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Home Front: Politix
Carter defends his handling of Iran hostage crisis
2009-11-17
Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter said Monday 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 U.S. Embassy in Tehran on Nov. 4, 1979, and seized its occupants. Fifty-two Americans were held hostage for 444 days.

Carter said 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."

The hostages were released on Jan. 20, 1981, just minutes after the swearing in of President Ronald Reagan, whose victory over Carter is largely attributed to the crisis.

The former president has commented in the past on how military action had been an option but that he feared a death toll in the tens of thousands, according to Carter spokeswoman Deanna Congileo.

Carter and his wife, Rosalynn, are among 3,000 volunteers from 25 countries working with Habitat for Humanity this week to help build and repair homes along the Mekong River in Thailand, Vietnam, China, Cambodia and Laos.
Posted by:Fred

#15  .5MT You're right... Jimmuah believes in his Mommas version of a Pussified Hell.... he's starting to see the downsides of his actions.

.5MT, you've managed to pull off what I have thought would have been impossible: You have identified an upside to Goober living this long.
Posted by: gorb   2009-11-17 19:29  

#14  I think Carter is shaking in his boots. If and when Israel attacks Iran, it will entirely be Carter's fault, for *causing* a major war, by abandoning a US ally to a despotic regime of tyrannical mullahs.
You're right... Jimmuah believes in his Mommas version of a Pussified Hell.... he's starting to see the downsides of his actions.

/CRAM JIMMY! CRAM! IT AIN'T TOOOOOOOOOOO LATE! BABY JESUS STILL LOVES YOU!
Posted by: .5MT   2009-11-17 18:06  

#13  There wouldn't have been a hostage crisis if the Ambassador had let the Marines do their job.
Posted by: mojo   2009-11-17 17:01  

#12  II he had acted right away there might have been a chance of successful rescue. Those students would have ran away if 100 or so marines/soldiers showed up in an air assault. But it should ahve been down the next day. You can hate me but I think he made the right call not to bomb Iran.
Posted by: Cyber Sarge    2009-11-17 15:52  

#11  Heck of a list Anony. Carter has more than a little blood on his hands.

And just think - Obumble is just starting on his list.....
Posted by: CrazyFool   2009-11-17 13:58  

#10  Carter's "good clueless intentions"

FIFY.
Posted by: gorb   2009-11-17 12:54  

#9  I think Carter is shaking in his boots. If and when Israel attacks Iran, it will entirely be Carter's fault, for *causing* a major war, by abandoning a US ally to a despotic regime of tyrannical mullahs.

And this theory should be spread far and wide. Carter's "good intentions" threw Nicaragua to the Sandinistas, where they abused many innocent people. And Carter's "good intentions" threw Iran into the clutches of fanatics, which has harmed millions of people.

Because of Carter's incompetence, General Zia overthrew the elected government of Pakistan and embraced the Taliban.

Because of Carter's arrogance, the Panama Canal was given away, and now both ends are managed by the Chinese. In effect, the PLA.

Cuban mercenaries were fighting in Africa, and Carter wimps out. Finally the French FL drive them out.

Afghanistan officially became a communist state. After Carter does nothing to stop the Killing Fields in Cambodia, finally the Vietnamese intervene.

Maurice Bishop leads a coup in Grenada, and Carter does nothing. Reagan does something, when Bishop invites the Soviet Union to the party.

Samuel Doe overthrows one of the oldest democracies in the world and becomes dictator of Liberia. Carter does nothing.

The Sverdlovsk anthrax disaster demonstrates the Soviet Union is making military quantities of biological weapons, and Carter did nothing. He did, however, sign the utterly worthless SALT II treaty, which was never ratified because the Soviets invaded Afghanistan and put a brigade of soldiers in Cuba.

He did, however, boycott the frigging Olympics.
Posted by: Anonymoose   2009-11-17 12:38  

#8  he also forgot what country he was supposed too be president of.
Posted by: chris   2009-11-17 10:27  

#7  Carter said 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.

He appears to have forgotten the Gulf of Oman, April 24th, 1980.
Posted by: Besoeker   2009-11-17 09:33  

#6  but resisted because he feared 20,000 Iranians could have died.

That's Jimmah in a nutshell.
Posted by: g(r)omgoru   2009-11-17 09:29  

#5  Damn Carter is like herpes he just pops up every once in awhile too be annoying as hell
Posted by: chris   2009-11-17 09:11  

#4  "My main advisers insisted that I should attack Iran,"

Nothing stopped you, except yourself, of call for and addressing a joint session of Congress to request a formal declaration of war, as would any other major nation in 4000 years of human history for the act that had just been carried out. Whether you act upon it or not, that would have placed the enemy in a far more difficult position to diplomatically maneuver than the one you gave them. When you're dealing with such people, you need to act in manner they understand. That means you have to communicate with them in terms of their own comprehension. They would have understood what a Declaration of War meant rather then dithering with paper shuffling diplomacy.
Posted by: Procopius2k   2009-11-17 08:55  

#3  So I guess he'd do it again. I wonder under what circumstances he would have attacked Iran.
Posted by: gorb   2009-11-17 01:36  

#2  O.M.G!!!
Posted by: Whiskey Mike   2009-11-17 01:06  

#1  STFU. Go away, you odious little man.
Posted by: lex   2009-11-17 00:53  

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