In this paper I will begin by providing background information on the Iranian Hostage Crisis and how the Carter Administration dealt with Iran. Next, I will focus on applying liberalism at the individual level to show that the Carter Administration was inconsistent in decision-making process during the crisis. I conclude that by using liberalism that the Carter Administration failed because President Carter should have applied the perspective of Secretary of State Cyrus Vance instead of listening to outside pressures from other members of his cabinet.
Background
On November 4, 1979, a mob of Iranian students flooded into the American Embassy in Tehran and forced the United States government to face a problem that they had never faced before; radical Islam. After being briefed on the taking of the embassy, the United States President at the time, Jimmy Carter, first went to the U.N. to try to bring an end to the hostage crisis. The U.N. Security Council took action by calling on the militants to free the hostages. The response by the Iranian government was that until they received their old leader back, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, who was admitted to the United States for cancer treatment, that they would hold the hostages indefinitely. Carter responded to the Iranians by ordering all of the Iranian people who did not comply with the student visa requirements out of the country. He then went on to halt oil imports from Iran and freeze all Iranian assets in United States banks. During the time that Carter took economic action against Iran, the Iranian government decided to put a new constitution in place that established Ayatollah Khomeini leader for life. In the Constitution, however, there was a President who had other powers within ...
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“Should Reagan be offered the GE job, Nancy will make sure he takes it.” When Reagan challenges Ford in the 1976 Republican primaries and loses the nomination at the convention, “Nancy Reagan looks ahead to the day that her husband, Ronald Wilson Reagan, becomes the president of the United States in 1980. She will see to it.” After the assassination attempt, “Nancy decides whom Reagan will and will not see. This practice will continue throughout Reagan’s presidency.” So there you have it — the first theme, that Reagan’s entire career after he marries is inspired, directed, and controlled by his wife. Nancy goads him on. The second theme is that Reagan is passive, lacking his wife’s inner steel. He lets others make important decisions for him (not one example is offered) and is not very bright. The unifying theme is that the assassination attempt caused mental decline, accelerated the onset of the symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease, and ultimately lead to the Iran-Contra debacle. Thus did the violent assault of March 30, 1981, change a presidency. In reporting Reagan’s first speech after the assassination attempt, the April 28 speech to a joint session of Congress,
It was always a balance between negotiations and hard power. Underneath Carter, Secretary of State Cyrus Vance believed that negotiations were going to be more beneficial while his National Security Advisor, Zbigniew Brzezinski, advocated for a more hawk-like strategy. In order to persuade the Iranians to release the hostages and to come up with a more diplomatic solution, the U.S. stopped buying oil from Iran and froze all Iranian assets. After that failed, Carter sought out Brzezinski for a military method, Operation Eagle Claw. Unfortunately, this mission was a catastrophe. The helicopters the rescuers used malfunctioned and eight Americans were killed in the process.
For decades, U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East had depended on a friendly government in Iran. The newly appointed leader, the shah of Iran, began Westernizing the country and taking away power from the Ayatollah, powerful religious leaders. The United States poured millions of dollars into Iran’s economy and the shah’s armed forces, overlooking the rampant corruption in government and well-organized opposition. By early 1979, the Ayatollah had murdered the Shah and taken back power of the government. A group of students who took the American embassy hostage on November 4th, 1979, turned the embassy over to the religious leaders. Carter knew he must take action in order to regain the American embassy and the hostages, but with all of the military cutbacks, the rescue attempt was a complete failure and embarrassment. It took the United States 444 days to rescue the hostages. This was the final straw for many Americans, and enough to push them to the “right” side of the political spectrum, Republican.
Between the years of 1983 and 1986, the United States was involved in a series of covert operations, collectively known as the Iran-Contra Affair. These operations were at best controversial, and at worst blatantly illegal.The Iran-Contra Affair (or the Iran Contra-Scandal) revolved around the issue of foreign policy, specifically with regards to Iran and Nicaragua. In 1979, revolution in Iran resulted in a complete change in the countries relationship with the United States. Having previously been an ally of the U.S., Iran, under its new regime, had become decidedly anti-American. These changes caused a time period of unrest that lasted into the mid 1980’s between the U.S. and Iran. Stabilizing the situation in Iran was one of the key objectives that motivated many of the authorities who were ultimately responsible for the Iran-Contra Affair. In 1985, seven hostages were taken by a terrorist group in Lebanon. This terrorist group had ties with Iran. Therefore, when Iran requested that the United States sell arms to them, President Reagan saw it as a potential way of getting the hostages returned. President Reagan wanted to see them returned safely, and hoped to restore good relations between the U.S. and Iran in the process. Many members of Congress were strongly against the idea. To go through with the arms deal was in direct violation of several laws, including policies against selling arms to entities on lists of terrorists countries, or terrorist-friendly countries, (Iran was included on such lists). Additionally, in negotiating with Iran, the Reagan administration would be dealing with known “terrorists,” something Reagan was openly very against. Nevertheless, the Reagan administration granted the Iranian’s request, in spit...
Jimmy Carter's one-term administration is associated with the occasions that overpowered it—expansion, vitality emergency, war in Afghanistan, and prisoners in Iran. After one term in office, voters unequivocally rejected Jimmy Carter's straightforward however melancholy standpoint for Ronald Reagan's telegenic positive thinking. In the previous two decades, in any case, there has been more extensive acknowledgment that Carter, in spite of an absence of experience, stood up to a few tremendous issues with unfaltering quality, valor, and optimism. Alongside his ancestor Gerald Ford, Carter must be given acknowledgment for restoring the equalization to the sacred framework after the abundances of the
The Iran-Contra Affair involved the United States, Iran, and Lebanon. The affair coincided with the Iranian hostage crisis, which promoted the United States’ actions in sending weapons to Iran. The Reagan administration decided to trade arms for hostages in hopes of successfully retrieving American hostages from Iran. Iran was at the time under the power of Ayatollah Khomeini, who had put his full support behind the hostage crisis and believed there was nothing that the United States could do to Iran. America’s only chance of rescuing the hostages was to put their support behind Iran in the Iran-Iraq War, which involved the shipment of weapons to Iran f...
America and Iran had tricked the Soviets which left them very angry, and this inevitably led to the Cold War. But less than a decade later, America had done something which caused Iran to change their opinion of them. In 1951, Iran had recently elected a prime minister by the name, Mohammed Mosaddeq, which he nationalized the countryś petroleum industry, long the domain of the British-dominated AIOC. This move, however, pitted the two governments against each other in a bitter political fight. The Truman administration had tried to work between both sides, but Dwight Eisenhower had quickly concluded that Mosaddeq represented the problem rather than the solution to the crisis. They decided that they wanted him out and later he was kicked out and Mohammad Reza Shah took his place for the next twenty-five years. Shah not only gained access to sophisticated American weaponry, but also obtained tacit White House permission to forgo any serious effort at reform. Over the years, the internal resentment against the Shahś political and economic policies was building to a peak, but the depth of the problem escaped the notice of American
President Jimmy Carter assumed the role as Commander-in-Chief with very little experience in foreign policy, hence why the few diplomatic achievements and foreign affairs he orchestrated were overlooked due to being too regionalized and or utterly ineffective. Carter was a sensational humanitarian, with the emphasis of his foreign policy on human rights, but it was also his kryptonite to being an effective leader. His policy efforts to achieve peace took decades to see results, and moreover ironically produced greater global instability and never established peace. Carter’s international campaign to bring awareness towards human rights and the negative impacts of communism on the people lives failed because “By the time Carter became
Bard, Mitchell G. The Complete Idiot's Guide to world War II, Macmillan Publishing, New York, New York, 1999
President Carter's years as President brought him face to face with the challenges of American politics. As President, he pardoned all war evaders of the Vietnam war on January 21st 1977. A war evader is someone who avoids being drafted for war. This was a very controversial move, but helped move the country forward. In 1979, Iran took over the United States Embassy and took over 50 U.S. citizens as hostages in Tehran. President Carter tried to rescue the hostages but failed, resulting in the deaths of American service men. The Iran hostage crisis ended the day after the new president was sworn into office. President Jimmy Carter ordered a boycott of the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow. He ordered the boycott in response to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. President Carter successfully negotiated the Camp David peace agreement between Irael a...
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Weiler, Lawrence D. The Arms Race, Secret Negotiations and the Congress, Iowa: The Stanley Foundation, 1976.
The late 20th century was a very turbulent time in American history. In 1976, Jimmy Carter was elected to the presidency, and he had many goals to help better America. However, on November 4th, 1979, a group of radical students seized the United States’ embassy in Tehran, Iran. This completely altered the course of American history and relations with the Middle East. This crisis had many impacts on the United States. It caused the Energy Crisis which in turn caused the Recession of 1979. The Iran Hostage Crisis also had political consequences for President Carter. It was a major factor that contributed to him losing the election of 1980 to Ronald Reagan. Additionally, this crisis led to many instances of racial discrimination toward Iranian-Americans and Iranian immigrants. Even after the Hostage Crisis was resolved, the bad blood between the two countries continued; the United States helped Iraq in the war against Iran, and the Iranians backed a second hostage situation in Lebanon. The Iran Hostage Crisis was a very important event that impacted America in many ways and destroyed our relationship with Iran. The consequences of this event are still felt today and continue to our foreign policies toward Iran.
The liberalism and the realism approaches the international relations from very different perspective, and even though many of its views contrast from each other, the ...
Although the Iranian Revolution was caused by combination of political and religious motivations and ideas, the desires of the people supporting the movement were more dominantly religious ideas that were wished to be imposed in society and in a new government. The Shah, or king, of Iran at the time was Muhammad Reza Pahlavi, who had developed relations with nations in “western” world, specifically with the United States. The United States supported the White Revolution, which was a series of social reformations the Shah made to remove Islamic v...