Iran-American War

I heard somewhere that in 1979 during the Iran hostage crisis that some wanted to invade Iran.
whether this is right or not i was wondering what would have happened if the US invaded Iran in late 1979 or 1980?
would we have had any allies in the war?
would we have won?
anyway i'd like to hear yalls opinion on this & what yall think would happen
 
If you define "victory" as the complete and utter destruction of the Iranian Armed Forces and the Iranian state's ability to wage war then yes I bet you would have won.
If your victory scenario includes the occupation, pacification and finally the democratization of Iran then no you wouldn't have won.
That's my point of view anyways
 
Actually the main reason for the hostage crisis you can boil down to Zbigniew Brzezinski convincing Carter not to essentially extradite the Shah to Iran after he was overthrown, essentially convincing Carter that the Shah was still worth something politically to the US (which at the time he wasn't as he no longer had control of his country and NO supporters left over there). There was no love for the US at that point from Iran but Iran had not yet solidified itself into the Islamic Republic as it is today (i.e. Khomeini was a major player but he hadn't yet killed off all the competition within the ranks of the rebellion) . That pretty much solidified them actually taking the US embassy. FYI and this is interesting, current Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmedinijad was one of the folks who did take the embassy and he was pushing for taking the Soviet (read: Russian) embassy at the time.

If the hostages were taken, there wouldn't need to be a war or invasion really. Just contact the hostage takers, hand them over Rezah Pahlevi in exchange for the hostages, and shake hands essentially and work out diplomatic relations given the regime change. We probably could have swayed it away from becoming what it is now, although I'm unsure of when during the hostage crisis Khomeini consolidated his power.
 
FYI and this is interesting, current Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmedinijad was one of the folks who did take the embassy and he was pushing for taking the Soviet (read: Russian) embassy at the time.

I believe these claims were discredited years ago, even by some of the hostages themselves.

What people don't realize is that despite all that went down US and Iran weren't at loggerheads and there was some hope for normalization of relations on both sides. Even when war started US looked the other way when Iran tried to get spares for their US made planes.

It was by mid 1980s that relations changed. Iranian revolution hardened (no surprise with war and all) and US decided to back the other Ira horse
 
Extraditing the shah would not have prompted the release of the hostages. Every time Carter thought he had a deal, Khomeini would veto it at the last minute. It was like Lucy pulling the football away. There's no evidence he was ever negotiating in good faith, but instead using the situation as leverage against his domestic political opponents. It wasn't until Iraq invaded that they seriously went to the table.
 
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