I didn’t want to discuss this in the Jimmy Carter thread.
I’m not sure I’d blame Carter for opening the door to terrorism. There were bombings, attacks, and hijackings before that. But when it seems, to me, terrorism in the Middle East, specifically targeting Americans, was in 1983 with the Marine barracks bombing in Beirut.
While New Jersey lobbed a few hundred 16-inch shells at the Druze and Syrian positions, then-President Ronald Reagan pulled our forces out of Lebanon. I think this is the point where terrorist organisations discovered that if they gave the U.S. a bloody nose we’d go away.
It seems to me that this idea was reenforced a decade later in Somalia when the U.S.'s nose was bloodied again and then-President Bill Clinton pulled U.S. forces out. Eight months earlier the World Trade Center was bombed, and IIRC the U.S. did not respond militarily. Clinton did order cruise missile strikes after the embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998, for which he was criticised.
In any case, I think that the ‘door was opened for terrorism’ by Reagan’s withdrawal of forces from Lebanon in 1983, and Clinton’s withdrawal from Somalia in 1998.
Carter didn’t have sufficient backing from Congress to swing the Big Stick in a heroic fashion. (Much as Obama doesn’t have that kind of backing today.)
It wasn’t his personal weakness: it was the weakness that is built in to our divided system of government…which protects us from a President getting too strong!
It’s a good system, but it is a weak one. If you really want a strong system, you’re going to have to bend your knee to a monarch. Or tyrant.
Say what you will about Stalin, but he didn’t have to put up with terrorists. But is living under Stalin worth it? Most of us would say, nossir!
Somalia is a bad example as that was more of a humanitarian effort to feed the people that went horribly wrong. Once it was clear that it was NOT in our interests to continue we pulled out. We were not there because of any conflict other than to try and help starviing people.
I wonder who, or what, this airstrike was supposed to devastate. The radicals (terrorists, students, whatever you like to call them) weren’t a part of the government, and didn’t have any headquarters or military posture that could be attacked. Carter did not give in to their primary demand[sup]*[/sup] and got all the hostages returned safely. Apart from those who lost their lives in the attempted rescue (and I don’t mean to minimize that) it’s hard to see how it could have turned out much better.
There is much ignorance on the right about the Iranian hostage crisis. They still credit Reagan with getting the hostages released. He had nothing to do with it.
The demand from the hostage takers was the return of the Shah, who was in the U.S. for medical treatment. Nothing much Carter could have done on that, since the Shah left the U.S. only about six weeks after the embassy was overrun.
Before you make any claim that terrorism became more common in a given year, you should thoroughly research what terrorist incidents occurred before that year.
First, the invasion of the US embassy was an act of war. taking the staff prisoner was an act of war. Had we responded (by sinking a few Iranian navy destroyers at Bandar Abbas), the iranian criminals would be faced with a choice-release the hostages, or face destruction. Instead, carter allowed the iranians to use the hostages every night (and the US media went along with it). Basically carter rewarded an act of terrorism. Now, when the Canadian Embassy (in Iran) was hiding US citizens (and issuing them Canadian passports, so they could escape), guess what the Canadian government did? they evacuated and closed their embassy-think they were right to do that? Take a guess.
Both presidents allowed the US Military to run wild in Somalia. The general in charge bought the story (from Somali informants who were working for Aideed) that “taking out” Aideed would make things just fine and dandy. Of course, we ignored information from the Italians (who had a contingent there) and decided that a raid to capture Aideed would go fine.
Unfortunately, it did not work out-the general forgot to have a"Plan B"-so we had to beg the Pakistanis and Malaysians to use their armored cars to rescue our troops. What ensued was a disaster-18 dead soldiers, two multi-million $$ helicopters destroyed, a total mess. Clinton immediately disclaimed all knowledge of this-but being CIC, such statements ring a bit hollow.
My impression is that attacks against the U.S. ramped up whenever we ‘cut and ran’, such as after the Beirut attack and ‘Black Hawk Down’ episode rather than an ongoing situation. My recollection of Somalia was that Clinton attempted to provide humanitarian aid, and then decided to go after the ‘Bad Guys’. The plan went awry, and helicopters were shot down and Americans were killed. Shortly thereafter, the U.S. evacuated. I remember thinking at the time that terrorists were shown that if they kill a few Americans, we’d go away.
What good would sinking Iranian destroyers have done? Attacking a military target puts pressure on the government, but the hostage-takers weren’t a part of the government. Maybe they would feel a sense of kinship with the lost sailors, but that’s far from a given. Or maybe you think that sinking destroyers would force their government to intervene on our behalf, crack down on the hostage-takers, and return the hostages.
You say it would have presented them with a choice, release the hostages or face destruction. Just because we can sink their ships doesn’t mean we can destroy the hostage-takers. A ship is a big, isolated target that our weapons were designed and built to work against. The hostage-takers were guarding the hostages and in close proximity to them; hard to see how we could have destroyed them without killing all of our own people in the process.
So, what exactly would be your priority in this situation; are we trying to get those 52 people out alive, or are they expendable as long as we look so tough that no future terrorists will act against us?
Rewarded them how? They demanded the return of the Shah, something they didn’t get.
It depends on how you mean the questions. As a humanitarian act, it was absolutely right; a courageous act that may have saved lives. In geopolitical terms, it’s a little murkier. When they saw the chance to hide and protect some U.S. personnel, they took it. That didn’t help relations between Canada and Iran. Still the right thing to do, but they may have preferred that circumstances not put them in that position.
I’m not sure what the Canadian actions have to do with the topic of this thread; because the Canadians evacuated their personnel then of course the U.S. should have sunk a couple destroyers? Canada wasn’t hated by the Iranians in the way the U.S. was. Plus, they saw what happened at the U.S. embassy and had time to get their people out.
Reagan’s pulling out of Lebanon after the Marine barracks bombing has been cited by many (among them bin-Laden) as the moment when radical Islamic terrorists concluded that America was a paper tiger.
Destroying the ships would have made the Iranian criminals realize that they could not hide.
They got news exposure, every night for years-the world got reminded that a gang of criminals was able to humilate the US, without fear of retribution.
The point is, they (the Canadians) knew they were dealing with criminals, and knew it was only a matter of time before they would be taken hostage.