Assuming the POD is Ford squeaks a win and is President in the late nineteen seventies, what does he do different or the same as Carter?
What things go better?
What things are neutral?
What things are worse
That's just search results.
Things might go a bit better since Ford was more experienced than Carter, and generally had a better relationship with Congress. But overall the economy would still be bad in 1979-80 and the situation in Iran wouldn't be good. (It was Kissinger, Ford's SecState, who persuaded Carter to allow the Shah into the US for cancer treatment). 1980 is still going to be a change election, only with the Democrats victorious instead of the GOP.
Regarding Iran, I'm sure the hostage crisis either wouldn't have happened or would have ended much quicker. IMO, if it still happened, Ford would have taken a military solution against Iran much sooner, than Carter, instead of wasting time negotiating.
Yes, because that worked out so well for Carter....
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https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/nukevault/ebb268/
Best case scenario, Ford convinces the Shah he needs to step down.
You’ve just summarized post-WWII U.S. foreign policy in a nutshell!Ford may very well have authorized the Iranian generals to carry out the coup that they were thinking of carrying out, read https://www.alternatehistory.com/forum/threads/military-regime-in-iran-1979.461782/.
You’ve just summarized post-WWII U.S. foreign policy in a nutshell!
It always seemed “safer” to support a coup with supposedly predictable results, than to advocate for genuine democracy the outcome and way it plays out being largely unknown.
Well, we certainly have our religious conservatives, too, right?. . . because Khomeini would not create any democracy.
Well, we certainly have our religious conservatives, too, right?
That said, I think many Iranians would say that Khomeini and the clerics overshot the mark in many ways. And plus, that they didn’t deliver on jobs and middle-class economics like early hopes had been.
You’re right, and thank you for clearly pointing this out. I should not assume that even a plurality of fellow AH members are U.S. citizens.First, I don't know why you wrote "we", I'm not American. . .
I just don’t accept the premise that the Republicans are “strong” in some unspecified way that Democrats are “weak.”. . . and I doubt there'd be a Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan. . .
That is, my U.S. may have successfully played the Soviets to give them their own Vietnam.http://www.counterpunch.org/1998/01/15/how-jimmy-carter-and-i-started-the-mujahideen/
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Brzezinski: Yes. According to the official version of history, CIA aid to the Mujahadeen began during 1980, that is to say, after the Soviet army invaded Afghanistan, 24 Dec 1979. But the reality, secretly guarded until now, is completely otherwise: Indeed, it was July 3, 1979 that President Carter signed the first directive for secret aid . . .