You seem really bent out of shape over something that happened in 1953. What nation are you from?
And everyone seems bent out of shape over something that happened 34 years ago. Half the population of Iran today simply wasn't alive when it happened. A very big chunk of the remainder hadn't even hit puberty.
Hey, would you like to know the name of the first guy to use poison gas on the Kurds? Winston Churchill. He did it back in the 20's, right after WWII when it was officially considered a crime against humanity. It's almost certainly one of the reasons that the British stay in Iraq was so relatively short, or that the Iraqi military was so anti-british in the thirties and forties. But it was a long, long time ago. Should we hold onto this?
The fact that the CIA overthrew the Mossadegh government and installed the Shah's father in the 1950's is not really a matter for debate. It's a historical fact. The records are there, we can all look it up. It's not actually controversial. And the fact was that after the Shah's father was installed, and while the Shah was in power, the United States and Iran were closely allied and integrated, and as a country the United States at the very least was prepared to turn a blind eye to the Shah's atrocities, and at worst was prepared to facilitate them, support them, enable them, etc. Well, okay.
Calbear earlier in this thread said that letting the ailing Shah into the US was the right thing to do, regardless of the message it would send to the Iranian people, because he was our guy. Okay. Well, he's our guy, I suppose that means America has to take some responsibility for him.
But then there's the point - do they hold onto this forever? Does it justify every single reaction. Maybe they should get over it and move on.
But then, doesn't that cut both ways? If we expect the Iranians to get over Mossadegh and all the evils that followed... Shouldn't Americans themselves be expected to get over a diplomatic incident that occurred 34 years ago, and move on?
And yes, I understand that Embassies are sacrosanct and all that, and it was very very bad. But honestly, the coup the America triggered and the guys that American put in place got people killed. People were murdered and tortured. A lot of them. That's bad too.
Listening to this very angry, very animated debate on both sides, what strikes me is that both the Iranians and the Americans sang the same song - "They don us wrong, and we is furious!"
I dunno. If there is a lesson that we can take from this is that "righteous fury" is a completely shit basis for foreign policy or war. The "righteous fury" that drove the Iranians over the embassy walls and to take hostages was genuine, it was heartfelt, it was rooted in genuine historical wrongs, in death and torture and atrocity suffered. But it didn't make it right. It certainly didn't make it a good idea.
The "righteous fury" felt by Americans over the wrong that was done their embassy was genuine, it was heartfelt, it was rooted in actual wrongs. But it wouldn't have made it right to Nuke Iran, no matter what placards people were holding up. It wouldn't have made it right to go to war. It would not have justified the next round of wrongdoing and atrocity.
Like it or not, I think that the verdict of history is that Carter did the right things. He was a civilized man, not a weak man, and he handled it effectively. He didn't take it as an excuse for righteous fury, he didn't endorse the murder of thousands or tens of thousands of innocent people.
I think that in making his decisions Carter had to take a longer view, had to appreciate and work within the strategic realities of the time. Arnold Shwarzenegger or Rambo are terrific fantasies, but they're not a prescription for real life. Carter was in the middle of the cold war, he was leading an armed forces that still hadn't recovered from Vietnam, the United States was still the richest most powerful country in the world, but it was not omnipotent.
For the record, I don't believe for a second that the Iranian leadership was a bit afraid of Reagan. I don't think that there's persuasive evidence of that. Khomeini and the Mullahs were a group of people who genuinely believed in God in a way that is hard for us to fathom, and they genuinely believed God was on their side. God was right in there helping out first hand, and they had proof of that every which way they looked. No way does that sort of mindset take Reagan seriously.
And for the record, I don't think that there was a chance in hell that the USSR and USA would have set aside the cold war to gang up on Iran. That's just a modern fantasy, and I don't think it grasps the realities of the era.
But it seems that other people hold different opinions. Well, we'll all just agree to disagree.
Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go back to thinking about my next posts for a truly awesome mini-timeline on awesome bear cavalry, full of awesomeness. Feel free to look it up. Or I'm going to see what people are saying about Romans discovering the new world.
Good luck, god bless, have a nice day.