WI Thatcher's SAS stunt fails

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During the siege of the Iranian Embassy in London Margaret Thatcher, instead of resorting to negotiations, used lethal forces to bring out the captives - the mission, conducted by the SAS, was seen as supremely successful and led to the militarism of the 80s in Britain.
What if the mission failed? What if the SAS troops were either overwhelmed or were unable to save any of the hostages? How does this challenge Thatcher's premiership? How does this affect British foreign policy?
Interested in the answers of ye Brit users.
 
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It was the Iranian Embassy in London, actually. It certainly helped the image of the SAS, though if it failed, it might increase the push for more law enforcement-based hostage rescue units, like GIGN or GSG9. Iran would be more upset if there were more deaths.
 

James G

Gone Fishin'
Shouldn't you dump this over in Chat where the general flame-baiting goes? Honestly, if you are going to do something like this at least pay attention to the facts: London over Tehran would be a good one.
 

Sior

Banned
During the siege of the British Embassy in Tehran Margaret Thatcher, instead of resorting to negotiations, used lethal forces to bring out the captives - the mission, conducted by the SAS, was seen as supremely successful and led to the militarism of the 80s in Britain.
What if the mission failed? What if the SAS troops were either overwhelmed or were unable to save any of the hostages? How does this challenge Thatcher's premiership? How does this affect British foreign policy?
Interested in the answers of ye Brit users.

The Tehran cluster fu#k was American.
 

CalBear

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During the siege of the British Embassy in Tehran Margaret Thatcher, instead of resorting to negotiations, used lethal forces to bring out the captives - the mission, conducted by the SAS, was seen as supremely successful and led to the militarism of the 80s in Britain.
What if the mission failed? What if the SAS troops were either overwhelmed or were unable to save any of the hostages? How does this challenge Thatcher's premiership? How does this affect British foreign policy?
Interested in the answers of ye Brit users.

180 degree the other way.

It was in London.

SAS wouldn't initiated if they didn't have close to 100% chances of success. Neither the SAS command nor the British Government was heavy with morons.
 
180 degree the other way.

It was in London.

SAS wouldn't initiated if they didn't have close to 100% chances of success. Neither the SAS command nor the British Government was heavy with morons.

well damn. and here I sat wondering why Carter didn't do the same. edited too, as said above.
 
Quite difficult to see a total failure - the SAS had good intelligence and were vastly better at this sort of thing. That means it is massively unlikely that they would be overwhelmed (i.e. go into the embassy then lose the firefight), and pretty implausible that all the hostages would be killed. What **might** happen is that a substantial number of the hostages were killed in the process of the rescue mission, and that would probably mean the mission is seen as a failure. That might give the situation you're looking for.

As for the effects, I think most of them would be submerged in the Falklands effect in 1982. Probably the only long-term effect would be a slight tarnishing of the SAS reputation and hence possibly a decision not to let them off the leash in Northern Ireland in the late 1980s. That means you might not have things like the Loughgall ambush and in the longer run possibly the peace process in Northern Ireland might be delayed somewhat. I don't think you'll see much else changing though.
 
"led to the militarism of the 80s?" I think you have cause and effect inverted here. The world situation got hotter, the as it turned out last round of the Cold War under way, and that led to all sorts of minor outbreaks of militariness, although no major ones thank God (see; Exercise Able Archer '83).

Thatcher was more willing to go to an armed solution because, well, no negotiations with terrorists anyway, it was a way to scare the IRA without actually upsetting anything over there, and she was a Conservative. Party politics was a contributing factor.

If it hadn't worked? Desert One didn't work either. Did that slow Delta Force down? GSG-9 got off to a rocky start too. Antiterrorism operations are tricky. Doesn't stop most governments trying again, though.
 
No negotiations? I guess all that work over six days by the Met Police didn't happen then? The SAS only went in when the hostage takers started murdering hostages.

If you're going to propose a what if I'd recommend actually happened first.

A more plausible POD might be what if the hostage takers for whatever reason started shooting early? Perhaps they find PC Lock's revolver. Before the SAS arrived on scene the police had drawn up a hasty immediate action plan to go in if necessary. The Met's Firearms Command was nowhere near as well equipped and trained as it is today, moreover they were expected to come up with a workable plan using less than a third of the numbers of men the SAS deployed.
 
If people are looking for cause and effect with regard to Princess Gate then the spate of high-jackings in the 70s and the Munich Olympics massacre would be causes and the SAS raid would be the effect.


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