Should Jimmy Carter have taken Iranian hostages in 1979?
Perhaps things haven’t changed so much since 1979. Iranian hostage taking is in vogue again. In 1979, Iranians took over the US embassy in Teheran not once, but twice, as we have earlier discussed. At the time of the second takeover, in November of that year, it was clear that the orders were coming directly from Ayatollah Khomeini — as the signs of the Islamist thugs read then “Khomeini struggles, Carter trembles.” Struggle, of course, is jihad.
Perhaps Jimmy Carter, instead of trembling, should have taken a page from Iran’s Revolutionary leader and his handbook, and taken Iranian diplomats hostage at the UN Mission in New York, and in Washington, DC as well. Perhaps he should have kidnapped some Iranian diplomats in third countries too. He could have then used the leverage he got from holding Iranian diplomats hostage to force a hostage swap. The crisis could, perhaps, have been over in a matter of days, instead of 14 months. Are you shocked by the idea? You don’t have a right to be. That is, in a sense, what Iran is doing again today. And Iran’s actions might be pretty effective once again.
All of a sudden, we are hearing everywhere that the Iranian kidnapping of 15 British troops is all about a prisoner exchange. Pajamas Media reports that the US holds 300 Iranians — tied to intelligence services — who were captured in Iraq. The Daily Mirror reports that the UK holds 50 Iranian spies captured in Iraq. Asharq Alawsat was perhaps first with the news yesterday that the Iranian seizures were planned and executed from a high level in the Iranian Defense Ministry to lead to a prisoner swap.
A prisoner swap is a pretty bad idea to begin with, from the perspective of the West. It is made much worse when it is a swap of real spies for some uniformed guys and gals tooling around in a rubber boat outside of Iranian waters. You can begin with the Geneva Convention and go downhill from there. But of course bad ideas often work: eg, the Italians just paid a large ransom for a journalist who had been kidnapped in Afghanistan, a terrible idea that will inevitably lead to other kidnappings.
So we’ll just have to see, in this current new Iranian hostage crisis, whether the West caves in once again to the demands of the moment of this revolutionary Islamist state. If Iran’s tactics work once again, do they not suggest that some parallel hostage-taking by the US might have been effective in quickly resolving the crisis, instead of letting 52 Americans linger in captivity for 444 days? Alternatively, if the West grows a spine and is prepared to use crushing force against Iran, rather than once again cave in to its intimidations, does that not also suggest a course of action that might have been effective in 1979?
March 25th, 2007 at 9:42 am
Of couse the smart thing to do would be to start lobbing cruise missiles into their new nuclear facilities and NO negotiations. After all, the seizure of the brits was an act of war was it not. Their navy would also be fair game even if they are sitiing ducks in their own ports. Acts of war have cosequences, or, at least they should.
March 26th, 2007 at 1:23 pm
They’ve already overplayed their hand by announcing the marines may be tried as spies–obviously preposterous. That blatant bad faith creates the opening for us to provide an ultimatum. Give our people back, or every 12 hours that goes by, we will destroy something valuable.
March 26th, 2007 at 7:36 pm
Too bad the British no longer believe in disproportionate response. If they did, perhaps the Iranians wouldn’t act as if their actions had no consequences.
April 7th, 2007 at 4:46 pm
These people respect nothing except force. We will have to take the nuclear facilities out eventually, so sooner is better than later. The Iranians are dead set on destroying the Jews and the Americans so lets get on with ending their dreams of success.