Nov. 4, 1979 is a date few Americans recall, but the ensuing 444 days we referred to as “the Iranian Hostage Crisis”, which began on that fateful November day is etched in the memories of many still as the lack of resolve in dealing with the oppressive theocratic regime of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini ushered in the beginnings of a radical Islamic Jihad that culminated in the horrific September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks in America and the subsequent and ongoing “War On Terror” and the slaughter of untold numbers of innocent Muslims worldwide who do not wish to be subjected to the tyrannical leaders of this Jihad.
Allow me to back up a little as much of this began before the day in November 1979 when our Iranian Embassy was overran by radical student followers of Khomeini.
It began with the election of a weak president in the United States, Jimmy Carter on November 2, 1976 and his inauguration on January 20, 1977 as he set in motion several policies that we are still experiencing the repercussions of in acts of terror across the globe.
Joseph Puder outlines much of this at Pajamas Media where he wrote The Continued Failure of U.S. Iran Policy.
Puder tells us,
“The Unites States’ failure to deal effectively with Iran began during the administration of Jimmy Carter when the United States restrained the shah from using “excessive force” against the Khomeinist revolutionaries. This resulted in the overthrow of the monarchy and the establishment of the radical Islamic Republic of Iran.”
“Zbigniew Brzezinski, Jimmy Carter’s national security advisor, advised the president not to deal harshly with Ayatollah Khomeini and his cohorts lest a split occur within the Islamic opposition to the Russian presence in Afghanistan. At the time, both Democrats and Republicans considered the Islamists as a weapon against Soviet Communism and its local clients.”
Brzezinski went even further in a purported 1998 interview in the French magazine ‘Le Nouvel Observateur’, addressing the drawing of the Soviet Military into Afghanistan,
“What is most important to the history of the world? The Taliban or the collapse of the Soviet empire? Some stirred-up Moslems or the liberation of Central Europe and the end of the cold war?”
President Carter sent Air Force General Robert Huyser to Iran to press the Shah to step down and to encourage the Iranian Military Generals to not resist Khomeini’s “revolution,” after pressuring the Shah to “liberalize” his country. Of this the Shah later said,
“My greatest mistake was in listening to the Americans on matters concerning the internal affairs of my kingdom.”
In hopes of avoiding bloodshed, the Shah stepped down and went in to exile with the American promise from the Carter administration that he would be welcomed, but instead received a message saying, “the government of the United States regrets that it cannot welcome the Shah to American territory.”
Hopes of avoiding bloodshed in Iran were shattered as Khomeini began purging the country of opposition by the executions of at least 1,200 Imperial Army officers who General Huyser had urged not to oppose the revolution, but to peacefully accept it.
Tehran’s Police Officers loyal to the Shah were tortured, beaten and also executed.
Carter triggered the November 4 occupation of the U.S. Embassy after first denying the Shah entry into America and ignoring repeated warnings from our Embassy in Tehran to not allow him into America, allowed him in for cancer treatment.
Known for his “record of advocating Human Rights,” and winning the Nobel Peace Prize, Carter allowed more blood to be spilled in Iran during Khomeini’s first month in power than during the Shah’s entire reign over the country.
A complex plan was hastily drawn up known as Operation Eagle Claw that not only failed to rescue the hostages, but cost 8 Americans their lives in the Iranian Desert.
At this point, America settled into a policy of trying to make deals with Iran, which are continually scoffed at, projecting America’s “weakness” across the region as for decades, radical Islamic Jihadists continually escalated Terrorist Attacks Against U.S. Targets.
Even a Proxy War with Iran by Iraq, given the go ahead by Carter in hopes of Saddam Hussein scoring a quick and decisive victory against the Khomeini regime slid into 8 years of war ending in stalemate, neither winning and both losing considerable, as well as helping Carter loose the Presidency to Ronald Reagan in the 1980 elections.
But the policy of “dealing with” Iran was set in motion as well as elsewhere in the Middle East and the globe, leading to the world’s most wanted fugitive, Osama bin Laden to claim, in a 1999 Esquire interview,
“After leaving Afghanistan, the Muslim fighters headed for Somalia and prepared for a long battle thinking that the Americans were like the Russians. The youth were surprised at the low morale of the American soldiers and realized, more than before, that the American soldier was a paper tiger and after a few blows…would run in defeat.”
Joseph Puder tells us in his Pajama’s Media article,
“The Iranian regime has proven to the world just how easy it is to defy the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) without suffering any consequences. Tehran knows that the UN Security Council will not approve tougher sanctions against it. China has invested billions of dollars in the Iranian oil and gas industries, and hence would veto such sanctions. Russia, which is also heavily invested in Iran, would also not approve tougher sanctions. Moreover, Moscow takes pleasure in humiliating the U.S.”
And, “The Obama administration created a difficult situation and it is ultimately limited to two choices: either bombing Iran or living with a nuclear Iran. It has allowed Tehran to ignore every deadline, while continuing a policy of appeasement.”
Puder tells of efforts by the Clinton and Bush 43 administrations in “dealing” with Iran, all to fall into deception from Iran.
In November 2009, Iranian-American Patriot Hossein Khorram made a speech at the King County Washington Republican Lincoln Day Dinner where he said,
“Tonight I have a message for you, a message from my heart on behalf of the people of Iran - and that message is that they desperately need the United States, the leader of the “Free World” to start acting as one.”
“Our President needs to stand up for the ideals we hold so dear, those of Freedom and Liberty. The people of Iran are entitled, as are all people, to those rights. They do not deserve the fate they currently suffer at the hands of their tormentors.”
In light of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s claim of a telling blow to global powers on Feb 11 and warnings of a terrorist attack by July, can we continue in hopes of appeasing Iran and making deals with them?
As Hossein Khoram says, “the leader of the ‘Free World’… [must] start acting as one” and stop relying on the failed policies of the Carter era.
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