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The media wasn't left-leaning at all on the issue; it hounded Carter throughout the hostage crisis, and was a big reason as to why he lost the election Reagan.
You are right about the media. How many know or remember that Ted Koppel's "Nightline" show began as a series of nightly special reports under the title "America Held Hostage?" Five nights a week, there was Ted talking about "Day Twenty Seven" or "Day Ninety Four" just in case anyone forgot that President Carter hadn't gotten them freed yet.
His loss to President Reagan was not entirely the media's doing, the disastrous rescue attempt where we lost a helicopter, a transport plane, and eight servicemen lives despite facing no opposition, that was the nail in Carter's presidential coffin. I recall the joke making the rounds in the immediate aftermath.....
This is a good post, and the blame rests squarely on President Carter and the left, especially the US media coverage, which favored Khomeini and helped fuel the revolution. Carter wouldn't even give the Shah rubber bullets for crowd control. The Shah was a good guy by dictator standards of the day, and he was fighting for Iran, not the US, with the influence he exerted in OPEC, to drive up the price of oil and bring more revenue into Iran. He gave people a free choice in their lifestyles, and those who chose a western lifestyle were the left in Iran. They too made a fatal error in believing the lies of Khomeini, who implied he would be as tolerant as the Shah and benefit more under Kohmeini's rule. They believed him, and ended up having to flee in exile.
The Shah's son lives in the US now, and seems like a pretty good guy, he wanted to lead a transition to democracy in Iran, but was cut down by weak kneed liberal politicians and reporters in the US, whom aided a revolution and got 52 Americans taken hostage. Other presidents had bad policy with Iran in one way or another over the years, Reagan's arms for hostages thing, Bush gave them planes after desert storm, Obama let them move into Iraq and steal oil equipment and gave them a sweetheart deal. About the only president who kinda got it right with Iran was Bill Clinton, who stepped up sanctions and kept pressure on them throughout his term. I don't recall Bush2 giving them anything either, but I might have forgotten something, lol.
I like the recent course correction policy with Iran, without going into any further details.
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Originally Posted by Ruth4Truth
The media wasn't left-leaning at all on the issue; it hounded Carter throughout the hostage crisis, and was a big reason as to why he lost the election Reagan.
That particular poster likes to rant and rave and repeatedly tries to turn threads into political rather than history discussions.
President Carter was blindsided as was almost everyone else in America by the revolution in Iran. One partial explanation for why America was caught off card is the fact that our intelligence community was in a weak state following investigations of the CIA that took place by the Frank Church Senate Committee in the mid-seventies. Also, our intelligence agencies were focused on threats from the Soviet Union. The resources we had directed at countries like Iran in the Middle East were scant and insufficient.
Another thing that was virtually unpredictable was that the new Iranian government would seize the employees at the US Embassy in Tehran. Things like that don't happen among countries that understand diplomacy and diplomatic relations. Under international law, diplomats are typically immune from arrest for the simple reason that countries don't want their own diplomats arrested when they are in another country. So, what happened to our embassy staff was unprecedented.
Carter did bail on the Shah and did so for good reasons. When the USA finally made the decision to offer no further support to the Shah it was because he had lost the revolution. The only way to keep him on his throne would probably have been to liquidate tens of thousands of Iranian people and perhaps insert American troops in Iran.
Initially, following the fall of the Shah there was hope that a democratic government would evolve. The first prime ministers who served were western in their orientation. Bazargan and Bani Sadr both saw the need for positive relations with the USA and tried to push Khomeini in that direction. However, they were both pushed out.
Carter did not get good press coverage. Between the economic debacle that occurred around 1980 and the Hostage Crisis, Carter was pilloried. He simply was not reelectable. Conservatives seem to think the media always favors democrat candidates. That was not true during Carter's presidency.
The media wasn't left-leaning at all on the issue; it hounded Carter throughout the hostage crisis, and was a big reason as to why he lost the election Reagan.
Right up until the hostage taking, the US TV media was pro Khomeini, they actually helped orchestrate demonstrations of Iranian students in Tehran. I saw a doc on this quite a few years back, a program about the mistakes made in Iran leading up to the revolution, wish I could remember the title, but it was not made by right wingers or anything, just an interesting doc. They basically ran a Berkeley game for Khomeini. To help aid the protesters and give them international exposure, they would tell the crowds when the cameras were about to roll, call out "action" then the crowd would go into their rebellion act, chanting and carrying out acts of vandalism ect, then when they were done filming, the crowds would break up and go home.
They always portrayed Khomeini in a favorable light, and disparaged Shah Pahlavi all through 1978 until he fled the country. They hated the Shah because he was a dictator, and thought Khomeini would serve a term and bring about free elections, they were wrong. These stories were seen all over the world, and distributed to the population by Khomeini's supporters. So yes, the US media played a role in creating the climate which lead to the hostage taking. They made it difficult for Carter to help the Shah, even if he wanted to, which he didn't. Why, because the Shah took a leading role in OPEC to raise gas prices, Carter asked him not to, but he did it anyway, which aggravated the recession in the US.
After the hostage taking, they (US media) realized they had backed the wrong horse, especially when Khomeini started kicking out all the pro western people in Iran. Then came Ted Koppel and Nightline, and I'm sure you might be hard pressed to find any of those old stories about the revolution in Iran from ABC, CBS, NBC, as they were embarrassing to the networks and may have been swept under the carpet.
One can only wonder what the "It was all Jimmy Carter's fault!" bunch thinks the United States could have done to forestall the rise of Khomeini. They're probably the same group that comprised the "It'll be a cakewalk and we'll be greeted as liberators!" crowd in 2003.
Indeed, had they any interest in examining subsequent history, they'd see a string of administrations bedeviled by Iran, not the least of which was that which followed Carter. Under Reagan, Iranian actors blew up a barracks and killed over 240 Americans. That wasn't even the first lethal attack against Americans in Beirut in 1983. And? Nothing but bluster. And the whole "Here's some weapons. Would you please stop killing blowing up our guys and let our hostages go?" appeasement, which stopped neither the killing nor the hostage-taking. And yet President Carter supposedly had the means to intervene in a domestic uprising and quell it.
Carter had every means to stop it, but his liberal views would not allow him to support a dictator, just because he was a dictator. And the Shah was a pretty good capitalist to boot. The people of Iran didn't know how good they had it, until it was too late. No, you can't stop a revolution after it snowballs and gets too big, late 1978 was not the time to start reacting. As the OP said, Carter encouraged the Shah to release the radical clerics like Khomeini from prison, and by doing so, they unleashed a snake upon the people of Iran. He was exiled but soon moved to France and began his propaganda machine against the Shah, using arguments of religious fundamentalism to sway the people away from western ways in Iran, most of the rural areas of Iran were very strict Muslims who didn't like the westernization of Tehran and large Iranian cities. Those people became Khomeini's goons and set their sights on disposing the Shah.
If this was Reagan, Nixon or Bush's term, they would have helped a US ally even if he was a dictator, but especially someone like Pahlavi, because he was converting a 3rd world islamic country into a western style county, which had almost reached first world economic status. They would have suggested to the Shah that he keep Khomeini in jail, they would have helped the Shah with any military support within reason that he needed, and really in this situation, by nipping it in the bud to begin with, it does not become a big enough problem that it can't be handled. Perhaps they might even use the CIA to train one of the Shah's best military squads to go find Khomeini and dispose of him. Whatever help was needed to help his police force round up the agitators and limit their influence, by making life hard for them, like expelling them from the university, getting them fired, ect ect. Also there needs to be a back up man, someone who is also pro western, whom the Shah could pick as his successor when he got ill, to run the county until the the Shah's son was old enough to rule. Or it could be another candidate who appears to be a political rival of the Shah, but meets with approval in the west, and might be more likable to the Iranian people and have an easier time running the country.
It’s impossible to know but discontent with the Shah could have spurred the immergence of Shiah Islamic terrorists that in a vein to similar to Saudi Arabia where most of the 9/11 hijackers were from.
Then again, no Iran/Iraq possibly means no First Persian Gulf War. And could you imagine how much logistically easier it would have been having Iran as a military ally during the invasion of Afghanistan? Not only would it mean more troops but also not having to kiss Packistan's butt.
You are right about the media. How many know or remember that Ted Koppel's "Nightline" show began as a series of nightly special reports under the title "America Held Hostage?" Five nights a week, there was Ted talking about "Day Twenty Seven" or "Day Ninety Four" just in case anyone forgot that President Carter hadn't gotten them freed yet.
His loss to President Reagan was not entirely the media's doing, the disastrous rescue attempt where we lost a helicopter, a transport plane, and eight servicemen lives despite facing no opposition, that was the nail in Carter's presidential coffin. I recall the joke making the rounds in the immediate aftermath.....
What was the motto of Operation Eagleclaw?
I Came, I Saw, Iran
Carter pretty much sealed his fate when he decided to stay inside the White House until the hostages were released. It's pretty hard to mount an effective campaign without going out on the campaign trail.
Running into a sick old man in exile provides insight as to who should run some far-flung country?
Anyway, the Iranian revolution wasn't an either/or binary question of the Shah or the Ayatollah.
The revolution was a slow burn, beginning in early 1978. The Shah wasn't forced out until early 1979, and Khomeini didn't return to Iran from France for another couple of weeks after that, essentially stepping into the vacuum. Those who uphold that Shah as a leader are entirely reliant upon comparing him to his ultimate successor Khomeini, and the argument that "Hey, he may have been really bad, but he wasn't really really bad!" is some incredibly weak sauce. Furthermore, they fail to see that the Shah's self-centered corruption created the weak state that couldn't resist the angry populace it created, and that in its weakness it paved the way for the Islamic Republic.
If you want to point a finger of blame for the rise to power of Khomeini, you need look no further than the Shah himself and his western enablers.
The unrest was already starting in the mid 70's as a result of spiraling inflation (20%/yr) from the rapidly rising price of crude oil's wealth effect in Iran, the Arab oil embargo reversing the growth of the oil industry, and the brutal repression by SAVAK/CIA.
It’s impossible to know but discontent with the Shah could have spurred the immergence of Shiah Islamic terrorists that in a vein to similar to Saudi Arabia where most of the 9/11 hijackers were from.
Then again, no Iran/Iraq possibly means no First Persian Gulf War. And could you imagine how much logistically easier it would have been having Iran as a military ally during the invasion of Afghanistan? Not only would it mean more troops but also not having to kiss Packistan's butt.
The discontent for the Shah came from Khomeini, before he started his campaign the country was stable. I wish I could find that segment from the doc I saw about the network TV coverage in Iran. Pretty sure is was a PBS documentary about Carter, and had interviews from the TV crew people in how they worked with the student protesters to stage demonstrations, how they actually directed the crowds on what to do, to make it look good for TV. They were reflecting back on how naive they were in helping Khomeini to power.
Mark G, history and politics are intertwined. To understand how Khomeini came to power, you have to look at the politics of it. You love Carter too much to be objective, maybe you should stick to Grover Cleveland?
Going back to Mosaddegga and the 1953 coup, think I might join the "should have left him alone" crowd and let the guy draw Iran into the Soviet sphere. The negative thing about that, the USSR would have more oil revenue to prop up their system and fund proxy wars with the US (such as Vietnam). They have another fairly large population country (Iran) from which to recruit soldiers to fight the west. Would it have made enough difference to swing the outcome of the cold war? I doubt it, but do not completely dismiss the possibility it could have delayed it. Now the positive, Khomeini gets locked up when he starts his thing, and never gets out of jail, and may have died in a camp or something. After the breakup of the USSR, Iran is not so fanatically religious after 37 years of communism, they still have oil and some very dated, inefficient broken down Soviet equipment to extract the oil. Everyone is poor and has no money to invest in that, so once again they must go down the path of foreign investors owning a large share of the oil, and exerting influence in their political system. Maybe it goes right this time. Saddam would not be crazy enough in 1980 to attack a soviet satellite country. Saddam probably does not get "the build up" from Reagan, as the Iran-hostage thing never happens. A lot of things never happen, Iran does not fund islamic terrorism with the PLO and other groups, the situation with Lebanon & Israel is different, Saudi Arabia does not become radical without Khomeini's influence.
Just wanted to mention too, if the CIA did hatch a plot with Shah Pahlavi to execute Khomeini in France, it would probably not be a good idea to lure him into the Iranian embassy in Paris, and kill him there. A little more sophisticated plan would be needed.....wink wink. I think the Saudi's are getting rusty.
Here is some interesting TV reports from NBC in 1979, right as Khomeini comes to power in 1979, you can sort of tell at the beginning how happy everyone was that the Shah was disposed, but then see how the tone changes over a couple months.
The media wasn't left-leaning at all on the issue; it hounded Carter throughout the hostage crisis, and was a big reason as to why he lost the election Reagan.
The media most certainly WAS left-leaning in 1979. Maybe not as ridiculously so as it is today, but leftist nonetheless. (In fact, it's been left-leaning since at least the 1960s).
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