WI: The Iranian Hostage Situation, was a massacre?

[Killer300]

Oh really? We "never" supported leftists? The Khmer Rouge don't count there?

In the early months of the Iran-Iraq War a lot of observers thought the war would be over in months.

Because Saddam had not adequately crushed the Iranian airforce (and with his resources it was impossible), and because the Arabs of Khuzestan did not rise up.

The US involving itself against Iran and taking the gloves off to knock out what remains of the Imperial Air Force and the navy will give Saddam all the chance he needs.

Also, Iran didn't win the war, as all offensives by Iran into Iraq were repulsed, nor did it halt the Iraqi offensive with human wave attacks, that can be credited primarily to the remnants of the Iranian airforce.

With the first,

1. That was against Vietnam, which was the US was still sore about. That isn't the case with Iran, and additionally,
2. Foreign policy had changed so that I doubt we'd see a repeat. Neither Carter or Reagen are going to support the kind of leftist available in Iran.

With the 2nd, I'm sorry, but that's ridiculous. When they can't stop human wave attacks, ask Snake about this one, than they aren't capable.
With the last, so what? Iraq was incapable of beating a country using human wave attacks, and if you blame that on the airforce, you ignore the massive incompetence displayed in other parts of the Iraqi military, including its army.

Even with all of this, it does nothing to stop a guerrilla campaign that will disable oil facilities and keep the US economy having issues longer from a lack of oil supplies.

 

[HeavyWeaponsGuy]

1. Oh, then does the People's Mujahidin get off on account of "it was Iran"? You mentioned supporting leftism, I gave an example of the USA doing exactly that, you can't backtrack and attach a conditional to your statement. And yeah, actually, the US has an incentive to support someone who could provide an alternative to Khomeini in this particular counterfactual, we would likely avoid trying to work with the Tudeh Party, but given no alternative, we'd go to them, the Cold War was really never something where we got to work with exactly the right people for the job.

2. People's Mujahidin?

Nobody was that great in the war, that is the reason it was an eight-year stalemated mess, I notice you quietly ignored what I said about Iranian offensives failing though.

 

[Killer300]

1. Oh, then does the People's Mujahidin get off on account of "it was Iran"? You mentioned supporting leftism, I gave an example of the USA doing exactly that, you can't backtrack and attach a conditional to your statement. And yeah, actually, the US has an incentive to support someone who could provide an alternative to Khomeini in this particular counterfactual, we would likely avoid trying to work with the Tudeh Party, but given no alternative, we'd go to them, the Cold War was really never something where we got to work with exactly the right people for the job.

2. People's Mujahidin?

Nobody was that great in the war, that is the reason it was an eight-year stalemated mess, I notice you quietly ignored what I said about Iranian offensives failing though.

With the last, I don't deny the Iranians failed to penetrate Iraq, if they did it would show the Iraqi Army to be even more incompetent. My point however is Iraq can't occupy Iran, or even parts of it, it doesn't have the competence to pull it off.

Now, if we supported the leftists? Okay, I concede that could work out, especially since the Soviets would probably support them too. However, you have ONE example of the US supporting,"leftists," and that was an extreme case. Perhaps this will work out here, however it isn't assured.

 

[TxCoatl1970]

Iranian cultural notes

To get back on-topic-

I went through all the OTL reasons why the US didn't pull a Hulk-SMASH aerial-naval pimp-slap campaign 48 hours after the hostages were taken that'd leave the Iranian oil terminals so much smoking rubble along with the rest of the Iranian economy.

If the hostages were massacred- even the most hopeful CIA or State Dept analyst would have to conclude there's no sane folks to work with and initiated Operation Whirlwind (FWIW not a real op, I named it after the James Clavell novel re Iranian Revolution. Worth a read IMO.)

Nobody Western in their right mind had any hopes of invading or occupying Iran. HWG made it clear the Shah's Zero% Approval Rating was a major deal-killer. With no acceptable puppet to back and mind the store, no invasion.

As HWG made a point of stating, the Soviets wouldn't be welcomed with open arms either, due to their shenanigans pulled during WWII.
The Tudeh (Iranian Communists) had a lot of students and were so thoroughly penetrated and neutered by SAVAK they were largely a non-factor.
Same with any secular opposition groups.
MEK- (Mujahedin-e-Khalq People's Warriors) was another leftist movement that became an underground resistance/terrorist movement funded and organized by emigres AFTER the Revolution and getting purged by the Islamists in street battles in 1981.

Iran had a parliament- the Majlis, but it was weak, unrepresentative, and mostly about rubber-stamping new public works programs to fill one royal crony or another's pockets glorifying the Shah. It didn't incubate any leaders to take over when the Shah fled.

What folks in the US Embassy never got and tried like hell to stay blind to was the profound influence Shi'a Islamists had on Iranian culture and kept hoping the goodies of Western secular culture'd sway Iranians to being happy consumers to distract Iranians from SAVAK's dirty-war tactics.

In Western culture, we're all about individual choice and the nuclear family as a result of Western liberal tradition and industrialization. We think in terms of decades and what's hip right now and throw things away just b/c they're out of style.

To Iranians, that's very isolating and terrifying compared to thousands of years of Persian culture and extended family and ethnic ties. Also, while a nomenklatura of new college grads was emerging and doing much better than before, the dead weight of the Shah and all the backdoor horse-trading and backstabbing to maintain official favor meant lots of promising folks never got jobs and felt left out as the inefficient kleptocracy kept enriching the royal court and beggaring the vast majority of Iranians.

So, to sum up, all the folks left out of the Shah's inner circle and not sucking on the oil tit really weren't doing that well, got fed up, and decided socialism sucked because it was too secular, democracy sucked because it was too easy to suborn, so hitting the reset button and making it over by explicitly Islamic principles of community values was the only social foundation that made any sense to the Iranian populace who hadn't gone to college.

Many ayatollahs had been laying this groundwork for decades but Khomeni's underground samizdat campaign of covertly distributed lectures on tape over the 1970's gave the Islamist opposition an inspirational leader laying out a clear plan of how the Shah sucked and what Islam was supposed to really be about.

What's the US got to work with in that scenario?
Were we supposed to sort the wheat from the chaff in the various ayatollahs and scholars when we'd explicitly ignored religious leaders ever since Operation Ajax installed the Shah in 1953 after deposing Mossadegh?

The folks into democracy and a secular (or least officially tolerant of Jews, Baha'i, Christians, Zoroastrians, etc) society usually had too much of a tinge of socialism to be palatable. Once the CIA decided MEK was worth supporting, they were booted out of the country and engaged in terrorist acts the Iranian authorities could brand as criminal.

 

[sloreck]

I think what everyone is forgetting is that the "student occupation" of the US Embassy was about as spontaneous as as the "I love Kim" demonstrations in N. Korea the last 60+ years. Furthermore, the Iranian government could have very easily said "bad, bad students" and turned over all the US diplomats to the Swiss to be repatriated within 24 hours.

For a very long time it has been the legal responsibility of the host country to protect the embassies of foreign governments..and also btw everything inside the fence is foreign territory and therefore embassy forces are legally OK to do whatever they want to protect the interior.

In any case if the US does no more than demand all of the "killers" be turned over (which ain't going to happen) and then when they don't get no satisfaction do nothing - however bad the US looked after Vietnam, after Eagle Claw, this lack of response will make them look like a gold medal performances.

For all the real problems of the US military at that point in time, destroying the Iranian navy & air force, blockading all naval and air traffic to Iran, and reducing any oil/industrial facility to dust is very doable - and massive leaflet strikes before bombing raids telling oil workers to evacuate etc...

 

[Armored Diplomacy]

What choice do they have? There's no way the US has the manpower to occupy Iran without the draft, especially since I doubt it'd have help from Iran.

There doesn't necessarily need to be any long-term occupation of Iran, or even an invasion. And let's not forget that reinstating the draft would likely be political suicide.

The US will stick to obliterating the Iranian military with air and cruise missile strikes, and let the Iraqis do the occupying.

 

[Killer300]

To get back on-topic-

I went through all the OTL reasons why the US didn't pull a Hulk-SMASH aerial-naval pimp-slap campaign 48 hours after the hostages were taken that'd leave the Iranian oil terminals so much smoking rubble along with the rest of the Iranian economy.

If the hostages were massacred- even the most hopeful CIA or State Dept analyst would have to conclude there's no sane folks to work with and initiated Operation Whirlwind (FWIW not a real op, I named it after the James Clavell novel re Iranian Revolution. Worth a read IMO.)

Nobody Western in their right mind had any hopes of invading or occupying Iran. HWG made it clear the Shah's Zero% Approval Rating was a major deal-killer. With no acceptable puppet to back and mind the store, no invasion.

As HWG made a point of stating, the Soviets wouldn't be welcomed with open arms either, due to their shenanigans pulled during WWII.
The Tudeh (Iranian Communists) had a lot of students and were so thoroughly penetrated and neutered by SAVAK they were largely a non-factor.
Same with any secular opposition groups.
MEK- (Mujahedin-e-Khalq People's Warriors) was another leftist movement that became an underground resistance/terrorist movement funded and organized by emigres AFTER the Revolution and getting purged by the Islamists in street battles in 1981.

Iran had a parliament- the Majlis, but it was weak, unrepresentative, and mostly about rubber-stamping new public works programs to fill one royal crony or another's pockets glorifying the Shah. It didn't incubate any leaders to take over when the Shah fled.

What folks in the US Embassy never got and tried like hell to stay blind to was the profound influence Shi'a Islamists had on Iranian culture and kept hoping the goodies of Western secular culture'd sway Iranians to being happy consumers to distract Iranians from SAVAK's dirty-war tactics.

In Western culture, we're all about individual choice and the nuclear family as a result of Western liberal tradition and industrialization. We think in terms of decades and what's hip right now and throw things away just b/c they're out of style.

To Iranians, that's very isolating and terrifying compared to thousands of years of Persian culture and extended family and ethnic ties. Also, while a nomenklatura of new college grads was emerging and doing much better than before, the dead weight of the Shah and all the backdoor horse-trading and backstabbing to maintain official favor meant lots of promising folks never got jobs and felt left out as the inefficient kleptocracy kept enriching the royal court and beggaring the vast majority of Iranians.

So, to sum up, all the folks left out of the Shah's inner circle and not sucking on the oil tit really weren't doing that well, got fed up, and decided socialism sucked because it was too secular, democracy sucked because it was too easy to suborn, so hitting the reset button and making it over by explicitly Islamic principles of community values was the only social foundation that made any sense to the Iranian populace who hadn't gone to college.

Many ayatollahs had been laying this groundwork for decades but Khomeni's underground samizdat campaign of covertly distributed lectures on tape over the 1970's gave the Islamist opposition an inspirational leader laying out a clear plan of how the Shah sucked and what Islam was supposed to really be about.

What's the US got to work with in that scenario?
Were we supposed to sort the wheat from the chaff in the various ayatollahs and scholars when we'd explicitly ignored religious leaders ever since Operation Ajax installed the Shah in 1953 after deposing Mossadegh?

The folks into democracy and a secular (or least officially tolerant of Jews, Baha'i, Christians, Zoroastrians, etc) society usually had too much of a tinge of socialism to be palatable. Once the CIA decided MEK was worth supporting, they were booted out of the country and engaged in terrorist acts the Iranian authorities could brand as criminal.

Okay, THIS shows why the US can't just prop up an opposition group, practically speaking, they don't exist. This is also why Iraq has no way of occupying Iran, it will never have a populace that tolerates it enough for it ever properly occupy it.

So, what will happen? US will bomb the place perhaps, but then what? Well, it can kiss goodbye ever getting Iranian oil, as gurriellas will insure that NO oil supplies get to the US from Iran.

So what does this entail for the long run? It will be the same situation as today, if not worse, because the US has no way of influencing Iranian internal politics. That was destroyed when we decided to overthrow a democratically elected leader and replace him with the Shah.

 

[Consumerist]

*steps in some sort of liquid* God...what's this all over the floor?

Oh...it's your heart. *hands ANTIcarrot a mop* It's bleeding on my floor. FIX IT.


I get what you're saying: like the undersecretary of economics who's in charge of making sure American companies can get through commercial laws quicker in Iran, who in his spare time rapes Iranian babies. Or the janitor who secretly drown homeless people in his bucket, right?

I don't think an institutional decision is the same thing as a guy being a serial killer in a manner completely unrelated to his occupation.

 

[HeavyWeaponsGuy]

There doesn't necessarily need to be any long-term occupation of Iran, or even an invasion. And let's not forget that reinstating the draft would likely be political suicide.

The US will stick to obliterating the Iranian military with air and cruise missile strikes, and let the Iraqis do the occupying.

Pretty much.

Iraq taking Khuzestan alone would throw Iran into a massive spiral in the short-term.

And unlike... a whole lot of other COIN operations, Saddam would have been able to take down Khuzestani Arabs who resisted Iraqi occupation. A force with absolutely no regard for the lives of the people who are resisting it, nor the civilian populace from whom the guerrillas derive their support, is basically going to be successful barring substantial outside intervention, and chances are, in a case like this, Iran isn't going to have much recourse other than sit back and watch.

 

[Corbell Mark IV]

Ok, a recap and some new points.

1. I agree invasion is unlikely. Vietnam was very recent, and the Generals would explain to Carter that this would be even worse. And Carter in not disposed to be a war president, and knows the military is in terrible shape.

2. The discussion of an alliance with Iraq is based on foreknowledge about the Iraq/Iran War. I've never heard that we knew this was in the works as of this time period. So that doesn't happen.

3. A combinations of airstrikes and economic sanctions sounds likely.

4. If the regime survives, which it probably will, this ends up hurting Carter somewhat and he still loses.

5. THe impact of US strikes does help Saddam's invasion. Saddam's goal was not to invade the whole nation but to chew off a corner. Which he could probably take in TTL, but doubt he could hold. War probably drags on even longer and even more horribly though.

6. Oh, and oil is fungible. Doesn't matter who Iran sells the oil to. If the oil flows it effects the global supply and price. That's why the Iran/Iraq War was so good for the US, and the West. Both sides were pumping as fast as they could and selling in a buyers market, in a desperate attempt to get money to buy guns.

7. I'll give some thought to longer term/ further away effects. Might be more later.

 

[RamscoopRaider]

Okay, THIS shows why the US can't just prop up an opposition group, practically speaking, they don't exist. This is also why Iraq has no way of occupying Iran, it will never have a populace that tolerates it enough for it ever properly occupy it.

So, what will happen? US will bomb the place perhaps, but then what? Well, it can kiss goodbye ever getting Iranian oil, as gurriellas will insure that NO oil supplies get to the US from Iran.

So what does this entail for the long run? It will be the same situation as today, if not worse, because the US has no way of influencing Iranian internal politics. That was destroyed when we decided to overthrow a democratically elected leader and replace him with the Shah.

Iraq will not occupy all of Iran, just Khuzestan, the part with the most oil that happens to be Arab rather than Farsi like most of Iran, so they have less reason to revolt than most and while Saddam can't beat an army his is good at crushing revolts

If the Iranian navy and airforce are out of the picture then he can take and hold Khuzestan, especially if the US roughs up the Iranian army as well

FYI the US has not imported oil from Iran since the revolution

Long run Iran has a lot less influence than OTL and is poorer as it has less oil, it is less of a threat as it can't afford to buy equipment

If Iraq takes Khuzestan then it will not invade Kuwait so no Gulf War and thus no Iraq and no Al-Qaeda

 

[Killer300]

Iraq will not occupy all of Iran, just Khuzestan, the part with the most oil that happens to be Arab rather than Farsi like most of Iran, so they have less reason to revolt than most and while Saddam can't beat an army his is good at crushing revolts

If the Iranian navy and airforce are out of the picture then he can take and hold Khuzestan, especially if the US roughs up the Iranian army as well

FYI the US has not imported oil from Iran since the revolution

Long run Iran has a lot less influence than OTL and is poorer as it has less oil, it is less of a threat as it can't afford to buy equipment

If Iraq takes Khuzestan then it will not invade Kuwait so no Gulf War and thus no Iraq and no Al-Qaeda

First off, what's to say gurriellas don't succeed there? Perhaps Saddam is better at crushing revolts but, here's the issue.

If this could've worked out, why didn't we do it in OTL? The Iranian Hostage Crisis even without them killing the hostages was humiliating.

My point? If bombing Iran could've worked out so well, why didn't we do it in OTL directly?

 

[RamscoopRaider]

First off, what's to say gurriellas don't succeed there? Perhaps Saddam is better at crushing revolts but, here's the issue.

If this could've worked out, why didn't we do it in OTL? The Iranian Hostage Crisis even without them killing the hostages was humiliating.

My point? If bombing Iran could've worked out so well, why didn't we do it in OTL directly?

If we bomb them while they have hostages they kill the hostages, that is why they are called hostages

If we bomb them after we let them go then we demonstrate that we are not good for our word, if they release the hostages and then we just bomb them we show we can't be trusted to abide by agreements

If we waited then we don't have a reason and bombing would be blatant aggression

Here they kill a bunch of US citizens, have no hostages and show blatant disregard for international law and protocol

That is why we bomb them here but did not OTL

 

[Killer300]

Okay, good point in hindsight.

However, I don't see Saddam being able to hold Iranian oil. They will find a way to prevent it from being utilized, whether that be conventional or unconventional, population there be damned.

With that in mind, in the long run, yes, Iran is probably weakened significantly.

 

[RamscoopRaider]

Okay, good point in hindsight.

However, I don't see Saddam being able to hold Iranian oil. They will find a way to prevent it from being utilized, whether that be conventional or unconventional, population there be damned.

With that in mind, in the long run, yes, Iran is probably weakened significantly.

Saddam put down both the Kurds and the Shiites, after the US military wiped out the Iraqi army in Desert Storm, he can put down the Khuzestani's

It is pretty hard to take an oil field out permanently, worst case the Iranians do what the Iraqis did to Kuwait, and then Saddam hires some Texans to fix things

 

[Killer300]

Saddam put down both the Kurds and the Shiites, after the US military wiped out the Iraqi army in Desert Storm, he can put down the Khuzestani's

It is pretty hard to take an oil field out permanently, worst case the Iranians do what the Iraqis did to Kuwait, and then Saddam hires some Texans to fix things

Isn't there a difference between guerrilla warfare and an open revolt? I'm thinking of the former, with bombs constantly destroying oil supplies there.

 

[RamscoopRaider]

Isn't there a difference between guerrilla warfare and an open revolt? I'm thinking of the former, with bombs constantly destroying oil supplies there.

Then Saddam will deal with it

Guerrilla warfare only works when the occupier plays nice

Saddam will not play nice, he will drown the revolt in blood

Guerrilla war did not work on Saddam OTL, why would it work here? Why would Khuzestanis who don't really like the Iranian government risk their asses to fight Saddam?

 

[Killer300]

Then Saddam will deal with it

Guerrilla warfare only works when the occupier plays nice

Saddam will not play nice, he will drown the revolt in blood

Okay, that is ludicrous. South Vietnam ALONE proves that wrong, guerrillas have had to deal with brutal states before and have succeeded.

Additionally, guerrillas, if anything, gain strength from brutal states as they sow the discontent that such movements thrive off of.

 

[RamscoopRaider]

Okay, that is ludicrous. South Vietnam ALONE proves that wrong, guerrillas have had to deal with brutal states before and have succeeded.

Additionally, guerrillas, if anything, gain strength from brutal states as they sow the discontent that such movements thrive off of.

No South Vietnam proves me right, South Vietnam fell to armored columns from a foreign country with more logistic support than Eisenhower had in 1944, guerrillas had nothing to do with it and had effectively ceased to exist 6 years prior

Try Jordan 1970, Syria 1982 or Iraq 1991 for what to expect, in both cases resistance was crushed fairly easily with high death tolls, 20,000 in Jordan, 40,000 in Syria and 140,000 in Iraq the RVN was nowhere near this level

 

[1940LaSalle]

I really wonder if Carter would have the balls to go to war, even after something like this, even if he knew that wimping out would cost him the election. I believe that his administration was the only one in modern times where the military never once fired a shot in anger. This is a good thing in one way, but the man would go to any extreme to avoid trouble, like keeping the navy out of the Gulf of Sidra, to avoid risking a confrontation with Gaddafi. The following year,1981, Reagan didn't hesitate to send the ships into the area in contention, which the Libyans claimed as their territorial waters. And 2 Libyan fitters were splashed. America was back.

I could see Carter taking the pre-1916 Wilsonian approach (i.e., "there is such a thing as a man being too proud to fight"), working the UN for all it's worth , getting resolutions, sanctions, and so on, while the American public seethed. If the massacre came later rather than early-i.e., as a reprisal for the failed rescue attempt-I could see this as not being implausible.

Should that happen, Reagan's landslide would be even more overwhelming: Carter might carry DC, MA, HI, and that's about it. Once in office, Reagan would give Iran what amounted to an ultimatum (say, stand aside and turn over those apparently responsible for the massacre to the US for trial) which would of course be rejected. Then it's lights out, Iran. No nukes or chemical weapons would be used, but likely Dresden-like firestorm bombing would happen in the larger cities and any significant facilities (rail yards, dams and the like). I could also see special forces being inserted to take over key petroleum supply/production facilities, and ensure that the US extracted as much as possible as fast as possible, the environment be damned since this is war. Corollary: if the US can't hold and exploit a facility, it'll be turned into a black field with so much scrap metal and rubble.

When it's all over, Iran has been effectively sent back to the 17th century, and its infrastructure lies in ruins. Given the embassy massacre, I doubt sincerely that anyone apart from North Korea might squawk about Iran's fate. That act would go a long way into making Iran an international pariah, so it would be decades before Iran would begin to recover significantly.