The Iran Crisis: Carter’s Dilemma 803The president also intended to carry forward the
Nixon-Kissinger policy of détente, and in 1979
another Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty (SALT II)
was signed with the Soviet Union. But the following
winter the Soviet Union sent troops into Afghanistan
to overthrow the government there. Carter denounced
the invasion and warned the Soviets that he would use
force if they invaded any of the countries bordering the
Persian Gulf. He withdrew the SALT treaty, which he
had sent to the Senate for ratification. He also refused
to allow American athletes to compete in the 1980
Olympic games in Moscow.
Carter’s one striking diplomatic achievement was
the so-calledCamp David Accordsbetween Israel
and Egypt. In September 1978 President Anwar Sadat
of Egypt and Prime Minister Menachem Begin of
Israel came to the United States at Carter’s invitation
to seek a peace treaty ending the state of war that had
existed between their two countries for many years.
For two weeks they conferred at Camp David,
the presidential retreat outside the capital, and
Carter’s mediation had much to do with their suc-
cessful negotiations. In the treaty Israel promised to
withdraw from territory captured from Egypt during
the 1967 Israeli-Egypt war. Egypt in turn recognized
Israel as a nation, the first Arab country to do so.
Peace ensured an uninterrupted supply of Arab oil to
the United States. The Camp David Accords were the
first and, as it turned out, the last significant agree-
ment between Israel and a major Arab state.
The Iran Crisis: Origins
At this point a dramatic shift in the Middle East thrust
Carter into the spotlight as never before. On November
4, 1979, about 400 armed Muslim militants broke into
the American embassy compound in Tehran, Iran, and
took everyone within the walls captive.
The seizure had roots that ran far back in Iranian
history. During World War II, Great Britain, the Soviet
Union, and later the United States occupied Iran and
forced its pro-German shah into exile, replacing him
with his twenty-two-year-old son, Muhammad Reza
Pahlavi. But in the early 1950s power shifted to Prime
Minister Muhammad Mossadegh, a leftist who sought
to finance social reform by nationalizing the mostly
American-owned Anglo-Iranian Oil Company.
In 1953, the Iranian army, backed by the CIA,
arrested Mossadegh and put the young Pahlavi in
power. The fall of Mossadegh ensured a steady flow
of cheap oil, but it turned most Iranians against the
United States and Shah Pahlavi. His unpopularity led
the shah to purchase enormous amounts of American
arms. Over the years Iran became the most powerful
military force in the region.
Although Iran was an enthusiastic member of the
OPEC cartel, the shah was for obvious reasons a firm
friend of the United States. In the troubled Middle
East, Iran seemed “an island of stability,” President
Carter said.
The appearance of stability was deceptive. The
shah’s secret police, the Savak, brutally suppressed
liberal opponents. At the same time, Muslim religious
leaders were particularly offended by the shah’s
attempts to introduce Western ideas and technology
into Iran. Because his American-supplied army and
his American-trained secret police kept the shah in
power, his opponents hated the United States almost
as much as they hated their autocratic ruler. The
shah’s rule was not one of “constant decency.”
Throughout 1977, riots and demonstrations con-
vulsed Iran. When soldiers fired on protesters, the
bloodshed caused more unrest, and that unrest
caused even more bloodshed. Over 10,000 civilians
were killed; many times that number were wounded.
In 1978 the whole country seemed to rise against the
shah. Finally, in January 1979, he was forced to flee.
A revolutionary government headed by a religious
leader, the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, assumed
power. Freedom, he said, was the great enemy of
Islam: “[I]t will corrupt our youth... pave the way
for the oppressor... and drag our nation to the bot-
tom.” He also claimed that Islam condoned terror:
“Islam says: Whatever good there is exists thanks to
the sword and in the shadow of the sword!... The
sword is the key to paradise, which can be opened
only for holy warriors.”
Khomeini denounced the United States, the
“Great Satan,” whose support of the shah, he said,
had caused the Iranian people untold suffering. When
President Carter allowed the shah to come to the
United States for medical treatment for cancer, mili-
tants in Tehran seized the American embassy.The Iran Crisis: Carter’s Dilemma
The militants announced that the Americans at the
embassy would be held hostage until the United
States returned the shah to Iran for trial as a traitor.
They also demanded that the shah’s vast wealth be
confiscated and surrendered to the Iranian govern-
ment. President Carter rejected these demands.
Instead Carter froze Iranian assets in the United
States and banned trade with Iran until the hostages
were freed.
A stalemate developed. Months passed. Even
after the shah, who was terminally ill, left the United
States for Panama, the Iranians remained adamant.
TheIranian hostage crisisproduced a remarkable
emotional response in the United States. For the first