I sure wouldn't want to be a member of the staff in the British Embassy -Tehran, Iran. Shades of 1979... Ben
You know, before the Iranian Hostage Crisis of 1979, embassies were considered rather sacred. Embassies are basically part of the host country and an invasion on an embassy SHOULD be considered an attack on the host country itself. Now, since Jimmy Carter let the Iranians walk all over us by invading our embassy in 1979, embassies don't have quite the same respect as they once did. People who work in embassies should be able to consider themselves as safe in them as they do in their own country. Carter should have blasted the hell out of Iran at that time in order to make it clear that there are grave consequences for attacking America. Instead, we are much weaker in the world and are still paying for his mistakes. The people inside the British Embassy in Tehran today SHOULD be able to feel as safe as in their mother's arms. The Iranians should be taught a lesson; invade an embassy and you'll pay with your lives.
If Carter support the Shah of Iran and his efforts to make Iran a progressive nation where Islam was not the focus of life but rather a part of it and a part open for question then we would still have Iran as an ally. I had alot of Iranian friends who saw Islam as being a backward religion of suppression and whose families varied as being part of the Iranian military, university professors and upper middle class were wiped out completely by the Islamic Revolutionary Guards. The only reason why my friends and their associates survived was because they were enrolled in United States Universities at the time Carter betrayed our then ally Iran. If Carter only supported the Shah in Iran instead of those Fanatic Muslim clerics that were then living in exile in France untold millions would be alive today. None of this is state secrets, just look it up.
Jimmy Carter could have walked into Iran and blown the hell out the place and gotten all the hostages killed and you'd be condemning him as the one that lost so many American lives during the Iran Hostage massacre instead of being a weak leader. It took a lot of restraint on his part not to open up a large Middle Eastern war and get all the hostages killed at the same time. He sacrificed so much for his unwillingness to get the hostages killed and was willing to do so even if it meant not getting re-elected. In the end, the Iranians won because they were allowed to influence the course of the American election. I wouldn't say Carter was a weak president, I'd say that the American public were too weak to stand behind their own president. Contrast that with a president that is willing to sacrifice as many American lives as it takes on a failed Middle Eastern escapade and Carter looks darn pretty good by comparison. Carter is the kind of statesman that George Bush will never be. Once out office, we'll never hear from him again, thankfully.
