Last week, I was interviewed by Radio Free Europe’s Russian-language station about the 30th anniversary of the Iranian seizure of American diplomatic hostages in Tehran. The transcript, in Russian, is here. For the fraction of VC readers who do not read Russian (a fraction that is smaller than almost any other U.S. law/policy weblog), here’s a summary of my key points: The hostage crisis initially helped President Carter fend off a primary challenge from Sen. Ted Kennedy, as Carter stayed in the White House attending to the issue. However, as the kidnapping wore on, Carter’s weakness became increasingly evident to the American people; it was observed that Soviet government diplomat do not get seized, because everyone realized that the Soviets would respond forcefully. Accordingly, one result of the hostage crisis was the election of Ronald Reagan. (Who of course later made his own terrible mistakes in thinking that he could establish a working relationship with the Iranian tyrants.) Today, Iran is still ruled by tyrants who hate the West in general, and the U.S. in particular, and the West has new leaders who, like many of their predecessors, cling to the vain hope that the Iranian regime can be pacified by concessions. The world’s largest exporter of terrorism, the Iranian regime aims to dominate the Near East and the Muslim world. With nuclear weapons, the the Iranian regime threatens the whole civilized world. Everything would be different if the Khomeni revolution had been stopped at the very beginning. The longer that regime change in Iranian is delayed, the worse for everyone.
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elfing says:
“The world’s largest exporter of terrorism, the Iranian regime aims to dominate the Near East and the Muslim world.”
By most responsible estimates, over 100,000 civilians have been killed in Iraq since the United States exported freedom to that country.
Hundreds and hundreds of innocent civilians have been killed in missile attacks from drones that the United States exported to Pakistan.
So, I guess your reasoning here is:
exporting IED components to Iraq to be used to kill soldiers=terrorism
launching missiles from drones piloted from guys sitting in air conditioned trailers in Nevada and drinking big-gulps that kill dozens of people at a funeral=not terrorism.
Right?
[DK: Wrong. Killing enemy soldiers is not terrorism. Nor is killing terrorists who hide themselves among civilians. Terrorism is deliberately targeting civilians by blowing up synagogues, pizza parlors, marketplaces, and other purely civilian targets. The Iranian regime practices terrorism, and is a prime weapons supplier of the Hezbollah and Hamas terrorists.]
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November 10, 2009, 1:10 pmDennis N says:
The trick is, how are we going to affect that regime change, and what would we change it to. The hinterland of Iran is very conservative, while the big cities are more Europeanized. As long as the fundies hold sway, there is little we can change the country to. Islamic fundies may be a tide we have to ride out, unless and until they become a serious threat. If they do that, then the whole paradigm changes. But we’re not there, and may never get there.
In the meanwhile, the containment of barbarians by less than apocalyptic means, has been a burden of civilized states since Menes was a second lieutenant.
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November 10, 2009, 1:34 pmUgh says:
Damn right. Then, onto Syria, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Pakistan, Lebanon, Gaza, the West Bank, Kuwait, Qatar, Dubai, Yemen, Somalia, Libya, the U.A.E., etc. etc. etc.
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November 10, 2009, 1:37 pmOren says:
If only we had been against totalitarian regimes in 1956 we wouldn’t be in this mess. Then again, it’s hard to oppose a dictatorship when they serve your interests (see, e.g. Saudi Arabia — also exporters of terrorism).
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November 10, 2009, 1:41 pmwinston says:
The statement that Iran is the biggest exporter of terror is pure rubbish.
Almost all of the 9/11 highjackers come from Saudi Arabia. Not a single one came from Iran.
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November 10, 2009, 1:48 pmSplunge says:
Everything would be different if the Khomeni revolution had been stopped at the very beginning.
Oh nonsense. That’s like saying the problem of Russia would be solved if only Vladimir Putin had been whacked by the Mossad before he became the top mobster. Iran is not a one-man dictatorship, a Cuba or North Korea, arguably ready for revolution the moment the duffer dies. It’s got a serious and entrenched leadership that, much as it is disliked by the Iranian people (at least the city folk) is resilient enough to flow around obstacles. Had the US intervened in the Islamic Revolution in 1979 it’s very difficult to see Denmark-lite arising instead.
Indeed, the problem of Iran and of Russia seem eerily similar. Both proud and distinguished cultures that, nevertheless, seem strangely unable to settle on a comfortable nation of shopkeepers middle ground between the poles of revolution and statist dogmatic oppression, not to mention the difficulty each has getting along with its neighbors.
I don’t think direct intervention then or now makes any sense at all. Persians prefer to do the conquering, not the submitting. That way lies a provoked unification of the Iranian people around any convenient hypernationalist regime. Backfire city.
But I think the usual policy of containment would do just fine. Furthermore, we can easily play the game of subversion and harassment far more effectively than the Iranians. I don’t see any reason why Iranian domestic opposition isn’t well funded with some tiny “black” percentage of Federal dough. There’s no reason Iranian Guard speedboats can’t run over a few mines in the Persian Gulf, why oil pumping stations in Iranian oil fields can’t have a strangely high probability of spontaneously blowing to smithereens, nor even why some of the more murderous and reprehensible ayatollahs can’t be found face first in their gruel one morning, stone cold.
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November 10, 2009, 1:59 pmSteve says:
If only we had doubled down on the Shah. No, tripled down! Then everything would be ok.
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November 10, 2009, 2:07 pmMCM says:
Like Splunge, I take issue with this statement. I agree with him, but my first reaction was from the opposite side: of course everything would be different if historical event X had been prevented/delayed/hastened/etc. The only problem is that we have no idea how it would be different.
It’s just a tautology: “if things had been done differently, they would have resulted differently”. Really. Thanks for the cutting insight.
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November 10, 2009, 2:13 pmtjvm says:
“Everything would be different if the Khomeni revolution had been stopped at the very beginning.”
If you’re suggesting that the U.S. could have stopped it, I’d be curious to hear how you think we should have done that.
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November 10, 2009, 2:21 pmJMA says:
That comment made me smile, Splunge. Especially your use of the word “probability.”
That seems like a marvelous use of Federal dough. :)
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November 10, 2009, 2:29 pmSarcastro says:
If things were different, they would undoubtedly be better, since I get to make up what happens.
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November 10, 2009, 2:32 pmjheath says:
On the other hand, a couple of weeks ago several top officers of the Iran’s Revolutionary Guards were assassinated by Sunni militants. I am not endorsing assassination, but the incident reflects a strategic change worked on the region’s politics as a result of the invasion of Iraq. The Iraq invasion resulted in Islamists turning on each other. The outside Moslem world saw Islamists blowing up mosques, which muted their enthusiasm for terrorism. And the invasion resulted in Islamists rushing to a battlefield the U.S. selected, where the U.S. military was relatively free to act, whereas previously we expected terrorist attacks on U.S. soil by hidden cells, that could hardly be countered.
Ultimately this might be disastrously destabilizing, or not; nobody knows, and whoever says they know needs to get over themselves. But these are important strategic changes, in a situation that certainly needed to change. And they are strategic changes that with skill and luck the U.S. might press toward a stable situation that would be to everybody’s benefit.
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November 10, 2009, 2:35 pmHarryEagar says:
Free Kurdistan!
Y’know, if we really believed in the principles we pretend to believe in, we would support a free Great Kurdistan and see what happens.
It would irritate the Turks, the Iranians, the Syrians, the Iraqi Arabs and probably anybody else I haven’t named.
Damned if I can see a downside.
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November 10, 2009, 3:28 pmStrict says:
“the Iranian regime aims to dominate the Near East and the Muslim world.”
lol
Do you even know what the Muslim world is? Iran’s Shi’a theocracy wants to dominate Indonesia and it’s 200+ million Sunnis, thousands of miles away? Iran’s theocracy wants to dominate India and it’s 150 million Muslims (the vast majority NOT being Shi’a)? lol
“With nuclear weapons, the the Iranian regime threatens the whole civilized world”
lol
What exactly is the “civilized world” and what isn’t? Are you using “the whole civilized” world as code for Israel? Or are you seriously suggesting that Iran is going to drop a nuclear bomb on Andorra?
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November 10, 2009, 4:33 pmNeil C. Reinhardt says:
This 74 year old PRO-Iraq War Agnostic Atheist Activist Sez:
Anyone who is too Clueless to know the Iraq War is FULLY JUSTIFIED proves they are either too lazy to get off their butts and do sufficent research OR they are just TOO STUPID to be able to comnprehend what the FACTS mean! (Or more likey, both)
(And they probably voted for ODUMA)
Anyone wno is open minded enough to LEARN can email me at:
religionsucks@webtv.net
And I will send them a list of 18 FACTS
PROVING the Iraq War is fully justified and a VERY necessary part of our War On Terror!
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November 10, 2009, 4:43 pmNeil C. Reinhardt says:
POOR “Winston”
PROVING to all how totally ignorant of the facts he is.
The reason Child, all but one of the 9/11 highjackers come from Saudi Arabia is because Osoma bin Laden intentionally chose them so USEFUL IDIOTS like you would believe and say exactly what you have.
Since I strongly doubt you know Winston, you should look up “Useful Idiot” and learn what a PAWN you are.
Next Child, try getting off your lazy butt and do some open minded and in depth research! IF you do, you WILL FIND Iran IS the major exporter of terrorism.
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November 10, 2009, 4:59 pmsecond history says:
I guess as Iranian nationalists go, Mohammed Mosaddeq is looking better than Khomeni these days. We eventually ended up with the latter when we (the US and Great Britain) got rid of the former.
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November 10, 2009, 5:19 pmCan't find a good name says:
Harry: Greater Kurdistan can’t even be proposed without ticking off some people we don’t want to tick off. The Turks are, officially, among our NATO allies, and the Iraqi Arabs are a group we’re trying to work with in a positive way.
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November 10, 2009, 5:21 pmGrigor says:
<———– Mr. Neil C. Reinhardt’s Lawn
Off ———————————————->
Kids, please choose one direction.
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November 10, 2009, 5:29 pmroguestage says:
Everything would be different if the
KhomeniMosaddeq revolution had beenstopped at the very beginningleft alone.Fixed that for you.
To clarify: I don’t know a great deal about Mossadeq, so I can’t say definitively that the world would be better off if he’d been allowed to stay in power. But I know that actively bringing about the removal of the pro-American and relatively secular prime minister of a nominally democratic republic in favor of the reinstallment of a brutal monarch led directly to the Islamic revolution and the anti-American sentiment embodied in it.
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November 10, 2009, 5:47 pmHarryEagar says:
‘Iraqi Arabs are a group we’re trying to work with in a positive way.’
How’s that working out?
More seriously, the national problem in southwest Asia is that there are 10 states when there ought to be (at least) 19. If you don’t fix that, then you continue to have the problems that arise from not having nation-states.
First, identify the problem, then solve it.
The Turks not, in reality, our allies. See here for one view.
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November 10, 2009, 6:03 pmDave N says:
The problem with your argument is that the Saudi government did not send the hijackers, rather they were recruited by OBL.
OBL hates the Saudi government (which has sentenced him to death in absentia) as much or more as he hates the United States. He chose his 9/11 hijackers carefully, hoping to create discord between the American and Saudi governments.
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November 10, 2009, 8:21 pmD.O. says:
It’s “Radio Freedom” at least in back translation from Russian.
As for the (anti)-Iran policy, isn’t it time to prompt all that Muslim — Near East — Sunni — and what not regimes to show some backbone against Iran? Why is it only US + Europe + China + Russia (and with Russia and China not keen on any action)? They are the neighbors after all. “Export of revolution” is their problem in the first place. Why not to suggest them to say loudly and uequivocaly “you make the bomb, we will push you out of everywhere”? Or maybe do the same privately, but forcefully?
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November 10, 2009, 9:05 pmBlaine says:
Accordingly, one result of the hostage crisis was the election of Ronald Reagan. (Who of course later made his own terrible mistakes in thinking that he could establish a working relationship with the Iranian tyrants.)
Just like he made the mistake of reaching out to Saddam? Oh wait, that was justified because Iran was ruled by “tyrants” right? They deserved all that mustard gas I suppose because they didn’t bend to our will. Disgusting.
Today, Iran is still ruled by tyrants who hate the West in general, and the U.S. in particular, and the West has new leaders who, like many of their predecessors, cling to the vain hope that the Iranian regime can be pacified by concessions.
As opposed to what? Naive militarists like you who believe the only way for the US to “deal” with regimes we don’t like is to inflict endless suffering on their people in the vein hope that the citizens will push back against their Government? Your approach is futile and creates the EXACT type of blowback that made the Iranian Revolution a reality. But of course, Iran is ruled by “tyrants” (Or is it just tyrants you don’t like?), so we must take immediate action right? Please. I’ll just never get people like you. You despise anti-American sentiment and yet the foreign policy you promote... this “with us or against us” dualistic crap... only leads to MORE anti-American sentiment.
The world’s largest exporter of terrorism, the Iranian regime aims to dominate the Near East and the Muslim world.
LOL. You say “the worlds largest exporter of terrorism” without qualifying the statement AT ALL. So this title jumped from Saudi Arabia to Iran? Since when? Where is evidence of this? Of course, you don’t have any evidence.... which makes the claim a load of crap until proof is brought forward.
With nuclear weapons, the the Iranian regime threatens the whole civilized world.
This is a load of crap. First off, you need to provide concrete evidence that Iran has the intention of using their nuclear technology specifically for nuclear weapons, not conjecture... which is what the vast majority of crap being spewed in this country has been. Secondly, you have absolutely NO evidence, not a statement or even a past action of any kind that even remotely suggests that Iran, if they were to acquire nuclear weapons, would just begin shooting them off at random like a drunkard playing darts on a world map. This is the most extreme and assinine form of fear mongering I’ve seen in a great while.
Everything would be different if the Khomeni revolution had been stopped at the very beginning.
The “Khomeini Revolution” may never have happened in the first place had we not helped Britain stage a coup to oust a Democratically elected PM. And just what exactly would you have advocated to “stop” the revolution? What happened to being a “freedom” lover Kopel? Do you only believe in other peoples right to self determination if it jives with your naive and narrow minded US-centric world view?
The longer that regime change in Iranian is delayed, the worse for everyone.
So what’s the solution then? Sanctions? Those rarely deter any regime from behaving “badly.” And more importantly, they hurt the average Iranian. Do they deserve such punishment? How would you feel if a cadre of nations decided to put crippling sanctions on the US? Would you welcome them with open arms and tell us all how they’re only doing it for our own good? I doubt it. So then what is left? Military strikes? What good will those do outside of destabilize the Middle East even further?
Just face it, not only do you greatly overexaggerate the problem at hand, but you offer no reasonable solutions. And yet you complain that those of us who actually think giving diplomacy a try could be helpful? Lol. I find that hilarious coming from the likes of you.
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November 10, 2009, 11:17 pmgeokstr says:
Yeah, like those 800 million jobs my stimulus tsunami saved or created.
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November 11, 2009, 10:38 amDotar Sojat says:
Right, Blaine. Our bad. Haven’t we recently apologized for that?
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November 11, 2009, 11:37 amBlaine says:
Dotar, I wasn’t aware of the fact that apologizing suddenly negated the consequences of our actions. I thought we had to deal with the consequences regardless of whether we say “we’re sorry.” Guess I was wrong.
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November 11, 2009, 1:10 pmyankee says:
Assuming that the Iranian government cannot be “pacified” by negotiations, what do you recommend doing? Should we start yet another war in the Middle East?
Phenomenally implausible. A nuclear first strike by Iran would bring a crippling response from the rest of the world. The principal use of Iranian nukes would be as a deterrent against foreign invasion; it has nothing to gain from a nuclear first strike on Beijing.
Agreed. So what’s your plan to bring it about?
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November 11, 2009, 6:01 pmcubanbob says:
elfing says:
“The world’s largest exporter of terrorism, the Iranian regime aims to dominate the Near East and the Muslim world.”
By most responsible estimates, over 100,000 civilians have been killed in Iraq since the United States exported freedom to that country.
Hundreds and hundreds of innocent civilians have been killed in missile attacks from drones that the United States exported to Pakistan.
So, I guess your reasoning here is:
exporting IED components to Iraq to be used to kill soldiers=terrorism
launching missiles from drones piloted from guys sitting in air conditioned trailers in Nevada and drinking big-gulps that kill dozens of people at a funeral=not terrorism.
Right?
[DK: Wrong. Killing enemy soldiers is not terrorism. Nor is killing terrorists who hide themselves among civilians. Terrorism is deliberately targeting civilians by blowing up synagogues, pizza parlors, marketplaces, and other purely civilian targets. The Iranian regime practices terrorism, and is a prime weapons supplier of the Hezbollah and Hamas terrorists.]
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November 10, 2009, 1:10 pm”
You are entitled to your opinion but not your facts. Almost all of the Iraqi civilians killed in the last six years have been killed by terrorists. As for the innocent civilians killed in Pakistan, why do you assume they are innocent to begin with? What are they doing hanging around with illegal enemy combatants? If they were indeed innocent they were killed by the terrorist who hid behind them and used them as shields. Besides, Pakistan has not raised much of a stink about them and indeed is finally going after these very same illegal combatants that are illegally hiding in Pakistan.
As for Iran, I never understood why the US tolerates so much when we don’t have to. As a sovereign nation we can pick and choose which nations we wish to have commercial and diplomatic relations with. Having full relations with A no matter how despicable A may be does not obligate us to having relationships with B. Now imagine if we decided that in order to have a full commercial relationship with the US the other country would have to forego having commercial relationships with Iran. Given a simple and stark choice the countries put in to that position by the US would have to make a clear determination what is in their best national interest. Some will choose Iran and I suspect if we were firm and unyielding most would choose the US. Blaine not withstanding, the function of the US government is to peruse the US national interest. Whether individual Iranians love us or hate us is beyond our control or whether it is ‘fair’ to levy such actions against our adversaries is irrelevant. The rest of the world operates on what it perceives as in the best interest of their respective national interests and a nuclear armed Iran and an Iran that arms our enemies and is trying to destabilize or friends is an Iran that needs to be dealt with harshly because that is in our national interest and just because we can. If the situation in Iran becomes that intolerable for it’s people patriotic elements of the military can always line the mullahs against the firing wall.
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November 11, 2009, 6:36 pm