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The Iranian student leaders of the hostage crisis were interviewed decades later about the entire story from their point of view. One point bluntly made was that the hostages were released after Carter was no longer president because the students despised Jimmy Carter.
Carter claimed that his foreign policy was based primarily upon human rights, but his administration fully supported the Shah's government while it was engaged in egregious human rights violations against the Iranian people. The attack on the U.S. embassy in Tehran was in direct response to the deposed Shah being allows into the United States for medical treatment; the seizing of hostages may or may not have been an initial goal of the attack. The eventual goal of the student leaders was to release their hostages only if Carter returned the Shah back to Iran, along with the tens of billions of dollars that the Shah supposedly took with him when he fled from Iran.
The student leaders finally realized that they would never achieve their goals - especially after the Shah died of cancer in July 1980. So the only thing left was for them to deny to Carter the ability to claim that he had freed the hostages without negotiating with them.
I agree. What "bus man" posted was, to me, mainstream media's propaganda machine at full board, but at the time my gut said otherwise, they did not like Carter.
One major thing everyone seems to forget is that the hostage crisis happened just four years after the end of Vietnam.
The nation would not support another full scale war. No way.
It took until 1991, over a decade of propaganda (remember Rambo movies ?) and a clearly defined goal of kicking Saddam out of Kuwait and not attempting to change the regime for the US to be ready for another major engagement.
Recall, if you will, WHEN the hostages were released. They were let go mere minutes after Carter left office and Reagan was sworn in. The powers-that-be in Iran knew full well that Reagan was not going to tolerate having his embassy personnel held hostage. I would imagine that they feared a rain of fire from the skies; a flock of missiles turning Tehran into dust. Carter was weak and vacillating, but Reagan was not -- and the Iranians knew it.
To be sure, the hostages would have all been killed if Tehran had been attacked. But Reagan understood that such a strike would send a powerful message to the rest of the world: America is not to be trifled with.
Iran released the hostages to rebuke Carter for the raid. The hostages were no good to Iran--they could only isolate the country's government. They would have released them sooner if not for the need to make Carter pay.
Quote:
Originally Posted by bus man
I don't see that what you said and what I said are mutually exclusive. Recall that during the 1980 campaign, the liberal media and talking heads portrayed Reagan as a cowboy warmonger who was just itching for an excuse to go out and nuke someone. I would bet that the Iranians took this message to heart and decided not to take any chances. But later on, after Reagan had been in office a few years and it became clear that the perception of him had been exaggerated, the Iranians reverted to form.
I don't see that what you said and what I said are mutually exclusive. Recall that during the 1980 campaign, the liberal media and talking heads portrayed Reagan as a cowboy warmonger who was just itching for an excuse to go out and nuke someone. I would bet that the Iranians took this message to heart and decided not to take any chances. But later on, after Reagan had been in office a few years and it became clear that the perception of him had been exaggerated, the Iranians reverted to form.
Now you're just dissembling.
Let's look at what you wrote:
Quote:
Originally Posted by bus man
Recall, if you will, WHEN the hostages were released. They were let go mere minutes after Carter left office and Reagan was sworn in. The powers-that-be in Iran knew full well that Reagan was not going to tolerate having his embassy personnel held hostage. I would imagine that they feared a rain of fire from the skies; a flock of missiles turning Tehran into dust. Carter was weak and vacillating, but Reagan was not -- and the Iranians knew it.
To be sure, the hostages would have all been killed if Tehran had been attacked. But Reagan understood that such a strike would send a powerful message to the rest of the world: America is not to be trifled with.
You didn't say that Iran 'mistakenly thought' Reagan would not tolerate hostages - you said they knew he would not.
They also knew (again, not 'misread Reagan as being') not weak. Again, your words.
And the last sentence makes abundantly clear what you meant - that Reagan would hit Iran with a military strike over the hostages.
As others have pointed out, Iran exacted its revenge against Carter. The idea of Iran being aggrieved over Carter's actions doesn't fit your narrative of Carter being an inconsequential nothing to the Iranians, so you prefer to think Iran released the hostages out of sheer terror of the looming Reagan Presidency. However, as history points out, Iran wasn't fazed by Reagan at all. They routinely used their proxies to kill Americans during Reagan's Presidency. And Reagan's response? To do not much at all over the killings, but then to respond to further hostage-taking by saying "Here's, have a few thousand missiles and a nice Bible I autographed. Oh, and can we have our hostages back? Pretty please?". Unfortunately for you, that doesn't jibe with your 'Carter Weak, Reagan Strong' revisionism. But that's the reality.
In the final analysis, Carter got all the hostages that were taken during his term back alive, and he got them without delivering a pile of weaponry to the Revolutionary Guards. Reagan's the one who helped restock the Islamic Republic's armory... and he got some of the hostages from his term back in body-bags.
Like I said, I don't mean to pick on Reagan. As I noted in my previous post, Iran has been a problem with which several Presidents in a row have struggled. But what your claiming simply is not supported by the facts, no matter how much you want it to be so. This is a history forum, not the world according to Rush Limbaugh.
What was the motto of the task force which President Carter sent in to attempt the rescue of the hostages?
I came, I saw, Iran.
I find this personally offensive. I know a little about this. Aside from certain matters regarding operational security and certain intel not being delivered, we were also hampered by by poor maintenance due to a lack of funding for spare parts. Freaking radar inop because I can't get a magnetron for it, cracked rotors, failing hydraulics and other problems...the mission failure cannot be laid on the backs of those attempting it. It was doomed from the start just because of the maintenance issues. We did the best we could with what we had back then. We were crippled by the politicians and the mission planners. Do not blame the guys trying to get the job done, despite the adversities.
There was some good that came out of the failure after Reagan was elected, certain special operations missions tasked with rapid deployment strategies and missions, and later, the morph into Delta Force. But there's a lot of stuff you won't read about on that.
I'd love to tell you what I really think about your 'motto'...but I don't want to get banned, so you'll have to use your imagination.
There was no such motto. Rather, a helicopter squadron was given a mission that they simply were not trained to perform and were not psychologically ready for. Despite a lack of training, they still attempted the mission in very poor conditions. The helicopters with the cracked rotors and failing hydraulic systems could still have been flown with some added risks (though the official safety book grounded them). Some pilots and all the Delta Force commandos were willing to continue, but other pilots, including the commander, were badly stressed out by the dust storms and were not. They then went "by the book".
This does not mean they "ran". It just means that they were not physically and mentally ready for Special Operations mission and had not practiced the flying skills associated with these missions. In fairness to the crews who went "by the book", their previous mission was mine spotting (in clear weather), not Special Operations where flying through sand storms at low altitude and taking calculated risks regarding warnings in safety manuals is the norm.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Zymer
There was some good that came out of the failure after Reagan was elected, certain special operations missions tasked with rapid deployment strategies and missions, and later, the morph into Delta Force. But there's a lot of stuff you won't read about on that.
Delta Force already existed and was tasked with securing rescuing the hostages and killing any "students" who resisted. What did not exist were trained Special Operations helicopter squadrons staffed by volunteer pilots with a special forces, risk taking mind set. Such units were then created and paired with Delta Force, Seals etc.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Zymer
We were crippled by the politicians and the mission planners. Do not blame the guys trying to get the job done, despite the adversities.
Though some parts of the plan were complex, I think the over all plan was sound. Nobody could predict the weather, and nobody could predict the snowballing impact of weather and equipment issues on a unit attempting a special forces mission that they had not been pre selected and pre trained for.
Delta Force already existed and was tasked with securing rescuing the hostages and killing any "students" who resisted. What did not exist were trained Special Operations helicopter squadrons staffed by volunteer pilots with a special forces, risk taking mind set. Such units were then created and paired with Delta Force, Seals etc.
Though some parts of the plan were complex, I think the over all plan was sound. Nobody could predict the weather, and nobody could predict the snowballing impact of weather and equipment issues on a unit attempting a special forces mission that they had not been pre selected and pre trained for.
Perhaps I would have been more accurate to say "merge with", after the formation of SOCOM. There were a number of programs being developed but there was some fragmentation and lack of communication (What? No, say it's not so!) and command/control issues, which they attempted to solve through consolidation. The DF was still in its infancy at the time, the GBs had been around longer. One particular program, although previously 'announced' by Carter prior to the hostage crisis, did not really become active until afterward. The few details I have seen published about it do not appear to be particularly accurate, at least as far as my personal knowledge of it. I have heard some rumors, but I have no factual knowledge of details after my involuntary retirement in early '82.
As far as 'planning', I have some negative opinions on that. Pre-training was definitely a problem, the longest prep time we ever had for a mission was 3 weeks...and we had no nice mock-ups, just lines limed onto the ground. Often, we would be sitting on the airfield awaiting go/no-go without a single clue as to where we would be going and what we would have to do when we got there. Equipment issues...yeah, those of us with hands-on could predict the problems with that, maybe the command staff had a rosier picture in mind, but we knew better.
As far as Eagle Claw in particular, and weather issues, OpSec did not permit the transmission of *known* changes in conditions to the teams and lack of radar proved to be a significant problem, IMO.
It was a joke that was going around at the time of the event. Among the hazards of having a sense of humor is encountering the literal minded.
I like to think I have a sense of humor, but...my apologies if I mis-read your intent.
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