Was this the Woman Behind Today's Islamic Fundementalism?

Unfortunately I have never had time to read any of AKS Lambton's works about Iran and I was under the impression that she must have passed away some time ago. In fact AKS Lambton died only last month at the age of 96.

Anyone who has read about Iran's recent history, however, would have surely come across Miss Lambton's name. Her detailed knowledge of Iran, written in her numerous research papers, is often admired by those writing about Iran's history in the 20th century.

Her death in July this year, has prompted many Iranians, like Amir Taheri, who knew her personally, to write about her. According to Amir Taheri, AKS Lambton, considered Iranians as either illiterate peasants or a minority of affluent intellectuals with little social conscience or regard for their country. She was some one who looked down on Iranians and claimed that Iranians, were like minors who needed looking after.

Miss. Lambton's official position between 1939-1946 was Britain's press attache in Iran, although this must have been a front for her other secret activities, for Iran only had 4 official newspapers at the time and so the British embassy hardly required a dedicated position for a press attache.

Amir Taheri points out Miss Lambton was the mastermind behind the accusations and the fabrication of lies made by the BBC between 1941-2 about Reza Shah, the founder of the Pahlavi dynasty, which portrayed him as a corrupt and greedy pro-Nazi monarch as well as instructing the BBC to say that the exiled Shah stole Iran's crown jewels and assets just before he was forced into exile by the British. Later in 1941, when Foroughi, Iran's Prime Minister after Reza Shah, asked Britain for the return of these alleged stolen assets, the British Embassy in Tehran said " These were only necessary propaganda at the time".

Miss Lambton herself a staunch Christian who was awarded the Cross of St. Augustine by the Archbishop of Canterbury for her services to the Church of England and Christianity, saw religion as the best way to combat the rise of Communism. According to Amir Taheri and others, she was the brains behind the formation of political Islam as the most reliable and effective force to stand up to the spread of Communism in the region. In fact Ayatollah Khomeini's first riots against the Shah's land reforms, women's rights to vote and religious minorities having the right to swear on their own holy books etc. erupted two years after Miss Lambton's work on how the British could use political Islam for furthering their interests.

Miss Lambton was in constant contact with the anti-Shah opposition groups giving them guidance throughout her political career. Amongst the many revolutionaries who in 1979,
became the leaders of the Islamic revolution that she was in direct contact with, were Ayatollah Beheshti, Ayatollah Mottahari, Ayatollah Baahonar, Ayatollah Mofatteh and even Khomeini's first appointed Prime Minister, in the post revolutionary provisional government, Mehdi Bazargan.

According to Taheri, the secret documents relating to Miss Lambton's work in Iran will not be declassified for 75 years instead of the customary 30 years for such documents. So perhaps only the next generation will know for sure whether this British agent in Iran was responsible for the rise of the Ayatollahs to power and an ideology which has terrorised the region and beyond ever since.