The Baghdad Embassy Siege: Did the Iranian Mullahs Think Donald Trump Would React Like Jimmy Carter?
My latest in PJ Media:
The Islamic Republic of Iran, facing demonstrations at home that threaten its very existence and more in Iraq that threaten that country’s Shi’ite proxy government, is resorting to a tested and true strategy. Fox News reports that “crowds of angry Iraqis protesting America’s recent airstrikes against an Iran-backed militia have laid siege to the U.S. Embassy compound in Baghdad Tuesday, chanting ‘Down, Down USA!’ and storming through a main gate, prompting troops to fire back tear gas in response.”
President Trump tweeted: “Iran killed an American contractor, wounding many. We strongly responded, and always will. Now Iran is orchestrating an attack on the U.S. Embassy in Iraq. They will be held fully responsible. In addition, we expect Iraq to use its forces to protect the Embassy, and so notified!”
Whether the pro-Iranian Shi’ite regime will take any serious steps to protect the embassy is an open question, and the Iranian mullahs may be assuming that Trump will talk tough and then let the whole thing blow over. After all, as The Complete Infidel’s Guide to Iran explains in detail, there is a significant precedent for this that occurred right at the time the Islamic Republic was founded.
On January 16, 1979, a tearful Shah of Iran, Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, and his family left Iran after being betrayed and abandoned by Jimmy Carter. Two weeks later, on February 1, the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, returned to Iran after fourteen years of exile and set out to establish the Islamic Republic of Iran. Khomeini had made abundantly clear that the Islamic Republic would consider the United States a mortal enemy when he enabled the storming of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran on November 4, 1979. American diplomats would be held hostage for well over a year.
The immediate pretext for the invasion of the Embassy was Jimmy Carter’s reluctant decision to allow the gravely ill Shah to enter the United States on October 23, 1979, for medical treatment. Carter asked his advisers, “What are you guys going to advise me to do if they overrun our embassy and take our people hostage?” Nonetheless, he had no plan when a group calling itself Muslim Students Following the Imam’s Line (that is, Khomeini’s line) entered the embassy compound and took hostage the skeleton staff of sixty-six that was still serving there after the fall of the Shah.
There is much more. Read the rest here.
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EDITORS NOTE: This Jihad Watch column is republished with permission. © All rights reserved.
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