[A. Pole]

And who exactly was President at the time this occurred?

No US president would send US army to put down the popular uprising in a country of 636,000 sq miles, populous, covered with high mountains and located thousands of miles away.

Remember that Ronald Reagan himself ordered US troops to be pulled out from tiny Lebanon.

[Tench_Coxe]

"No US president would send US army to put down the popular uprising in a country of 636,000 sq miles, populous, covered with high mountains and located thousands of miles away."

Slight difference. I don't have immediate access to the article, and there was a thread on FR a while back, but Carter actually had a hand in the overthrow of the Shah at the time (had something to do with the Shah refusing some sweetheart deal for one of Carter's buddies/vested interests). If I can dig it up, it provides interesting reading.

[AmericaUnited]

No US president would send US army to put down the popular uprising

Wow! Is that screwed up!@ How about "No US president other than JIMMY CARTER would help tear down the very pro-western leader of a country, so that a US hating regime could stir up an uprising".

[Richard Kimball]

Jimmy Carter actively worked to undermine the Shah. The reason I have read is that Carter sent a delegation of his cronies to the Shah to tell him to cancel oil development contracts with Brown and Root. The Shah was to sign new contracts with Carter's friends for 10% more, and Carter's buddies would then pick up the original contract with Brown and Root, pocketing the 10%. I have no idea whether this account is true, but the Shah could have been kept in place with relatively light support from the US.

It was obvious that Carter had personal animosity towards the Shah, as is evidenced by the fact that he refused asylum for him, and worked behind the scenes to pressure other countries not to provide asylum. As was typical of him, Carter made public statements during the unrest that signaled to the radical Islamists that the US would do nothing to back the Shah.

After the coup and the hostage taking, Carter worsened the situation by using the hostage taking as political leverage against Ted Kennedy in the primaries. If you recall, Carter stated he would not debate Kennedy, because it was inappropriate for the President to engage in politics while Americans were at risk. After defeating Kennedy in the primaries, Carter, of course, did start campaigning. However, his manipulation of the hostage situation resulted in the storming of several other US embassies, and other hostage situations. The US and the press ignored these situations, which generally ended up with the hostages being released after the kidnappers found out they weren't getting any political mileage.

Carter undermined the Shah, allowed the coup, made no preparations for evacuation of US personnel for a coup he was pushing for behind the scenes, legitimized hostage-taking as a political tactic by magnifying the significance of the event to defeat Ted Kennedy in the primaries, then masterminded an attempted rescue that even Mossad said was impossible, resulting in the crash of a US helicopter, the death of US troops, and creating the perception around the world that the US military was totally inept (it was, in fact, in disarray during Carter's term).