Carter defends his handling of Iran hostage crisis

[struggle4progress]

Updated: 2009-11-17 09:19
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CHIANG MAI, Thailand: Former US President Jimmy Carter said he was pressed by his advisers to attack Iran during the hostage crisis there more than 30 years ago but resisted because he feared 20,000 Iranians could have died.

Islamist militants stormed the US Embassy in Tehran on November 4, 1979, and seized its occupants. Fifty-two Americans were held hostage for 444 days.

Carter said Monday that one proposed option was a military strike on Iran, but he chose to stick with negotiations to prevent bloodshed and bring the hostages home safely.

"My main advisers insisted that I should attack Iran," he told reporters in the northern Thai city of Chiang Mai, where he was helping build houses for Habitat for Humanity. "I could have destroyed Iran with my weaponry. But I felt in the process it was likely the hostages' lives would be lost, and I didn't want to kill 20,000 Iranians. So I didn't attack" ...

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/world/2009-11/17/content_8984162.htm

[Name removed]

1. Deleted message

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[FBaggins]

3. I think he's talking about a wider offensive.

That taking Americans hostage was an act of war and that a military response could have been appropriate.

That most certainly could have resulted in 20,000+ deaths... as well as the deaths of the hostages.

[bullimiami]

2. then along came dirty ronnie with his crooked buddy old bush.

they made a traitorous deal with the iranians and contras to keep holding the hostages until they could get in office and pass along some goodies.

and there's the moral difference between modern day republicans and democrats.

[baldguy]

4. And don't forget Ol'Creepy himself, Bill Casey.

[Bitwit1234]

5. The Iranians were ready to release the Hostages

til Reagan's people intervened. They went to Iran and paid them off to wait til Reagan took office so he could get credit for their release. Isn't that something. Making American citizens stay in prison and wait til he could get the glory.

[era veteran]

6. He did use a military option

It was a cluster fuck. Operation Eagle Claw. One of the worst planned operations in US history. Way too much competition between the services. They all lobby for more. US Navy Sea King helicopters in a desert environment? The air filtration system was made for ocean not desert conditions & etc.

[struggle4progress]

7. He was under enormous pressure to dropkick Iran into the day after tomorrow. His choices

were: negotiate, try a tactical rescue, or all-out war. The media gave Had he set out to smack Iran back to the stone age, not one of the hostages would have come home alive: Carter's handling ensured instead that they all came back. The tactical rescue attempt was, of course, a disaster, materially and politically -- but given the constant howling, he may not really have had any choice except to try it, since obviously nobody was going to talk about anything else otherwise

[era veteran]

8. I agree

I know he was under a lot of pressure to do something. The services were at fault for the fiasco that killed eight Americans. It has always been a problem at the pentagon. No one branch wanted to be left out from the 'glory'. Their annual budgets are at stake as well. I always have felt President Carter had a very unlucky term. I do wish us Zonians still had a zone though. Yes, the comments above about Ronnie Rayguns were true too.