The real reason for the Iran hostage crisis, 40 years later

Recommendable!

"Visiting Algiers on Nov. 1, 1979, President Jimmy Carter’s national security adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski met Mehdi Bazargan, revolutionary Iran’s prime minister, at an Algerian independence day reception, and politely told Bazargan that the United States was open to any relationship the Islamic Republic wanted. A photographer snapped a photo of the two shaking hands. The day after newspapers published photographs of the Brzezinski-Bazargan handshake, protests rocked Iran, culminating in the sacking of the embassy, as conspiracy-addled Iranian students sought to prevent Bazargan from betraying a revolution built, in part, on anti-Americanism.

Advocates of rapprochement often describe diplomacy as a no-cost strategy. But embraced too enthusiastically, as Brzezinski did when he approached Bazargan, the costs can be high.

Forgotten in the fog of events, however, is the fact that the students seizing the embassy did not expect to remain for more than a day or two. What transformed the crisis into something that paralyzed America for more than a year and ultimately brought down the Carter presidency was Carter’s knee-jerk reluctance to utilize military force coupled with his National Security Council Iran aide’s loose lips. ... Carter, however, took military action completely off the table. Then Gary Sick [sic!], a National Security Council official, leaked word that there would be no military contingency plans. ... To this day, no Islamic Republic official, hard-line or so-called reformist, has apologized for shredding such basic norms of diplomacy as seizing the embassy — not even “Dialogue of Civilizations’” proponent Mohammad Khatami. Not John Kerry’s [one of the dumbest of all U.S. foreign secretaries. What does this say about President Obama? Volumes!] favorite interlocutor, Mohammad Javad Zarif."


The real reason for the Iran hostage crisis, 40 years later: On Nov. 4, 1979, radical Iranian students seized the U.S. Embassy in Tehran, ultimately holding 52 American diplomats hostage for 444 days. I covered the incident in detail in Dancing with the Devil, a history of U.S. diplomacy with rogue regimes, utilizing not only American sources but Iranian ones as well. Bottom line, the reason why the hostage crisis occurred, and why it lasted so long was a tragedy of errors.

Jimmy Carter Speaks About Iran Hostage Crisis

Posted: 10/3/2014

Trigger

Apparently former U.S. president Jimmy Carter just gave an interview defending his decision not use more military force against Iran in the Iran hostage crisis.

See e.g. here.

Apparently, it was important to him before he rests in peace to make this statement that he could have beaten Ronald Reagan had he been among other things more manly, but he does not regret his decisions.

What If

Yes, it is damn hard to criticize or condemn someone’s actions or decisions in hindsight.

However:

1. A state sanctioned hostage taking of diplomatic personnel is a very grave foreign policy issue under almost any circumstances
2. A superpower like the U.S. can even less tolerate something like this to happen. The Rubicon was crossed
3. Before the 1979 Iran hostage crisis, there was the grave violation of the Olympic Games of 1972 by Arab terrorists. The Western response was lackluster
4. Before that were other egregious violations like hijackings of civilian airplanes by Arab terrorists and so on

Thus, had democratic U.S. president Jimmy Carter back then already shown more resolve, we the humans would have been spared Hamas, Al Qaeda, ISIS etc. Perhaps, the planet and its inhabitants would be so much better off.

Dictators like Gaddafi or Assad or Hussein would have long gone had U.S. presidents shown more resolve!

History waits for no wimps or naivete! Peace through strength!