeini.
We did not treat the Americans badly. They left Iran in a relaxed mood. The embassy was active here after the revolution. We didn't have any problem with them. They started it.
The Shah's regime was an incorrigible regime and after a while, when the revolution happened, the situation began to change, revolutionary conditions was created...we simply wanted to change the regime.
It began early in the revolution. It was a process that was unfolding on a daily basis. We expected the system to be dispensing justice, but every day that passed by, we recognized that the justice we expected and hoped for was not about to be achieved.
It is curious - but you cannot make a revolution without honest men. ... Every revolution has had its honest men. They are soon disposed of afterwards.