A Successful Operation Eagle Claw?

Doing some reading about the story behind the recent film Argo - a good film, I'd definitely say go and see it - I came across an article saying that someone had apparently had the idea of expanding the operation as a part of the preliminary stages of Operation Eagle Claw. The mooted idea was that they'd pretend that they'd decided to shoot the film and move the special forces soldiers and their equipment into Iran posing as the film crew and mixed in and hidden with the film equipment. Assuming that they'd been able to pull it off what would that do for the 1980 elections? Reagan won by such a landslide I'm not even sure that would help Carter, having a quick look even if he won all the states that Reagan won with a margin of less than 5% that would still only give him just over half the electoral votes Reagan won. Now if you bumped that so that he also won the states Reagan took by a 5-10% margin then he wins, but how probable is that? Would a successful rescue operation six months before the election really sway opinion that much, or is the economy still going to be his Achilles' heel?
 
Given what a total clusterfuck Eagle Claw was,:eek::eek: small, small chance of success.

Thing was, JCS set it up so every service could have a part in it, & a share of the credit. What happened was, they ended up with incompetent selection of aircraft & crew, inadequate planning, & lousy co-ordination...:eek:
 
If Eagle Claw worked, sure. he could look decisive and effective as a leader and hopefully made Reagan's vacuous "Morning in America" rhetoric dissipate like the cotton-candy it was.

Carter faced an uphill battle on many fronts, b/c he treated Americans like adults who deserevd some measure of the truth during a difficult time.
He also had a rather toxic relationship with Congress which undermined a lot of good initiatives.
Truthfully, IDK how Carter staying in office until 1984 would be viewed. He was a much more implacable foe of the Soviets than Reagan was.
I think the US'd be a lot further in alternative energy research and energy independence than OTL.

As phx mentioned, chances were damned slim for Eagle Claw to work as the JCS envisioned it.
Things just weren't set up to do a covert-op rescuing dozens of hostages from hostile territory that quickly.
When it became a multiservice buffet with CIA participation as well of with some snake-bit luck (bad weather, rally point getting spotted) thrown in, it was a mess.
If it'd stayed in house with the Navy SEALs or Army and Air Force at most, it wouldn't have been quite as chaotic a mess.
Carter got a bad rap IMO- he manned up and took the blame for it being FUBAR which speaks well of him.
 
SpencerH said:
That would require divine intervention.
Something damn close to it, unless you go back a very long way.:rolleyes: The systemic problems leading to JCS deciding to carry out Eagle Claw the way it did were deep & long-standing. TBH, IDK how in hell you fix that.:confused::confused:

I don't even know how you define the problem: a "culture shift" (to use the overused cliche:rolleyes:)? For which you need to avoid Robert (Very Strange:p) MacNamara. (For extra points: have him fall under a bus.:p Extra bonus points if he electocutes himself in the bathtub with a hairdryer.:p)

If avoiding or killing MacNamara doesn't fix the problem, go ahead & do it anyhow. If nothing else, war in Vietnam can only go better.:rolleyes:
 
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