Frontpage Mag The right and wrong way to rescue Americans and deal with an Islamic terrorist state.
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The daring rescue of an American F-15E fighter pilot was a huge success, but in all the excitement, something has gone missing. Back in 1979, Iran’s Islamic regime invaded the US embassy in Tehran – an act of war – and held 52 Americans hostage for 444 days. In Age of Reagan: The Fall of the Old Liberal Order, Steven F. Hayward describes Jimmy Carter’s attempt to rescue the hostages:
Within days of the hostage-taking in November 1979 President Jimmy Carter ordered the Joint Chiefs of Staff to begin exploring options and making a plan for a military rescue. Among other difficulties, the Pentagon didn’t have a planning process for hostage rescue missions, so everything had to be devised from scratch. Even if a tactical plan for overcoming the “students” at the embassy compound could be devised, Tehran was hundreds of miles inland, beyond the round-trip range of American helicopters.
The sheer difficulty and improbability of a rescue assault are what encouraged the Pentagon to believe a surprise raid could be done. A plan was beginning to take shape within three weeks of the hostages’ seizure. A number of factors looked favorable. The U.S. had an intelligence agent inside the embassy compound, an Iranian cook who regularly relayed information to other U.S. agents in Tehran about the number and disposition of guards on the scene. By the spring, the number of armed guards had dropped to about 20—a number that could be easily overcome by highly trained American special forces.
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