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Between a Lesser and Greater Evil: Jimmy Carter’s Foreign Policy in Iran
Introduction
When Jimmy Carter was elected as the 39th president of The United States in 1977, America
craved a leader who could heal the wounds left upon the nation by the Watergate Scandal
and the Vietnam War. Jimmy Carter, an outsider in Washington who had no connection to
the harmful events of the 1970s, seemed to be that leader: by promising to make human
rights, peace and transparency the cornerstones of his foreign policy, Carter sought to
rebuild the American public’s faith in its government as well as to restore America’s
international reputation. Despite these idealistic intentions, Carter is not remembered as
one of America’s great leaders – in fact, quite the opposite: he left office after only one term
with the low approval rating of 34 (Ellis 453) and is often looked back upon as the president
whose good intentions were defeated by his own lack of pragmatic political sense, especially
with regard to foreign affairs.
Carter’s involvement in Iran stands out as the prime example of how the attempt to
make humanism the guiding principle behind his foreign policy backfired, damaging both
America’s strategic position in the Middle East and Carter’s own political position and
legacy. This paper aims to critically examine the Carter administrations’ handling of the
Iranian Revolution in 1979 and the 444-day hostage crisis that lasted from November 4,
1979 until January 20, 1981, and discuss how these events have impacted Jimmy Carter’s
image as president. Furthermore, this paper makes a case for the view that the still on-going
discussion about Jimmy Carter’s involvement in Iran is linked to the debate between
realpolitik and moralpolitik – a debate that is highly relevant to America’s continued
involvement in the Middle East.
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The first section of this paper establishes an understanding of the historical and
political context for Carter’s policy in Iran by discussing the election of Jimmy Carter as a
counter-reaction to the Nixon-Kissinger years as well as the influence of New
Internationalism, Wilsonian idealism and Carter’s faith as an Evangelical Christian on his
foreign policy and political discourse. The following section examines the strategic
importance of Iran to the United States and discusses the extent to which the Carter
administration can be held responsible for the events that led to the Iranian revolution. The
third section focuses on the hostage crisis and explores how it impacted Carter’s presidency
in the election of 1980. Finally, the conclusion of this paper suggests that Carter’s
involvement in Iran may have had a lasting impact upon American relations with the Middle
East and that this has affected the foreign policy of succeeding presidents.
The historical method employed in this paper mainly consists of critical analysis of
primary sources, namely Jimmy Carter’s Inauguration Speech (January 20, 1977), the
Commence Address delivered at the University of Notre Dame (May 22, 1977) and the State
of the Union Address (January 23, 1980). While Carter’s Inauguration Speech and
Commencement Address have been viewed as defining moments in the human rights
movement and show the theoretical underpinnings of Carter’s humanism and foreign policy,
the State of the Union Address shows a president who is less focused on ideals and more
oriented towards the real challenges that his administration has had to face.
It is necessary to provide a brief historiographical review in order to illustrate how
Carter’s foreign policy continues to be a topic of debate among historians. The scholarly
works published shortly after Carter’s presidency tended to be highly critical of him, and
there was a general consensus among historians that Carter had, at best, failed to make any
real impact or form a coherent foreign policy (Brinkley 509-10). However, a revisionist
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school on Jimmy Carter arose as historians gained access to more research materials when
the Jimmy Carter Library opened in Atlanta in 1987 (Brinkley 510, Reichard 603). In one of
the first major revisionist works on Carter’s presidency, Jimmy Carter as President (1988),
Erwin Hargrove concludes that while Carter’s weakness was indeed his lack of political
sense, this was a result of some of his most admirable personal qualities: his integrity and
willingness to take full responsibility. In Hargrove’s view, this meant that Carter was unfairly
blamed for the failure to end the hostage crisis, since his only real mistake was to become
too personally involved in a hopeless situation (Hargrove 181). More extreme claims have
also influenced the debate on the hostage crisis, namely those made by Gary Sick, former
Iran specialist in Carter’s National Security Council, in his book October Surprise (1992). Sick
claims that Carter’s attempts to solve the hostage crisis were deliberately sabotaged by
Ronald Reagan’s representatives who made deals with Tehran to hold the hostages until
after the election of 1980 (Brinkley 511), implying that the situation was beyond Carter’s
control due to treason and corruption, without which Carter may have both freed the
hostages and been re-elected.
The claims made by the revisionist school have not gone undisputed, however:
historians Itai Nartzizenfield Sneh and Ofira Seliktar both subscribe to the original view of
Carter as an ineffectual president in their respective newer works, The Future Almost
Arrived (2008) and Navigating Iran – From Carter to Obama (2012). While Sneh argues that
Carter was largely unable to live up to his ideals and appeared weak and inconsistent to the
public (Sneh 180), Seliktar goes as far as placing the blame for triggering the Iranian
Revolution squarely upon Carter’s shoulders (Seliktar 5). To sum up, the contentious debate
about Carter’s abilities as a political leader and how those abilities played into his handling
of the problems in Iran continues until the present day with arguments made on both sides.
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Reintroducing Morality: The Historical and Political Context for Carter’s Foreign Policy
The 1970s can be described as an era of crisis in America. As a new president who had
relatively little executive experience from his one term as the governor of Georgia, Jimmy
Carter had to deal with several different issues: high unemployment rates, inflation, the
energy crisis and the oil embargo imposed on America and other western countries after the
Yom Kippur War, as well as complex global affairs with China and Russia as major world
powers and trouble brewing in the Middle East. Any assessment of Carter’s abilities as a
leader must, of course, take into account not only the difficult unresolved issues that his
predecessors left behind, but also the growth of executive power and responsibility in the
modern presidency 1. All of the different issues mentioned above represent the range of that
responsibility and lend weight to Douglas Brinkley’s argument that Jimmy Carter’s biggest
failing as a political leader was his “inability to delegate” and blindness “to the fact that
great presidents have to build great teams” (Brinkley 514). However, a more precise
statement would be to say that teambuilding and delegation are key skills in the modern
presidency, especially with regard to foreign policy, since the complex issues in the
globalised world are impossible for any single president to micromanage.
The expansion of the president’s responsibilities in the modern presidency is
inextricably tied to the role of America as ‘global police officer’, a development that can be
traced back as far as the Roosevelt Corollary in 1904 which marked a turn away from the
isolationist Monroe Doctrine. Carter did not turn away from the role of ‘global police officer’
– on the contrary, he sought to reinforce American involvement in global issues. At the
same time, he also wanted to redefine what it meant to be ‘global police officer’, and this
1
The modern presidency can be defined as the time between Franklin D. Roosevelt’s presidency in 1933-39
and the present. During this time, the president became legislator-in-chief, took on greater responsibilities for
ensuring welfare as part of the domestic policy and national security as part of the foreign policy by actively
engaging with conflicts abroad.
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can be illustrated through an analysis of his inauguration speech. The inaugural address is a
highly formal ceremony where the president speaks to the electorate in his new capacity as
President of the United States for the first time. Inaugural addresses can therefore be used
to establish the kind of discourse that defines a presidency, and this is certainly the case for
Carter.
One of the most important theoretical underpinnings of Carter’s foreign policy is his
faith as an Evangelical Christian and this clearly comes out in his inauguration address.
Carter begins his speech by quoting the prophet Micah’s admonition to “do justly, and to
love mercy, and to walk humbly with God” (Carter, “Inauguration Address”). Carter had
already made the link between his stance as a politician and his faith as an Evangelical
Christian explicit during his campaign (Berggren and Rae 612), and this was part of his
appeal since it set him apart from the corruption and executive secrecy of the previous
administrations. The electorate’s trust in the government had been violently shaken by the
Vietnam War and the Watergate Scandal and there was a general sense of doubt and
disillusionment about America’s international role and politics at the time of Carter’s
inauguration. By casting himself in the role of someone who was guided by his faith rather
than political interest, Carter managed to make the public share his own belief that he
would never “take on the same frame of mind that Nixon or Johnson did – lying, cheating,
and distorting the truth” because his “religious beliefs alone would prevent that from
happening to me” (Carter qtd. in Berggren and Rae 612-13). According to Charles O. Jones,
Carter demonstrated throughout his presidency that he “had a preference for doing [what
was] right, not [what was] political” (Jones qtd. in Reichard 617). When Carter promises “a
new beginning, a new dedication within our Government, and a new spirit among us all”
(Carter, Inauguration Address), he is referring to this anti-political approach as an
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Evangelical Christian: a new dedication within the government to morals rather than
strategy, and the new Christian spirit where every man is his brother’s keeper.
Carter attempts to integrate this Christian spirit in the American dream when he
argues that “[b]ecause we are free, we can never be indifferent to the fate of freedom
elsewhere” (Carter, “Inauguration Address”). During the speech, Carter reminds the public
several times of its “special obligation” and “moral duties” (Carter, “Inauguration Speech”)
to protect countries that lack freedom. This illustrates the fact that Carter is far from
advocating an end to interventionism. When Carter talks about “an undiminished, everexpanding American dream” (Carter, “Inauguration Address”) he means that the American
dream should be extended to mean not just a free nation, but a free world. Put differently,
Carter believes in a reconceptualization of America as ‘global police officer’: rather than a
punishing force, Carter wants America to act as global peace-maker and diplomat by
building “a lasting peace, based not on weapons but on international policies which reflect
our own most precious values” (Carter, “Inauguration Address”). This is made explicit in his
inaugural address when he asserts his intention to “limit the world’s armaments” and
proclaims his “ultimate goal—the elimination of all nuclear weapons from this Earth”
(Carter, “Inaugural Address”). In short, Carter is advocating an end to the imperial
presidency and a move away from the focus on national security towards humanitarian
goals. As Hargrove puts it: “the central theme [in Carter’s foreign policy] was a religious
impulse to make the world more human” (Hargrove 112).
Carter’s inauguration speech can be placed within the third phase of inaugural
addresses described by Herbert Stein in his study, “Reading the Inaugurals” (1997).
According to Stein, the third phase of the “assertive, theatrical, leader-preacher” (Stein 28)
marks the time from Woodrow Wilson to the present. While Carter ‘s rhetorical style was
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certainly less theatrical than other presidents in this phase, such as Woodrow Wilson with
his rousing optimism and Ronald Reagan with his movie star background, Carter fits Stein’s
description of a third-phase president who used his inaugural address to inspire the public’s
behaviour through his rhetoric (Stein 29). By citing the bible as the authority for moral
behaviour and encouraging the public to actively participate in his new vision for America,
Carter easily fits the role of a ‘leader-preacher’. In short, Carter’s inauguration speech can
be seen as an attempt to persuade the public of his new foreign policy.
In addition to his personal conviction as an Evangelical Christian, Carter’s
inauguration speech is also very much influenced by Wilsonian idealism. Wilsonianism can
be summed up as the idealistic belief in the possibility of world peace through diplomatic
solutions. Hargrove mentions Carter’s firm belief in idealism over realism in foreign affairs:
“Carter argues that American foreign policy should be based on the democratic idealism of
Jefferson or Wilson. Idealism, he contends, is more practical than realism and provides the
strongest basis for American power and influence in the world” (Hargrove 112). The
influence of Wilsonianism on Carter’s foreign policy is crucial to understanding his actions
with regard to Iran: not only does it explain why Carter was so focused on pressuring the
Shah towards democratic reforms, it also explains his reluctance to use force during the
hostage crisis.
Carter’s idealism was not only influenced by his personal admiration for Wilson, but
also by the dominant academic and political schools of thought at the time of his
inauguration, however. As Ofira Seliktar points out, “[i]n the wake of World War II,
Washington relied heavily on academic paradigms to navigate [Iran]” (Seliktar 3). According
to Seliktar, the dominant school of thought on Iran at the time of Carter’s inauguration was
modernisation theory, according to which “Iran was considered a developmental success
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story, progressing towards modernization, secularization, and democratization” (Seliktar
177). The influence of modernisation theory on Carter’s thinking can be seen in his
commencement address, the speech given to the graduating students of the University of
Notre Dame on May 22, 1977. In this speech, Carter argues that: “We can no longer have a
policy solely for the industrial nations as the foundation for global stability, but we must
respond to the new reality of a politically awakening world” (Carter, “Commencement
Address”). Carter assumes that the fact that “[c]olonialism is nearly gone” and that “more
people have been freed from traditional constraints” (Carter, “Commencement Address”)
means that a desire for democracy will naturally replace the oppressive regimes in
developing countries. This helps explain how Carter could be blind to the fact that this was
not the case in Iran, where the removal of one oppressive regime simply led to another.
Carter’s commencement address also illustrates the influence of political schools of
thought, such as New Internationalism and the rise of moralpolitik at the time. According to
Seliktar, the New Internationalists worked towards “disarmament … and creating a new
global order based on equality and respect for human rights” (Seliktar 6). Using the
rhetorical device of anaphora, Carter emphasises the key components of his foreign policy
in his commencement address, and it is obvious how closely his goals correspond to those
of the New Internationalists:
“We are confident that democracy’s example will be compelling… We are confident that the
democratic methods are the most effective, and so we are not tempted to employ improper tactics
here at home or abroad… We are confident of our own strength, so we can seek substantial mutual
reductions in the nuclear arms race” (Carter, “Commencement Address”)
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As Seliktar points out, Carter also surrounded himself with prominent New
Internationalist moralpolitikers, such as Vice President Walter Mondale who was “a major
critic of Nixon’s realpolitik” and Secretary of State Cyrus Vance (Seliktar 6). The
administration also featured realpolitikers, however, such as National Security Advisor
Zbigniew Brzezinski (Seliktar 6), and historians often cite the constant disputes between
these two camps within the administration as a crucial reason for Carter’s perceived
indecisiveness during his involvement with Iran, and for the lack of coherence in his foreign
policy in general (Seliktar 6, McGlinchey 122, Dumbrell 127). However, Carter’s
commencement address can be viewed as clear evidence that while he may have changed
his position later, he was firmly on the side of the idealistic moralpolitikers in the early
stages of his presidency.
It is important to note that some revisionist scholars have argued that the division of
opinion within Carter’s team was a deliberate attempt by Carter to surround himself with a
diversity of opinion. Stephen McGlinchey argues in US Policies Towards the Shah’s Iran
(2014) that “[s]ince the trump card for the Shah in the Nixon/Ford years had been the
centralisation of power in relation to arms policy within the executive, Carter’s team
approach indicated that decisions would now be subject to wider scrutinity” (McGlinchey
122). While McGlinchey agrees that “Carter’s approach was flawed from the beginning”
(McGlinchey 122) he also notes that it was intended to help Carter reach what he “saw as
the objectively best solution” and therefore an example of his “policy pragmatism”
(McGlinchey 123). While McGlinchey may be correct in arguing that the organisation of
Carter’s foreign policy team was intended to be pragmatic, Carter’s inauguration address
and commencement address clearly show that the discourse that defined his presidency
was everything but pragmatic: instead of focusing on immediate solutions, the goals of
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world peace and widespread disarmament are abstract and highly idealistic. Furthermore, it
could be argued that the attempt to find the best objective solution by studying a problem
from many different perspectives is not always pragmatic – in fact, it might be the exact
opposite of pragmatism when a quick solution is called for.
The historical and political context of Carter’s foreign policy is crucial to
understanding the events in Iran. The Vietnam War and the Watergate Scandal had made
the electorate deeply disillusioned with politics and this made them turn to a new leader
who shared their aversion to executive secrecy and who wanted to reintroduce morals into
American politics. Jimmy Carter’s personal convictions as an Evangelical Christian and
supporter of New Internationalism made him that leader, but these very same qualities
became his downfall when he became torn between his principles and political pragmatism
during the Iranian revolution and the hostage crisis. At the same time, the influence of
Christian morals and Wilsonian idealism on Carter’s foreign policy also form the basis of one
of the most common defences among his supporters: that regardless of the outcome, Carter
truly believed that he was acting for the greater good.
An Impossible Situation: The Iranian Revolution and the Hostage Crisis
Iran played a crucial role in American foreign policy as a Cold War ally, stable secular nation
in the Middle East and major supplier of oil since 1953, where an American-British coup
helped overthrow the government of the nationalistic Prime Minister Mohammed
Mosaddeq and reinstated the Shah of Iran (McGlinchey 2-3, Farber 13). As Michael A.
Ledeen and William H. Lewis explain in their article, “Carter and the Fall of the Shah: The
Inside Story” (1980), the Shah “became the recipient of unprecedented American military
material” in return for protecting American interests in the Middle East (Ledeen and Lewis
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7), and by the 1970s Iran formed one of the ‘Twin Pillars’ of American policy in the Middle
East (Seliktar 5, Ledeen and Lewis 7).
By this time, the Iranian public was also becoming increasingly dissatisfied with the
Shah’s rule, however. While many of the Iranian protesters were unhappy with the brutality
of the Shah’s secret police, SAVAK, Shiite opposition to the Shah’s secular rule and antiAmerican sentiment soon culminated in a fundamentalist revolution led by Grand Ayatollah
Ruhollah Khomeini. Seliktar claims that the revolution was partly triggered by Washington’s
insistence that the Shah should liberalise through democratic reforms, which made the
Shiite clergy feel that “its traditional role in the society was threatened” and that “Western
culture was profoundly corrupting the Islamic lifestyle” (Seliktar 5). At the same time,
relations with the Shah were becoming complicated as the arms transfer policy was getting
out of control. As Ledeen and Lewis put it, “the shah had virtually obtained a blank check”
(Ledeen and Lewis 8). Carter’s emphasis on disarmament in his inaugural address and
commencement address show that he was very concerned with this particular problem and
intended to put a stop to it during his presidency. This became extremely difficult however,
since refusing to supply the Shah with military equipment during a time of political unrest
and opposition to his regime could easily have been interpreted as a sign that America was
withdrawing its support of him (Ledeen and Lewis 9)
This was the ‘impossible situation’ that historian Gaddis Smith refers to in his oftquoted comment on the Carter administration’s involvement in Iran: “President Carter
inherited an impossible situation – and he and his advisers made the worst of it” (Hemmer
51). Carter could either continue to support the Shah, who lacked the support of his own
people and was guilty of violating human rights, or he could allow the Shah to fall, thereby
losing one of America’s most valuable allies in the Middle East and risking the lives of
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American personnel in Iran. It can be argued that Carter and his advisors did not ‘make the
worst’ of the situation because they made the wrong choices –rather, they made the worst
of it firstly by not recognising the need to act and secondly by not choosing any decisive
strategy at all.
The revolution came as a surprise to American policymakers (Seliktar 5) despite the
fact that a staff report of a subcommittee of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee had
actually warned the administration about the possible consequences of crisis situation in
Iran in 1976, mentioning as one of its concerns that “United States personnel in Iran could
become, in a sense, hostages” (qtd. in Ledeen and Lewis 9). Obviously, this was the exact
outcome when the Shah was overthrown in 1978 and the American personnel at the Iranian
embassy were taken hostage. Christopher Hemmer states in his book, Which Lessons
Matter: American Foreign Policy in the Middle East, 1979-1987 (2000) that “there was little
the United States could have done to influence the revolution” (Hemmer 51), but it could be
argued that the administration might have been able to do exactly that had the early
warning in the staff report of 1976 been heeded. This might have led to more human
intelligence gathering in Iran which would have prepared Carter’s administration for the
revolution and the following hostage crisis.
When Carter toasted the Shah during a state dinner in Tehran on New Year’s Eve in
1977 he made the unfortunate comment: “Iran, because of the great leadership of the Shah,
is an island of stability in one of the more troubled areas of the world” (Carter, “Iran Toasts
of the President”). This comment attests to Carter’s unawareness of the political unrest in
Iran shortly before the outbreak of the revolution. The lack of awareness of the situation in
the American intelligence community is also evidenced by reports by the CIA and the DIA: as
late as August 1978 a CIA assessment on Iran professed that “Iran is not in a revolutionary
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or even pre-revolutionary situation” (qtd. in Ledeen and Lewis 11) while a DIA appraisal in
September the same year proclaimed that “the shah is expected to stay remain actively in
power over the next ten years” (qtd. in Ledeen and Lewis 11). While Iran had seemed well
on its way towards stability and democratisation – especially during The White Revolution of
1963, a top-down reform programme which was based on Western democracy and
improved opportunities for education, land-ownership and gave women the right to vote
(Wagner 41-42) – there were also several indicators that Iran was headed towards social
and political unrest, all of which apparently went undiscovered by American intelligence
agencies. For example, The White Revolution created a rift between the Shah and the
wealthy landowners as well as the religious leaders, triggering the first loud protests by
Ayatollah Khomeini (Wagner 42). In other words, the diminished political intelligence in Iran
began prior to Carter’s presidency.
While political intelligence in Iran was diminished prior to Carter’s presidency (Trenta
483), it can be argued that when the Carter administration decided to change the traditional
foreign policy with regard to Iran – in terms of reduced weapons sale and increased
insistence on reforms – it would have been prudent to revaluate the intelligence needs in
Iran. As Seliktar claims, Carter’s reorientation of American foreign policy turned Iran into “a
testing ground for the new paradigm’s fealty to moralpolitik [and] a battleground for the
divided administration” (Seliktar 7). Regardless of how sympathetic one might be towards
Carter’s new foreign policy, one must agree with Seliktar that this was the worst time and
place to introduce it. Had Carter’s administration been more aware of the social and
political unrest in Iran at the time, it might have recognised the danger of destabilising the
Shah’s regime further by withdrawing some of the support he had come to depend on from
America. While it might have been impossible for Carter’s administration to prevent the
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revolution altogether, a more cautious approach towards liberalisation and greater
awareness of the political environment in Iran could most likely have postponed the
revolution, and allowed the administration time to form a strategy to protect American
personnel in Iran.
Obviously, it is easy to pass judgment in hindsight and in the Carter administration’s
defence, it should be noted firstly that their attention was focused elsewhere, especially on
the peace talks at Camp David which did succeed in creating a framework for peace
between Israel and Egypt (Brinkley 510, Ledeen and Lewis 12, Samuels 108), and secondly
that anticipating the far-reaching consequences of a religious revolution in Iran and the
resulting acts of terrorism was far more difficult at the time than it might seem from a
contemporary perspective. As Gary Sick puts it: the Iranian Revolution and the hostage crisis
was America’s “first real introduction to radical political Islam” (Sick 1). Having said this, the
Carter administration might still have avoided ‘making the worst’ of the situation if they had
employed a more decisive and pragmatic strategy.
While Carter made it clear to the Shah that he would no longer have a blank cheque
to military equipment, he did not stop the arms sale altogether (McGlinchey 126).
McGlinchey claims that “dealings with the Shah over arms may prove to be one of the most
unequivocal examples of Carter’s pragmatism” (McGlinchey 123) since it exemplifies
Carter’s approach to problems: “attempting to engineer a compromise that would suit both
sides” while at the same time being “an attempt to avoid the appearance of being
hypocritical … despite his campaign rhetoric” (McGlinchey 130). While this compromising
approach “seemed like a win-win solution” to Carter (McGlinchey 130), it could be argued
that Carter’s ambiguous support of the Shah actually made the situation worse. According
to Ledeen and Lewis, the Shah was so confused by Carter’s ambiguity and became so
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conviced that “The United States had a grand design for Iran that he later publicly accused
the Americans of masterminding his downfall” (Ledeen and Lewis 3). Put differently, Carter’s
attempt to find a compromise between his own political orientation and diplomatic
relations with Iran actually resulted in slowly undermining those relations as the Shah
became increasingly unsure of American support.
In retrospect, the better option might have been to either maintain the traditional
foreign policy towards Iran by giving the Shah full support, at least until the opposition
against his regime had subsided, or to make a decisive attempt to engage in diplomatic
negotiations with the opposition. Luca Trenta argues in his article, “The King of Kings Meets
the Champion of Human Rights: Jimmy Carters, The Shah, and Iranian Illusions and Rage”
(2013) that the Carter administration never made any real attempt to meet with the
opposition members, even though doing so in the early stages of the revolution before the
opposition coalesced around Khomeini might have given them “room to broker a transition
to a new moderate regime, with the Shah as constitutional monarch” (Trenta 487). Even if
either of these two approaches had failed to achieve the desired results in Iran, they would
at least have improved Carter’s image as a political leader in the eyes of the American
public.
An analysis of Carter’s State of the Union Address in 1980 shows that he did not
stubbornly stick to the principles outlined in his inaugural address and commencement
address, but had in fact begun to shift in the direction of realpolitik, as it became
increasingly clear that the geopolitical situation required him to take more decisive action
potentially backed by military force. Carter begins his address by emphasising the
connection between domestic and foreign policy with the rhetorical device of chiasmus:
“the state of our Union depends on the state of the world [and] freedom and peace in the
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world depend on the state of the Union” (Carter, “State of the Union Address”). Carter
made a similar point in his inaugural address where he also linked domestic policy with
foreign policy by arguing that America can only be a role model to countries in the
developing world by upholding the values and standard of living of a democracy on the
home front. However, in the State of the Union Address, Carter is far more focused on the
issue of national security than the expansion of democracy. He openly admits that “[t]he
1980’s have been born in turmoil, strife and change” (Carter, “State of the Union Address”)
and identifies the two major issues abroad: the hostage crisis in Iran and the Soviet invasion
of Afghanistan. Mentioning these two issues at the very beginning of his speech clearly
shows that Carter recognised them as primary concerns for America.
The contrast between Carter’s assessment of the Soviet threat in this speech
compared to his commencement address is especially striking. Carter’s earlier comment on
the “inordinate fear of communism” (Carter, “Commencement Address”), which is typically
cited as an example of his perceived naiveté, clashes strongly with the claim in his State of
the Union Address that “the relationship between our country, The United States of
America, and the Soviet Union is the most critical factor in determining whether the world
will live at peace or be engulfted in global conflict” (Carter, “State of the Union Address”).
Carter’s State of the Union Address can be seen as a formulation of what has become
known as ‘The Carter Doctrine’ (Jones 210), a doctrine that entails the suppression of
attempts “by any outside force to gain control of the Persian Gulf region” by “any means
necessary, including military force” (Carter, “State of the Union Address”). In other words,
Carter’s State of the Union Address can be seen as a shift in his foreign policy from a strong
idealistic dedication to peaceful solutions to problems abroad to a more realpolitik
approach that recognises the necessity of sometimes using military force.
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With regard to the hostage crisis in Iran, Carter states that “[i]f the American
hostages are harmed, a severe price will be paid. We will never rest until every one of the
American hostages are released” (Carter, “State of the Union Address”). However, while this
might seem to promise decisive action, Carter fails to suggest any concrete solution to the
hostage crisis except from the intention to “persuade the Iranian leader that the real danger
to their nation lies in the north, in the Soviet Union … and that the unwarranted quarrel
with the United States hampers their response to this far greater threat to them” (Carter,
“State of the Union Address”). Arguably, this is too little too late to satisfy the expectations
of the American public. While the external events pushed Carter to consider the use of
military force in the conflict with the Soviet Union, he still hesitated over promising the
same use of force in the handling of the hostage crisis.
Held Hostage: The Impact of the Hostage Crisis on Carter’s political image and legacy
The student protesters who seized the American embassy in Tehran on November 4, 1979,
claimed to have done so in response to Carter’s decision to allow the seriously ill Shah, who
had sought refuge in Egypt, to seek medical treatment in America on October 20, 1979 (Glad
36, Farber 139). The hostage-taking did not come as a complete surprise to Carter’s
administration. As Betty Glad points out in her article, “Personality, Political and Group
Process Variables in Foreign Policy Decision-Making: Jimmy Carter’s Handling of the Iranian
Hostage Crisis” (1989), “experts in Teheran as well as in Washington warned against such
admission [of the Shah], seeing the embassy as a potential target for hostile crowds” (Glad
38). Vice President Walter Mondale recalls how Carter worried about the repercussions of
allowing the Shah entry into America: “He went around the room, and most of us said, ‘Let
him in’. And he said ‘And if [the Iranians] take our employees in our embassy hostage, then
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what would be your advice?’ And the room just fell dead. No one had an answer to that”
(Mondale qtd. in Samuels 109).
The quote by Mondale shows that the major issue in dealing with the hostage crisis
was that there was no precedent for this type of situation and consequently, none of
Carter’s advisers were able to help him form a successful strategy for freeing the hostages.
The quote also illustrates the consistent pressure that Carter was under to allow the Shah
entry into America for treatment. Glad notes that the decision was “almost a political
necessity” since Henry Kissinger and David Rockefeller placed heavy pressure on the
administration from the outside to allow the Shah entry, while all of Carter’s closest advisers
tried to convince him that it was the morally correct thing to do (Glad 38). In short, the
admittance of the Shah can be seen as a prime example of how Carter’s emphasis on
morality and human rights left him little choice but to help the dying Shah on humanitarian
grounds, even if he knew with almost absolute certainty that It would lead to an attack on
the American embassy.
The student hostage-takers had no idea that they were getting involved in a complex
international conflict that would last 14 months – they only intended the occupation of the
embassy and the hostage-taking of its personnel to last two or three days (Trenta 493).
Carter and his administration also assumed that the situation would be resolved shortly.
When Carter’s chief of staff, Hamilton Jordan, first informed Carter’s secretary of the
takeover, he judged that “it’ll be over in a few hours, but it could provide a nice contrast
between Carter and our friend from Massachusetts [Senator Ted Kennedy] in how to handle
a crisis” (Jordan qtd. in Farber 140). Jordan’s statement is highly ironic, not because it wildly
miscalculates the duration of the hostage situation, but because Jordan assumed that the
event would provide Carter with an opportunity to impress the electorate with his quick and
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competent handling of a crisis situation. Obviously, it actually did the exact opposite. When
Khomeini decided to back the hostage-taking and demanded the return of the Shah as
ransom – a demand that Carter could not possibly comply with – the situation became all
the more difficult. As Farber notes: “basking in the imam’s attention… the students had
totally repudiated their original stance of non-violent protest. They were not only ready to
die for their Islamic revolution; … they were willing to kill unarmed hostages as well” (Farber
160). The Carter administration first tried to solve the situation through a diplomatic
approach as well through sanctions against Iran, and only when all diplomatic relations had
been broken did Carter decide to undertake a military rescue of the hostages (Glad 37), a
high-risk mission which not only failed, but also cost the lives of eight crewmen.
The failed rescue mission had severe consequences for Carter. Firstly, it came to
symbolise the last straw in a string of failures to secure the hostages, thereby cementing the
image of Carter as a weak and ineffectual leader – an image that Reagan’s campaign
utilised. The rescue mission was also a lost opportunity to garner support for Carter in the
election by dealing with an issue that was constantly on the minds of the American public.
As Farber puts it, “the Iran hostage crisis captured the American people more than any
other of the era’s difficulties” (Farber 1) and it gained wide media coverage in everything
from “television talk shows, the evening news, drive-time radio and almost every other
forum of public conversation” (Farber 1). When it failed, it seemed to indicate that America
had once again been reduced to a “pitiful giant”, a term that was also used to describe the
nation’s failure to succeed in Vietnam (Farber 1). While Reagan’s landslide victory in the
election of 1980 cannot solely be attributed to the hostage crisis, there is a general
consensus among historians that it was certainly a decisive factor (Farber 179, Seliktar 4344, Brinkley 506).
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Secondly, the rescue mission made Carter’s foreign policy seem ambiguous at best.
Although Carter was careful to emphasise in his statement on the rescue mission on April
25, 1980, that it was a “humanitarian mission” and “not undertaken with any feeling of
hostility toward Iran or its people” (Carter, “Statement on the Iran Rescue Mission”), the
United Nations, NATO and the Common Market perceived the mission as a breach of their
agreement with Carter to seek a peaceful resolution. In an article by The Chicago Tribune
from April 26, 1980, titled “Abortive hostage rescue shocks allies in Europe”, a Common
Market administrator said: “We went to all this trouble to show solidarity with Carter’s
position and he pulls something like this. It’s a disgrace” (Washington Tribune 2). In another
article from the same newspaper on the same day, titled “An Angry Congress Charges Carter
Violated War Act”, some congressmen argue that “Carter’s failure to inform Congress
before introducing military forces into possible combat situations is a violation of the 1973
War Powers Act” (Washington Tribune 2). To sum up, the rescue mission became symbolic
of America’s inability to protect its own people. In that sense, Carter’s emphasis on national
security in his State of the Union Address may have backfired: he managed to identify all of
the nation’s problems abroad, but shortly after demonstrated his inability to solve them – a
dangerous combination for any politician to say the least.
Conclusion
The purpose of this paper has not been to place blame on Carter or the members of his
administration for the events in Iran, but to illustrate how the historical and political context
both on the home front and abroad can complicate the most well-intentioned attempt to
reorient the foreign policy of a superpower. From a Western point of view, pressing for
democracy and human rights may seem like the morally correct choice in any situation, but
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Carter’s involvement in Iran clearly shows that politicians must always be aware that doing
so in socially and politically unstable parts of the world may simply allow lesser evils to be
replaced by greater ones. Moreover, the Iranian hostage crisis demonstrates the practical
difficulties of combining a foreign policy that is oriented towards human rights with the
swift and decisive action that America expects of its leader during crisis situations. In that
sense, Jimmy Carter’s presidency also illustrates that being a great leader is not dependent
on a fixed set of characteristics – rather, great leaders simply need to have the
characteristics necessary to deal with the challenges that occur during their particular time
in power.
Jimmy Carter’s involvement in Iran continues to be relevant because it represented
the first meeting between America and radical Islam. Firstly, the loss of Iran as one of the
twin pillars of American policy in the Middle East explain many subsequent developments,
such as the necessity to tighten relations with the Gulf states as the Sunni states became the
natural allies after the rise of the Ayatollahs. Secondly, any lesson that can be taken away
from this first meeting is certainly worth learning, especially at this point in time where
American foreign policy is dominated by its involvement in the Middle East. One of these
lessons must be that the debate between moralpolitik and realpolitik is never more crucial
than in crisis situations abroad, where the president must choose between a lesser and a
greater evil.
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