In light of Iran's Nuclear Program...

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What would have the world been like had something like this happened?

On Nov 4th, 1979, Iranians storm the US Embassy.

On Nov 5th, then President Jimmy Carter Issues an ultimatum on world wide live television.

1) The nation of Iran has 72 hours to release our diplomats and vacate the grounds of our embassy.

2) Failure to release and vacate within the ultimatums deadline shall be construed as an act of war.

3) As a precautionary measure, All Iranian nationals remaining within United States territory at the end of this time limit (if the demands are NOT met) will be considered as prisoners of war if, and only if, they turn themselves in to law enforcement agencies within that time limit. Any remaining Iranian citizens on US soil or in US territories that have not come forward will be considered as enemy personel and dealt with summarily.

He then, disdaining secrets, publicly announces the full mobilization of all reserve and national guard units and the deployment of the US carrier and submarine fleets to the Persian gulf, as well as alerting SAC for possible strikes upon Iranian targets to arrive just after the deadline expires.

Now admittedly, this is not something that was ever really going to happen in such a short time frame (One day), but for the sake of discussion lets consider congress goes along with this (and don't bother with asking why, just go with it) so there is no chance within the US government that any resistance to the DoW will be voiced. Perhaps rioting in US cities, where demands for Iranian blood are being heard loud and clear from millions who were outraged beyond belief when hearing of the embassy storming and hostage taking, and even more by the image of the US flag being burned on that fateful day.

Any thoughts?
 

Cook

Banned
3) As a precautionary measure, All Iranian nationals remaining within United States territory at the end of this time limit (if the demands are NOT met) will be considered as prisoners of war if, and only if, they turn themselves in to law enforcement agencies within that time limit. Any remaining Iranian citizens on US soil or in US territories that have not come forward will be considered as enemy personel and dealt with summarily.


Well apart from the bulk of these people being opponents of the Ayatollah what does ‘dealt with summarily’ mean and what happened to Habeas Corpus?
:eek:
 
Well apart from the bulk of these people being opponents of the Ayatollah what does ‘dealt with summarily’ mean and what happened to Habeas Corpus?
:eek:
The idea (badly worded I guess) is that as hostilities are going to be kicking off in 72 hours if the ultimatum is not met, and that regardless Iranian citizens would most likely not be able to be kept safe after the provocation(s) already committed by Iran, is to get them out of the US as quickly and safely as possible while there is still not a state of war in existence. After the deadline, however, and an official state of war exists, any remaining Iranians on US soil would be considered PoW's, and for safety's sake, deported as quickly and quietly as possible.

I'm thinking here in terms of the Iranians response to the cowardly, weakling Americans daring to 'Talk tough", would be to publicly decapitate our ambassador on TV, which would then inexorably lead to the city of Tehran becoming the worlds largest mushroom farm within hours!

Edit, I guess I didn't really answer your question.
Those that didn't turn themselves over to the police forces, so that they can be evacuated from the US until such time as they might not be torn apart by savage mobs, are going to be foreign nationals inside the US and during a time of war where reason is not something that one really wants to bet their life upon. By failing to make it possible for themselves to be deported while there was still a chance to avoid their blood being spilled (rightly of wrongly) by outraged mobs of Americans wanting Iranian blood to flow, any Iranian blood....

And then of course, there is the spector of a few Iranian students in the US shooting off their mouths, and....

Best they leave quickly and quietly, methinks.
 
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Cook

Banned
My thoughts are that this was pretty hair brained before any mention of decapitated Ambassadors and nuclear retaliation for diplomatic violations.
 
Well nuking Teheran doesn't get the remaining hostages back, it kills them.

And if Carter's planning to nuke Iran, what does he need to mobilize the army and national guard for?

And WTF with murdering those Iranians who would be the strongest allies of the US side?

You've just turned Carter into a homicidal maniac and a war criminal, the US into an international pariah, and made sure every single hostage dies. You've probably also caused at best an international depression as the price of oil skyrockets, and may directly or indirectly have triggered WW3 - even if it does happen now, next time the Russians e see a rogue missile trace (e.g. Able Archer 1983) they're a lot less likely to assume it's not real.

The hostage-takers also achieved their objective, which was to prevent a reconciliation between the US and Iran.
 
Well nuking Teheran doesn't get the remaining hostages back, it kills them.
Yep, and we would surely be able to trust such a terrorist state to return the rest, alive and well, based upon their previous actions, right? On the other hand, the rapes and beatings that were inflicted upon our embassy staff and IIRC never made it into the headlines in the USA would never have taken place, and every last inhabitant of the planet would see the price they could expect to pay for such an outrage. If you don't want diplomatic relations with someone, then expel their embassy. You don't go and storm it and rape and beat the staff and then burn their flag.

And if Carter's planning to nuke Iran, what does he need to mobilize the army and national guard for?
Mop up, of course. I could see Iran as an occupied nation for a number of years equalling the number of dead members of the embassy staff. And if the Iranian superboys that started the whole mess beheaded the US ambassador to 'show us who is boss', and got their capitol (and the rest of the staff) vaporised by a Nuclear strike, that would mean a year for each and every one of them. After all, Germany got (or was supposed to get) occupied for 50 years and even the NAZI's didn't storm our embassy and burn our flag!

And WTF with murdering those Iranians who would be the strongest allies of the US side?
Trying to get them out of the US so they don't get whacked. The government may know about their politics, but is that angry mob going to know (or care) about their differences of opinion with their countryman's actions in burning our flag?

The hostage-takers also achieved their objective, which was to prevent a reconciliation between the US and Iran.
If you mean the Iran that used to be (before the revolution), that was already gone. If you mean the tributary, puppet-state Iran that might be allowed to continue to exist after being conquered, occupied, and divided up into different splinters and handed out to the nations of Iraq, Turkey, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. No, I really don't think they will have succeeded except in getting their own countrymen to hunt them down and deliver them into US army of occupation forces hands, for their televised executions for starting the war that breaks their nation.

I remember something:
"When this war is over, the Japanese language will be spoken only in hell" -- Admiral Bill Halsey on December 7, 1941
 
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Regarding the point about reconciliation - the hostage-takers took the hostages in large part because of Iranian post-revolutionary internal politics. A major objective of the hostage-takers was to undermine those post-revolutionary factions that wanted a reconciliation with the US, e.g. Banisadr. See e.g. http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,921865,00.html

The rest of your post, I'm don't even know what to say.

You do realise that the hostages were eventually returned, albeit after ill-treatment and some time in Iranian custody? Even with your implausible PoD, only one of them's dead.

Do you really believe that killing all the remaining hostages, as well as killing millions of Iranians (most of whom had nothing to do with the hostage taking and were completely innocent) would be a good thing??????!?!?!
 
3) As a precautionary measure, All Iranian nationals remaining within United States territory at the end of this time limit (if the demands are NOT met) will be considered as prisoners of war if, and only if, they turn themselves in to law enforcement agencies within that time limit. Any remaining Iranian citizens on US soil or in US territories that have not come forward will be considered as enemy personel and dealt with summarily.
[...]
Any thoughts?

Mmm, so the US is now the "new Nazis"? What does "summarily" mean and what does this mean when one considers that most Iranians in the US were in exile there and were not supporters of the Iranian Revolutionary Government?

Appears like they've going to get a bit of a raw deal from both sides...
 
Regarding the point about reconciliation - the hostage-takers took the hostages in large part because of Iranian post-revolutionary internal politics. A major objective of the hostage-takers was to undermine those post-revolutionary factions that wanted a reconciliation with the US.
I learn something new every day. I think I will enjoy reading that link. Thank you.

You do realise that the hostages were eventually returned, albeit after ill-treatment and some time in Iranian custody? Even with your implausible PoD, only one of them's dead.
444 days IIRC. Raped, beaten, tortured, for more than a year.:mad:

Do you really believe that killing all the remaining hostages, as well as killing millions of Iranians (most of whom had nothing to do with the hostage taking and were completely innocent) would be a good thing??????!?!?!

Interesting questions.

Do I believe that President Carter failed the office, the people, and the hostages by failing to get them freed (in hours, not months)? You bet.

If the Iranian terrorists had failed to recognize the terrible mistake they made by starting this crisis and decided to escalate by beheading our ambassador, do I believe that Carter could have avoided impeachment/assassination for failing to heed public demands for massive spilling of Iranian blood (right or wrong), and right NOW! No way.

You have me on this one. As a private citizen, my knee jerk reaction would have been to push the button and to hell with anything else. As a man charged with the responsibility that a president has to handle, it would be far more likely that a 24 hour notice would be given to flee the city before it's vaporization, along with quietly letting the rest of the world know that now might just be a good time to get any of their people out of the whole of Iran.

Of course, then president Carter was totally against war as a solution, and his presidency was all about peace (camp David, for example), so there is no way he would have done any of this.

The point of this thread, though, is to explore what kind of a changed world we would have today had the US answered Iranian outrages with a proper, bloody, all out war. Would 9/11 still have happened? Would we be faced with the prospects of an Iran that celebrates burning our flag and getting away with it to this day? And the big one, would any nation want to try their luck after seeing what happened to Iran?
 
Mmm, so the US is now the "new Nazis"? What does "summarily" mean and what does this mean when one considers that most Iranians in the US were in exile there and were not supporters of the Iranian Revolutionary Government?

Appears like they've going to get a bit of a raw deal from both sides...
Absolutely not. The Iranian embassy stormers and flag burners would be the new worse-than-nazi's scum, and the US response would be a creature born of rage against their atrocities. Not really any two ways to look at that.

Pre-embassy: US citizens = neutral to Iranians in the USA.
Post-embassy: US citizens = out for blood.

For the second part, it would mean something like, "You have 72 hours to get out of the USA before we goto war against your homeland, and no matter what your politics, we cannot help you if your still within our boarders when the killing starts. So summarily would mean that after the shooting war starts up, even though they are not the Iranians that had anything to do with this, they are the only Iranians that most outraged Americans are going to be able to get their hands on. Not a good thing. But then, misplaced rage never is.

I think that one of the only good things that the US government did right after 9/11, was to realise that when the American people learned who was responsible, they were going to be looking for payback from any Arabic people that were handy.

That is in fact why I would want the 72 hours in the first place, so that the wrong people don't get killed. Not that that would work, nor would it help with the combat zone.

I've been up all night, so I'll check back in this afternoon...
 

Commissar

Banned
Yep, and we would surely be able to trust such a terrorist state to return the rest, alive and well, based upon their previous actions, right? On the other hand, the rapes and beatings that were inflicted upon our embassy staff and IIRC never made it into the headlines in the USA would never have taken place, and every last inhabitant of the planet would see the price they could expect to pay for such an outrage. If you don't want diplomatic relations with someone, then expel their embassy. You don't go and storm it and rape and beat the staff and then burn their flag.

First off the Iranian Government had no part in the storming of the Embassy. It took them completely by surprise. They were trying to normalize relationships with the U.S. and sell back the F-14s the Shah bought.

The IRI Government initial response was to gather up police and prepare to arrest the students. Luckily for the students, they managed to seize the CIA documents before they could be destroyed.

Those documents showed the U.S. was still recruiting agents in Iran and the Government rightly or wrongly assumed the U.S. Government was trying to reinstate the Shah and was not sincere in turning over a new leaf.

Things went downhill from there.
 

PipBoy2999

Banned
I don't believe nuclear attack would serve the function you desire. Although I understand where you're going, I remember the t-shirts that said "Nuke Iran, till they glow, then shoot them in the dark".

Better, I think would be to sieze and occupy the Iranian side of the Straits of Hormuz and blockade the country.
 
Absolutely not. The Iranian embassy stormers and flag burners would be the new worse-than-nazi's scum, and the US response would be a creature born of rage against their atrocities.

Not really any two ways to look at that.

Pre-embassy: US citizens = neutral to Iranians in the USA.
Post-embassy: US citizens = out for blood.

So, effectively you believe that such vigilantism against innocent people who were no way involved in the events in Tehran should be condoned and perhaps even encouraged by US Government policies?

For the second part, it would mean something like, "You have 72 hours to get out of the USA before we goto war against your homeland, and no matter what your politics, we cannot help you if your still within our boarders when the killing starts. So summarily would mean that after the shooting war starts up, even though they are not the Iranians that had anything to do with this, they are the only Iranians that most outraged Americans are going to be able to get their hands on. Not a good thing. But then, misplaced rage never is.

I think that one of the only good things that the US government did right after 9/11, was to realise that when the American people learned who was responsible, they were going to be looking for payback from any Arabic people that were handy.

That is in fact why I would want the 72 hours in the first place, so that the wrong people don't get killed. Not that that would work, nor would it help with the combat zone.

I've been up all night, so I'll check back in this afternoon...

Appears that you believe in guilt by association. :rolleyes:
 
Better, I think would be to sieze and occupy the Iranian side of the Straits of Hormuz and blockade the country.

A blockade like this, possibly combined with conventional attacks on military targets (airfields, ports, command centers..) would be a realistic way to start the war if you really need one.
A nuclear attack on population centers of Iran after an unpleasantries concerning a few, no matter how important, US citizens in the country - is a big flowery invitation card to the Soviets reading

"Your entire strategic nuclear arsenal is highly welcome on American soil. Best regards, yours truly United States"
 
Trying to get them out of the US so they don't get whacked. The government may know about their politics, but is that angry mob going to know (or care) about their differences of opinion with their countryman's actions in burning our flag?
Yes, because we know that American society is composed almost entirely of violent retards who strongly believe in guilt-by-association no matter how ridiculous it is.:rolleyes:
 

CalBear

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Advocating mass nuclear attacks is close to advocating genocide.

Genocide is frowned upon here.

Since you are new, I am going with a warning. Next time it will be someing more substantial.

Thread locked to avoid mass kickings.
 
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