I thought I made it clear that I was *speculating* about how different things *might* be if Jimmy had the guts to show force, and use it if necessary, instead of cowering in the rose garden. I *think* that a credible threat to raze a path, putting the military in place, might have worked. If it didn’t, actually razing that path *probably* would have taught that part of the world a lesson they’d still remember today. We could have shown them that we were real tigers, and pulling our tail was deadly dangerous. Instead we demonstrated that we were paper tigers, and they took *that* lesson to heart.

Reagan did win the cold war. Previous presidents helped push the USSR into spending more on their military than they could afford, pushing them near the edge of the cliff. Reagan, by building up our military and pushing the unworkable Star Wars missile defense system, pushed them over that cliff. It was a game of “who will go broke first?” With more and better resources, we won.

Every president is faced with situations where there are no good options. That’s an important part of the job. Carters standard response, most of the time, was inaction, which is usually the worst response to any escalating situation.

Also, is blaming NLCB and the 70s oil crisis on Carter really smartenizing anybody?

I don’t think his work in the middle east has been in naive. Regardless of what he did or didn’t accomplish in office, since his presidency has ended he’s done a lot for peace. It’s not always obvious because of parties with a disincentive for peace who are working against it.

Here’s what *is* naive: Thinking that the whole middle east thing, including 9/11, might have turned out just fine if Jimmy hadn’t “blown his chance.” We don’t know that razing a path to the hostages would have worked. It might not have been “gutless,” but that doesn’t make it smart.

Here’s what Middle Eastern tyrants are good at: Exploiting the dilemmas of the major powers. Fight or negotiate? Either way we lose. This is not the playground bully who will back off if you just fight back once or twice. This is the bully who goads you into attacking in front of the teacher so that no matter what you do you lose. If we had gone in with guns blazing we likely would have lost all the hostages and set up a new wave of violence and today we’d still be blaming him for the state of the middle east.

Also, crediting Reagan with winning the cold war is almost as short-sighted as blaming the middle east on Carter. These things take decades. The cold war was won because tyrannical communism is/was not stable.

Carter screwed up because there aren’t any good options. I hope, Dave, you aren’t resorting to the tactic of over-simplifying the moral dilemma to make it an easy target. Is that smartenizing anybody?

2) Operation Eagle Claw involved 8 helicopters and one c-130 plane. The plane and 5 helicopters made it to the first staging site, where one of the helicopters crashed into the c-130. It was a complete fuster cluck.

3) The US could have taken it’s time to amass a large enough force to wage a significant war against Iran. It would not have been easy, but just putting the resources in place would have been enough to let Iran know we were serious. It’s possible that the threat of invasion would have been enough.

4) The CIA never recommended closing the embassy as a precaution. This indicates, to me, that they severely underestimated the threat level.

5) We can only guess at Iran’s motivations. Yes, they hated Carter, but I think they were more interested in humiliating America than humiliating one politician. They succeeded. And while they remained belligerent while Reagan was in power, I think they knew that he would take decisive and very destructive action if the hostages weren’t released.

I agree that Carter, on the surface, *seems* like a decent guy, but you’ve got to consider his actions, not is demeanor. As president his actions (or more accurate, lack of action) made the US look week and ineffective to the Muslim world. And now he’s out there cavorting with terrorists, currying their favor, and trying to get everyone else to play nice with them.

Times are *always* lousy in one way or another. The president’s job is to improve things, and barring that, at least not make them any worse. Carter did neither.

1) You accidentally refer to Iran as Iraq in the following sentence: “America’s embarrassment started when fundamentalist Muslims in Iraq toppled the Shah (who had been put there by Americans) and replaced him with the Ayatollah Khomeini.”

2) Operation Eagle Claw was more than just sending a few helicopters. It was a pretty sizable military operation that failed because:

-The US wasn’t ever prepared to go into Iran (it was a bigger ally than Israel for years) at the time, so the US military was unprepared to go through the sand dunes and mountains of the Iranian countryside

-The operation could only take place from aircraft carriers. The US did not have a significant presence in Saudi Arabia at the time and carriers were the only way to reach Iran. Also, Tehran where the hostages were held, is deep within Iran, so the Iranians would’ve had advanced warning of any attempt to rescue the hostages by helicopter (which was the only way it could have been accomplished)

-US special operations units only had scant counter-terrorism and hostage rescue training at the time

3) The US could not use air strikes because precision bombing technology wasn’t accurate enough until the 1980s and any large scale military operation that resulted in the deaths of a lot of Iranian civilians–such as air strikes or an invasion–would have likely resulted in the murder of the hostages.

4) The CIA was well aware of the growing hostility towards the Shah. Several of the leaders of Iranian Revolution were actually pretty progressive for Muslim clerics. Although mullahs and clerics were the biggest portion of the opposition, there were also secular components to the Revolution. What ended up happening was the head reformist Ayatollah ended dying just after the Revolution and Khomeini used the power vacuum to consolidate his power and kill off his rivals.

5) The release of the hostages had less to do with fear of Reagan than hatred of Carter. The Iranians in charge hated Carter and wanted to humiliate him. That is why they released the hostages while Reagan was being sworn in, they wanted it to be known that the entire Iranian Hostage Crisis lasted right up until he no longer was President. Not that they liked Reagan, but they wanted the whole incident to be associated with Carter, it was a symbolic gesture. Iran also threaten US shipping in the Persian Gulf during the Iraq-Iran War and they also had a hand in the suicide bombing of the Marine Barracks in Lebanon, so they weren’t that afraid of Ronald Reagan.

I would like to make it clear that I’m no fan of Carter, he seems like a decent enough guy, but I think he’s very naive when it comes to dealing with tyrants and thugs and that he was generally very ineffectual as a President. Maybe it had a lot to do with lousy times of 70s, when everyone was hurting, but he certainly didn’t make it any better.