President Carter was a fool.
The Shah of Iran, “Reza Shah Phalavi” trusted Carter. Carter betrayed him and thus started the return and accession of the Mullahs.
Then “students” captured our American Embassy in Tehran. They were not students and direct products of the new government of the Mullahs. In effect Iran had declared war on the United States.
This all could have been easily stopped by Carter. He did not have the balls to do it.
1. Select a target of a military base with little civilian population and drop a small nuke on it. Prior tell the people to get the hell out.
2. Inform Iran of all the next sequence of targets to be hit using low kiloton bombs thus with the least civilian causalities. Tell the people to get the hell out or die.
3. Inform them that the USA Embassy will be ground zero for a 10 megaton bomb in the next 4 days if the hostages are not released. It would have killed millions including our hostages.
Fear works if your enemy knows you will do it.
PS
I Live in Iran as a kid. It was good duty for us. It was modern and pro-western. What is sad about today is the vast majority are the same today but suffer from the insane Mullahs. I wish them no harm. I wish my childhood friend next door no harm. His name was Ali. I was most privileged as a kid to drink tea with him and his dad in their house and served crackers and caviar with the grown men in their tea room. I was very privileged to have this. At the time I did not know how privileged I was. In effect they were accepting me and of course Ali as it was his father’s house.
I miss those days of innocence.
That was in 1960. I am old now. I hope Ali is old now and not dead. His dad was an officer in the police. He WAS NOT SAVAK! He was just an honest police officer.
Ali was my dear friend at 12 years old. We were both innocents. I miss Ali. I hope he is just an old man at home with his family and alive as I am.
Forgot to add this:
When it snowed, Ali’s and my house were separated by a low wall, it became a snow war. We spent much time throwing shovels of snow against each other until we became tired. Then we had tea. I miss it.