Word on the street is that Carter lost to Reagan mostly because of the hostage situation. I know that Carter tried to rescue the hostages by that operation which failed in the desert, but considering that the hostage taking was a flagrant violation of international law, and a causus belli, why didn’t Carter do something? The hostage diplomats were kept more than a year, a shameful situation. I also remember that Iran was not an ally of the Soviet Union, but had actually fought several wars against Russia in the past. Rendering fears of offending the USSR at risk. In any case, could he have diplomatically pacified the Soviet Bloc in this matter?
What was carter doing? Did he think peace & love would set them free? Were their other attempts? Why didn’t he do something before losing his own election?
The embassy was several hundred miles inside fairly hostile territory, in an area of the world where the US had a minimal military presence. It wasn’t as though the Gulf states were cooperating back then the way they do now.
Carter could hardly have called for an invasion of Iran, given that the hostages would almost certainly be killed the moment American tanks rolled onto Iranian soil.
The one military rescue attempt, Operation Eagle Claw, was a huge failure.
I don’t know if I’d say mostly. While it had a lot to do with it, the economy was (in my observation and I was there) worse than it is now. Unemployment and inflation were high throughout his term and in 1979 gas prices were at [what was then] an all time high.
Now couple those things along with someone who has an image as a weak, ineffectual leader and you get the other side winning an electoral landslide.
At the time quite a few were as flustered as the OP as to why more wasn’t being done.
The reason Carter didn’t do more about Iran was because, well…he was a weak and ineffectual leader.
There was little that could be done. Tehran was a long way from any potential staging area and it was next to impossible to land helicopters there without them being noticed and the Iranian forces being alerted.
No one in the military had any solutions for freeing the hostages. A full-scale invasion would have been a nightmare, and the hostages killed long before US troops saw Tehran. Any air mission would have been almost guaranteed to fail. There was no way to surprise the Iranians, and in a hostage situation, you need surprise (otherwise, the captors can just kill the hostages). I’m not even sure the helicopters of the time had the range to reach Tehran and get back (you’re talking over 1000 miles from the Persian Gulf and back).
Ultimately, Carter had no choice but to negotiate as the only solution.
Mark Bowden’s book Guests of the Ayatollah is an excellent source. At least the first half is excellent. I haven’t finished it yet. Anyway, the rescue plan was kind of doomed from the get-go. While aspects of the plan were well conceived, too much had to go right for the whole thing to work and the planners knew it. They were trying to make the best of a bad situation. Even if the assault on the compound had succeeded, some of the hostages had been moved, so we wouldn’t have gotten them all.
As far as a full-scale invasion or air strikes are concerned, you can bet that the hostages would have been killed immediately.
We don’t have any helicopters capable of making that trip now. The record for maximum range without refueling for a helicopter was set way back in 1966 by a 4-seat OH-6 Cayuse… and it was a bit under 2,000 miles.
Carter was able to eventually negotiate for the release of the hostages, though the Reagan-Bush campaign secretly made a deal with Iran to give them military equipment in exchange for delaying the release of the hostages until after Reagan was inaugurated.
“A few months ago I told the American people I did not trade arms for hostages. My heart and my best intentions still tell me that’s true, but the facts and the evidence tell me it is not.”
I read Guests of the Ayatollah a few years ago. As I remember it, the radicals were in over their heads and looking for a way out, too, but kept the hostages until after the inauguration as a final nose-thumbing at Carter. Reagan kept his distance from the whole situation; it was a millstone around Carter’s neck and he was perfectly content to leave it there.
The allegations were that William Casey arranged for the delay without Reagan’s knowledge (though it’s hard to believe GHWB wouldn’t have known). It’s been so long I no longer remember any details, but I seem to remember that some kind of House investigation or subcommittee or something found some kind of documentation which supported the allegation but left plausible deniability for Reagan and Bush themselves.
In any case, Carter did succeed in freeing the hostages eventually.
