What if Carter refused the Shah

Couldn't find anything on this with search function.

What if President Carter had refused the Shah of Iran admittance to the United States for cancer treatment? Without hindsight is there a good reason not to? Would Carter have a chance at re-election without the hostage crisis, and how would refusal of the Shah have shaped the Middle East and America's relationship to it for years to come?
 
Couldn't find anything on this with search function.

What if President Carter had refused the Shah of Iran admittance to the United States for cancer treatment? Without hindsight is there a good reason not to? Would Carter have a chance at re-election without the hostage crisis, and how would refusal of the Shah have shaped the Middle East and America's relationship to it for years to come?

Well, the obvious is that there's no hostage crisis. I think initially the U.S. would lose credibility with it's allies, particularly in the third world, as this was one of the reasons Carter let him in in the first place.

As for Carter's re election chances, they're better than they were OTL, but I'd give Reagan the edge as inflation is still going to be an issue. For Carter to be unbeatable, you need to prevent the Iranian revolutions and not have Ted Kennedy screw him with a primary challenge.
 
Couldn't find anything on this with search function.

What if President Carter had refused the Shah of Iran admittance to the United States for cancer treatment? Without hindsight is there a good reason not to? Would Carter have a chance at re-election without the hostage crisis, and how would refusal of the Shah have shaped the Middle East and America's relationship to it for years to come?

Henry Kissinger and David Rockefeller will be pissed.
 
Reagan 47 % Carter 45% Carter carries Vermont, Maine, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New York, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, District of Columbia, West Virginia, North Carolina South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Lousiana, Arkansas, Tennessee, Kentucky, Illinois, Wisconsin, Minnesota and Hawaii

Electoral College Reagan 288 Carter 250 Reagan is declared the winner close to midnight. He has much less of mandate. He still gets his tax and budget cuts passed.
 
Carter as a president was bad, and everyone knew it. Even without the hostage crisis he still gets massacred in the polls. The only thing that has redeemed the man is his post presidential charity work, if he didn't have that his reputation would still be shit. That said; if he hadn't let the Shah in it would be a point that the republicans would use to beat the dems with for years afterwards, perpetuating the myth that they were the ones who made the hard decisions while the democrats were soft on the commies and foreign policy in general. Carters earlier attempt to stab South Korea in the back would be brought up and he would be labeled as the man who sold Americas reputation down the river while gleefully selling out our allies.
 
Carter as a president was bad, and everyone knew it. Even without the hostage crisis he still gets massacred in the polls. The only thing that has redeemed the man is his post presidential charity work, if he didn't have that his reputation would still be shit. That said; if he hadn't let the Shah in it would be a point that the republicans would use to beat the dems with for years afterwards, perpetuating the myth that they were the ones who made the hard decisions while the democrats were soft on the commies and foreign policy in general. Carters earlier attempt to stab South Korea in the back would be brought up and he would be labeled as the man who sold Americas reputation down the river while gleefully selling out our allies.

What you're saying is true, I doubt Reagan would win by as big of a margin as OTL, it wouldn't be close, but it wouldn't be a landslide either.
 
Henry Kissinger and David Rockefeller will be pissed.

Rockefellers indeed. The efforts to continue collecting on Iranian government debts had as much to do with deteriorating relations as where the Shah went to die. The Iranians were in the longer run more concerned with the threat from the USSR and still wanted the Great Satan as a counter balance to the northern Satan. Unfortunatly in the heat of the moment arguments over loan repayments, and abrogated contracts with various US corporations and failing agreements with the US government became the primary focus & not simpler obstcles to a larger objective. Carter & his appointees bear a portion of the blame, but the post Shah governments & the Mullahs bear a big chunk of responsibility as well.
 
Top