thedrifter
01-27-05, 06:30 AM
01-26-2005
Guest Column: America Must Stop Appeasing Iran
By Scott Holleran
The world’s leading sponsor of Islamic terrorism, Iran, has been waging war against the West for over 25 years and is covertly assembling a nuclear arsenal. Yet the United States has done practically nothing to stop America’s worst enemy. Alarmingly, the opposite is true.
America’s appeasement toward Iran began in earnest on Nov. 4, 1979 – the day Iran declared war on America. When Ayatollah Khomeini’s thugs stormed the U.S. embassy in Tehran, grabbing 52 Americans as prisoners, the embassy’s U.S. Marines had orders not to shoot despite an earlier attack.
Americans were blindfolded, beaten and held in dank prison cells, according to accounts in The Washington Post. During one interrogation, an Air Force officer had several teeth knocked out. Jihadists told another prisoner, who lived in Virginia, the number of his child’s school bus. It was the beginning of Iran’s systematic military siege against the West. Describing his reaction to the 9/11 attacks, one former prisoner, Bill Daughtery, asked “What took them so long?”
“Them” refers to state sponsors of Islamic terrorism and Iran’s theocratic regime, which tops the list of major sources. Iranian-sponsored acts of war against America include truck-bomb attacks against the U.S. Embassy and Marine barracks in Lebanon that killed 241 – the worst single attack on Marines since World War II – and other kidnappings, executions, and airline hijackings. Iran was later linked to the bombing of the USS Cole in Yemen in 2000, and according to the 9/11 Commission, providing logistical support to organizers of the 9/11 attacks.
Iran has launched attacks in America as well, sending its soldiers of God to Maryland in 1980 to assassinate Ali Akbar Tabatabai, a former Iranian diplomat critical of Islamism, who was gunned down at his Bethesda home. Another target was the U.S. Navy commander whose cruiser, the USS Vincennes, had been attacked by Iranian guns in the Persian Gulf. During the warship’s response, the Vincennes mistakenly shot down an Iranian airliner. In 1988, his minivan exploded in San Diego while his wife was driving.
Iran also ordered assassinations on British writer Salman Rushdie and threatened attacks on his American publisher and U.S. bookstores.
The terms of appeasement were set in 1979 when America refused to respond with military action. President Jimmy Carter, who had earlier nixed a plan to assassinate the Ayatollah Khomeini, instead negotiated with the Islamist state, releasing blocked funds. Only then – 444 days later – did Iran return America’s prisoners of war in what was widely (and wrongly) heralded as a victory for America’s new president, Ronald Reagan.
Contrary to his reputation as a strong leader, Reagan’s presidency would begin and end with appeasement of Iran, but it was Carter who set the conditions. Carter described Iran’s act of war as a crisis. Carter referred to prisoners of war with similarly flawed language – calling them hostages, a commonly used term to describe snatched Americans who are now routinely beheaded. Carter led America in lighting candles and tying ribbons around trees – proving that, when Americans are attacked, America will reflect, not respond, a notion which has dominated U.S. policy toward Iran ever since.
Following the 9/11 attacks, one of the original Teheran prisoners, Moorehead Kennedy, said: “When we came back, the State Department didn’t even want to debrief us. They didn’t want to know the names of our captors. The war was over. We had won. Reagan was president. And it would never happen again. And ladies and gentlemen, it’s happened again, and it’s going to happen more.”
While Iran sponsors Islamic terrorists and develops nuclear weapons, President Bush, like those before him, has demonstrated that he will defend America’s interests with half measures. When Iran attacked America’s embassy – which was an attack on U.S. soil – Carter negotiated with Iran’s Islamists. When Iran attacked America’s Marines, Reagan negotiated with Iran’s Islamists. With Iran declaring its intention to manufacture – and use – nuclear weapons, Bush is leaving the matter to European diplomats and the United Nations.
By this date in 1979, Ayatollah Khomeini had seized Iran, instituted a dictatorship, and waged a jihad against America that has spread into an Islamist crusade. America’s appeasement began long before the embassy attack in 1979. But that single act was a real, explicit declaration of war on America. For those who seek to understand the war, what happened – and what did not happen – over 25 years ago is an important lesson. It explains what caused today’s war; it reminds us that we have yet to fight back.
With America’s arch-enemy poised to build, deploy and use nuclear weapons, the appeasement – and that means negotiations – must cease and it must be replaced by the principle of self-defense backed by the resolve to use unyielding military force.
Scott Holleran, a freelance writer in California, is editor of The Concord Crier, a war newsletter established following the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on America. He can be reached at scottholleran@mac.com
Ellie
Guest Column: America Must Stop Appeasing Iran
By Scott Holleran
The world’s leading sponsor of Islamic terrorism, Iran, has been waging war against the West for over 25 years and is covertly assembling a nuclear arsenal. Yet the United States has done practically nothing to stop America’s worst enemy. Alarmingly, the opposite is true.
America’s appeasement toward Iran began in earnest on Nov. 4, 1979 – the day Iran declared war on America. When Ayatollah Khomeini’s thugs stormed the U.S. embassy in Tehran, grabbing 52 Americans as prisoners, the embassy’s U.S. Marines had orders not to shoot despite an earlier attack.
Americans were blindfolded, beaten and held in dank prison cells, according to accounts in The Washington Post. During one interrogation, an Air Force officer had several teeth knocked out. Jihadists told another prisoner, who lived in Virginia, the number of his child’s school bus. It was the beginning of Iran’s systematic military siege against the West. Describing his reaction to the 9/11 attacks, one former prisoner, Bill Daughtery, asked “What took them so long?”
“Them” refers to state sponsors of Islamic terrorism and Iran’s theocratic regime, which tops the list of major sources. Iranian-sponsored acts of war against America include truck-bomb attacks against the U.S. Embassy and Marine barracks in Lebanon that killed 241 – the worst single attack on Marines since World War II – and other kidnappings, executions, and airline hijackings. Iran was later linked to the bombing of the USS Cole in Yemen in 2000, and according to the 9/11 Commission, providing logistical support to organizers of the 9/11 attacks.
Iran has launched attacks in America as well, sending its soldiers of God to Maryland in 1980 to assassinate Ali Akbar Tabatabai, a former Iranian diplomat critical of Islamism, who was gunned down at his Bethesda home. Another target was the U.S. Navy commander whose cruiser, the USS Vincennes, had been attacked by Iranian guns in the Persian Gulf. During the warship’s response, the Vincennes mistakenly shot down an Iranian airliner. In 1988, his minivan exploded in San Diego while his wife was driving.
Iran also ordered assassinations on British writer Salman Rushdie and threatened attacks on his American publisher and U.S. bookstores.
The terms of appeasement were set in 1979 when America refused to respond with military action. President Jimmy Carter, who had earlier nixed a plan to assassinate the Ayatollah Khomeini, instead negotiated with the Islamist state, releasing blocked funds. Only then – 444 days later – did Iran return America’s prisoners of war in what was widely (and wrongly) heralded as a victory for America’s new president, Ronald Reagan.
Contrary to his reputation as a strong leader, Reagan’s presidency would begin and end with appeasement of Iran, but it was Carter who set the conditions. Carter described Iran’s act of war as a crisis. Carter referred to prisoners of war with similarly flawed language – calling them hostages, a commonly used term to describe snatched Americans who are now routinely beheaded. Carter led America in lighting candles and tying ribbons around trees – proving that, when Americans are attacked, America will reflect, not respond, a notion which has dominated U.S. policy toward Iran ever since.
Following the 9/11 attacks, one of the original Teheran prisoners, Moorehead Kennedy, said: “When we came back, the State Department didn’t even want to debrief us. They didn’t want to know the names of our captors. The war was over. We had won. Reagan was president. And it would never happen again. And ladies and gentlemen, it’s happened again, and it’s going to happen more.”
While Iran sponsors Islamic terrorists and develops nuclear weapons, President Bush, like those before him, has demonstrated that he will defend America’s interests with half measures. When Iran attacked America’s embassy – which was an attack on U.S. soil – Carter negotiated with Iran’s Islamists. When Iran attacked America’s Marines, Reagan negotiated with Iran’s Islamists. With Iran declaring its intention to manufacture – and use – nuclear weapons, Bush is leaving the matter to European diplomats and the United Nations.
By this date in 1979, Ayatollah Khomeini had seized Iran, instituted a dictatorship, and waged a jihad against America that has spread into an Islamist crusade. America’s appeasement began long before the embassy attack in 1979. But that single act was a real, explicit declaration of war on America. For those who seek to understand the war, what happened – and what did not happen – over 25 years ago is an important lesson. It explains what caused today’s war; it reminds us that we have yet to fight back.
With America’s arch-enemy poised to build, deploy and use nuclear weapons, the appeasement – and that means negotiations – must cease and it must be replaced by the principle of self-defense backed by the resolve to use unyielding military force.
Scott Holleran, a freelance writer in California, is editor of The Concord Crier, a war newsletter established following the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on America. He can be reached at scottholleran@mac.com
Ellie