Arti jan, I am sorry but I cannot accept any justification for Bakhtiar's comment that "he has no enemity toward Iraqi leaders" at the height of the bloody war. No stupid rhetoric from Khomeini (which BTW, was made when Saddam had just expelled Iranian ambassador and border incidents had already started) could justify that. Aside from MKO leaders and Bakhtiar, no other opposition leader has made such an outrageous comment. How could an Iranian, at the time where the country was under attack by invading Iraqi forces and our best young people were fighting with their blood to protect our land, declares that he has no enemity toward Saddam Hossein?
The facts about Bakhtiar's relation with Iraq had been mentioned in several books, including Behnoud's "275 days of Bazargan" and Gharebaghi's memoir. Gharebaghi refers to "outrageous comments by Bakhtiar from Baghdad radio in support of Iraqi invasion". I haven't listened to Baghdad radio but I don't see how Gharebaghi could have made this up at that time without Bakhtiar or others rebuffing him if it was incorrect. Behnoud, through his links with BBC persian service, mentions in his book that a BBC reporter found out that Bakhtiar was in Iraq right at the time that Saddam started the invasion. Bakhtiar's plan was to declare the "free Iran government" in KHuzestan, with General Oveisi as his army chief and support from Iraqi army. Ahmadali Ansari in his book also confirms this plan, saying that it failed for two reasons: 1) The occupation of Khuzestan went a lot slower that Iraqis thought, and 2) Oveisi chickend out and was scared of going to the war zone. Adding all the above with the testimony of Iraqi officials and Bakhtiar's refusal to condemn Iraq or show enemity toward Saddam even in his book, confirms for me that at least there must be some truth in them.
Bakhtiar made a mistake there. I am not here to demonize him as I said I don't believe in "hero or evil" categorization. But refusing to accept his mistakes also does not help.
