Hey, you have to dance with what brung ya.
It would be nice if there were no tyrannical dictators in the world…but the fact is, you have to hold your nose and deal with people like Castro, Chavez, the Shah, etc.
There was a group of Iranian officers all set to take over (headed by the commander of the paratroops-he could count on his men’s loyalty). This group also included Admiral Zilli (commander of the IIN). These two guys had sufficient muscle to take on the mullahs.
I’d prefer dealing with westenr-educated military men, to violent muslim clerics, and day!
Quite the extraordinary assertion. By chance is there anything behind it, beyond wishful thinking?
I once heard an experienced businessman tell a colleague “just because he speaks good English and wears a suit doesn’t mean you can trust him.”
I’d say that your western educated military men (let’s keep equality in our adjectives, I shall restart): I’d say your violent, torturing western-educated military men kick your ball down a few years and build more hate and distrust for the Americans among the ordinary populace, who turn to violent opposition, and hang your diplomats from the trees.
ISTM that by the time President Carter was thinking of the hostages, the revolution had already taken place.
So, I’m not really sure what you’re getting at…
Actually, I was under the impression that the White House Time Machine had been mislaid in Brazil during one of the Cleveland administrations.
Did I miss a memo about a replacement being commissioned?
Carter could never make up his mind-the time to deal with the islamist crazies was before the fall of the Shah. AS I indicated, SAVAK could have liquidated Khomeini-but Carter did’nt want that (because he thought like a Baptist sunday school teacher).
After the Shah left, Carter should have repudisted him-instead, he allowed the Shah in to the US for treatment-which enraged the mullahs (and led to the US embassy occupation).
Carter wavered and lost-please all and you please nobody.
While I have no particular engagement for your past president, your comments suggest that while you may believe (rightly, wrongly?) that President was too soft, your comments suggest you’re looking at this as if it were a chess board. Islamist crazies alone says you haven’t any sense of the social and political drivers of the revolution (just Wog scum I suppose). That does not speak to any real judgement.
I look at the matter rather differently. I agree that the deposition of the Shah was more or less inevitable - but it was certainly not inevitable that the anti-Shah revolution would become an Islamic fundamentalist one. Carter could have, and IMHO should have, reached out to the non-fundie elements within the revolution (of which there were plenty - they lost and ended up dead or in exile), and given them a hand against the mullahs. It is possible that there could have been a revolution, and one deposing the Shah, but one that ended up with the country in better shape rather than worse; ruled neither by a military junta nor by the mulla-ocrasy.
My friend’s wife is the daughter of an anti-Shah activist (leftist, not religious) who chose exile over death when the mullahs took over; he’s a trifle bitter on this topic.
Fair enough, although my reading has suggested the Left wasn’t well positioned compared to the Islamic reaction, and that portion of the Left that was most coherent was the hard Left.
***Very hard to imagine ***an American president reaching out (successfully, without some kind of lunatic response in the US) to the Communists or factions genuinely close to Moscow, given the emerging situation in Afghanistan and historical Anglo-American paranoia about (very real) Russo-Soviet ambitions in Iran.
Indeed this is the sort of thing that only looks possible and reasonable I think in hindsight, when one forgets the passions of the moment and looks at it from the Now.
On the other hand, it might vaguely, given the politics of late 1970s, to have reached out to the Islamic opposition - non-Khomeini factions - to do a deal, and end up with an Islamic republic not fundamentally hostile to a US that clung to the Shah far beyond the tipping point.
So, I take it you approve of the persecution of the Iranian Jews, the persecution of the Zoroastrians, the murders and bloody deeds of the muslim fundamantalists in Iran?
Looks like you haven’t any sense of the social and political drivers of the revolution(just Wog scum I infer).
That does not speak to any real understanding.
Caret would have been quite happy for the Shah to stay in power, it was clear that the vast majority of Iranians were turning to the mosques as a form of rebellion and that Khomenei was by far the biggest unifying factor in the country, and who would have wanted a Muslim fundamentalist regime sitting on top of all that oil? You only have to look at the TV coverage of his return from exile in Paris to know what a potent symbol he was for Iranians and in 1979 the overwhelming majority of Iranians solidly backed the revolution, basically the only people who didn’t were the tiny class of people who did well under the regime and are now living in London or L.A. (or executed. 
). Carter did what he could in trying to get the Shah to turn the repression dial down a little and was doubtless only doing what the CIA, who had a heavy presence in Iran, were telling him to do to keep the Shah in power. I don’t think any prez would have done anything differently, what the hell could you do, invade?
I thought the Brits played a big role in this. Perhaps it was the CIA doing the dirty work but I thought it was British oil interests that were pissed at Mosaddegh for nationalizing the oil industry that wanted him out.
Yep, the Brits went to Truman to get the US involved in overthrowing Mossadeq but he decided against it, Truman still believing that America should practice what they preached in international relations. Eisenhower however had no such qualms and told the CIA to get busy. It was actually Teddy Roosevelt’s grandson, Kermit, who was the CIA agent in charge of the coup and installing the Shah. He wrote a book about it which is still in print. The original oil company in Iran was called the Anglo-Iranian oil company (really the Anglo-Anglo oil company, they used to pay Iran less than tip money for the oil) which later changed its name to BP, but by the time the Mossadeq government was overthrown US oil interests owned a big chunk of the company so they were pushing for US involvement too and boycotting handling any Iranian oil (they controlled the global distribution network). Shell, Exxon, Mobil, Gulf etc. all got a piece of the Iranian action after 1953.
I don’t care at all for the Khomienist regime, but that hardly says anything useful about 1979 or the alternatives.
Sounds to me like Carter’s plan was to lessen internal Iranian tensions by getting the Shah to be less of a total bastard than he was but that the whole situation had gone past the point of no return long before then and his efforts merely accelerated the inevitable.
I suppose what he should have done was to leave Iran alone so that the revolution happened under Reagan. Then we could have invaded, endured a stand-off with the Soviet Union (which, let us remember, shared a border with Iran) and…well, I’m sure it all would have ended well anyhow.
Keep in mind that the Shah had by this time killed off most of his moderate secular opposition.