Replies to post #113769 on Zeev's Turnips Talk Politics (ZTTP)

[hap0206]

Looks like Iran has stepped in the doodoo -- lets see how the libs/dems/lefties play this hot potato
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Opponents claim that the man with a US hostage is the new Iran President-elect, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad; (right) Mr Ahmadinejad after his election


June 30, 2005

Briefing: the 444-day US embassy siege, Tehran 1979
By Sam Knight, Times Online

On the morning of November 4 1979, a stream of buses carrying young Iranian students joined a crowd of thousands demonstrating outside the walls of the US Embassy compound.

For days, vigorous anti-American protests had run through Tehran after the US offered refuge to the Shah of Iran, Reza Pahlavi, who had fled the country eight months earlier as the Iranian Revolution swept him from power.

And on November 4 around 300 radical students, calling themselves Imam's Disciples in reverence to Ayatollah Khomeini, the de facto ruler of the new Iran, decided to storm the Embassy and stage a sit-in.

The students were mainly from a group called the "Office for Strengthening of Unity Between Universities and Theological Seminaries" or the OSU, a dynamic force in the Iranian Revolution and reshaping of Iran after decades of corruption.

Swarming over the walls and climbing the gates, the students poured into the acres of grounds of the Embassy in central Tehran, rounding up 66 American hostages - men, women, Marines, consular staff, whoever they could find.

Outside the crowd burned the stars and stripes and shouted "Die America". In the confusion, some Americans managed to slip away from the students and even Ayatollah Khomeini asked the radicals to leave the Embassy. Within days, 13 Americans - the female and black hostages - were released.

But soon the sit-in hardened into a siege, the hostages were paraded blindfolded before the world's television cameras and President Jimmy Carter found himself facing a humiliating crisis that would last 444 days and never leave him.

Sensing the frustration of Mr Carter, who was reminded of his impotence by nightly news broadcasts solely dedicated to the ongoing drama, Ayatollah Khomeini became determined to transform the hostage crisis into a victory over the "Great Satan" of America.

"This has united our people. Our opponents dare not act against us," said Ayatollah Khomeini, who led his country's demands for the return of the Shah to face trial in Iran.

For months the crisis persisted. America and Iran cut off diplomatic relations and Mr Carter suspended trade with Iran. The safety of the 52 hostages, who were moved out of the Embassy, imprisoned, and then returned to the mission, hung over the start of the presidential election campaign of 1980.

In April, five months into the stand-off, Mr Carter ordered an ambitious rescue mission, launching helicopters from secret bases in the Middle East and the aircraft carrier USS Nimitz in the Indian Ocean. But the mission was a disaster.

Two helicopters collided in the Iranian desert, killing eight American servicemen. Apparently, the planners of the operation had not considered the possibility of a sandstorm.

Mr Carter suffered increasing criticism through the summer of 1980 as the election campaign tightened. Ronald Reagan, the Republican candidate, and his running mate, George W. Bush Snr, the former director of the CIA, accused him of plotting an "October Surprise" to spring the hostages to freedom on the eve of the election.

In the end, there was no surprise, only slow and bitter bargaining. Ayatollah Khomeini softened his stance as Iran stumbled into the Iran-Iraq war, short of money, curtailed by sanctions and aware that President Reagan, due to take office in January 1981, would never negotiate.

The American hostages were released on January 21 1981, Mr Carter's last day in office. A deal negotiated through the Algerian Government released $8 billion of Iranian funds frozen in bank accounts across the world. The hostages flew to Germany, and then home.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,3-1675341,00.html

[seabass]

>>>A premise here is that freedom and democracy will be a stronger ideology than fascism<<<


It always has been in our opinion and in the opinion of many muslims for that matter. Problem is that the strategy you and Bush believe in requires 100% of all muslims to believe in it. Once you achieve that goal you will have defeated Muslim fascism in the mideast and elsewhere. Does it appear to you as if Muslims around the world rally around our cause and around our military invasion and occupation of one of their countries? Again, unless you get all of them onboard your strategy has failed. There are 1,000,000,000 Muslims in the world and the 9/11 attack was executed by 19 of them.


>>>and your strategy for winning the war on terror is...?<<<


I think the odds of defeating terrorism with military force are as long as the odds of defeating those who spray graffiti on overpasses with military force. They're both small, angry factions of society that blend in with the masses and the only way to eliminate them (imo) is to get to the root of what sets them off.

[hap0206]

In the meantime, it very well be the "bring it on" strategy
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Reader Chris Bartony [of the WSJOnline] offers a slightly different take:
[on why the President did not threaten Syria, SA etc]
http://www.opinionjournal.com/best/?id=110006892

I think the operative statements are the ones along line of "we'll fight them over there so we don't have to fight them over here." Bush is in a tight spot and can't really say, "Listen, we're going to continue to allow the foreign fighters into Iraq. Yup, it makes bad headlines and nasty footage, but that's the way it's going to be for a while. We know how strong they are and they aren't strong enough to derail the effort. We're going to keep letting them come to Iraq to stir the pot so that our military can kill them. Don't worry, America, if they get too big or too strong, we'll snap the borders shut."

Isn't that a real possibility? We have to allow them to come to Iraq because we can't go into other countries to kill them. And until they arm up and come after us, it's tough to identify Joe Jihadi. I was all for closing the damned borders over there (and over here for that matter), but I think there's a method to the madness. The guys who make the trek to Iraq to fight us are dangerous (obviously), and in the absence of the US in Iraq, they would not be peacefully selling bric-a-brac in the local bazaar. We're saving them the cost of a very expensive one-way ticket to the U.S. or Europe by setting up shop in their neck of the woods.

And I think we get a double bonus out of this too. (When the time comes to make an issue of this, it's a good reason to drop the hammer on Mr. Assad or the fine mullahs in Iran.)

Just a thought. But if it's true, it's just about impossible for the administration to admit it, isn't it? But if you take the theory as an assumption, then the "inability" to secure Iraq's borders and Bush's lack of threatening the regimes in question makes more sense.