Violence, Scandal, and the End of the Cold War 291Carter invited Sadat and Begin to Camp David in September 1978 and
worked out the Camp David Accords, in which the two belligerents
agreed to sign a peace treaty within three months. On March 26 , 1979 ,
in the Rose Garden at the White House, Begin and Sadat, despite the
opposition of other Arab states, signed a treaty of peace. It provided for
the gradual evacuation of the Sinai Peninsula by Israel and the estab-
lishment of normal diplomatic and trade relations. However, it did not
settle the Palestinian situation in the Gaza Strip or the West Bank of
the Jordan River.
Then Carter suffered a particularly devastating blow in Iran. The
trouble began when the Shah of Iran fled the country after a successful
revolt by Islamic fundamentalists. When he was admitted to the United
States on October 22 , 1979 , to obtain medical treatment, Ayatollah
Khomeini, the Muslim cleric directing the revolt, urged his followers
to demonstrate. On November 4 , 1979 , hundreds of Iranian students
stormed the U.S. Embassy in Tehran and demanded the return of the
Shah for trial. They seized and held about 100 hostages, most of whom
were members of the American diplomatic mission. Carter refused to
extradite the Shah and froze all Iranian assets in the United States.
Two weeks after the hostages were taken the students released thirteen
American women and black men but continued to hold the others.
Neither the Shah’s exit from the United States to Panama, nor his sub-
sequent death eight months later, nor the requests of the United Na-
tions persuaded the Iranians to release the hostages.
Carter’s pursuit of diplomatic options and his call for worldwide
economic sanctions against Iran had no effect. So he quietly authorized
a military operation in the hope of ending the crisis. On April 24 , 1980 ,
a commando raid ended in failure and the loss of eight lives before the
would-be rescuers could even reach Tehran. To the country at large, it
now seemed that the United States government was utterly helpless.
Earlier, another crisis had developed when the Soviet Union invaded
Afghan istan in December 1979 , to prop up a faltering and unpop ular
communist regime. Carter responded by placing an embargo on grain
shipments to Russia and discouraging American athletes from partici-
pating in the Olympic games scheduled to take place in Moscow during
the summer of 1980. It seemed that the Cold War was still in full force.
These developments severely damaged Carter’s drive for a second