What's a prez to do? Carter and the shah

When Jimmy Carter ran for president in 1976, voters found it refreshing that he had little experience in Washington, given the morass Washington had become during the Watergate days. Carter touted his innocence as an asset, in foreign affairs as well as domestic. The first post-Vietnam president, he argued that the country needed a new direction in its dealings with the world. He proposed to put morality and respect for human rights on a par with the material interests his predecessors had emphasized.

When autocrats long on Washington's payroll came under attack by radical nationalists, Carter refused to rescue them, as his predecessors had often done. When the nationalists took power, for example in Nicaragua and Iran, he reached out to the new regimes, as his predecessors had refused to do.

For his pains, he was ridiculed and condemned by hardliners in the United States. Some declared that if Carter had stood by the old regimes, the radicals wouldn’t have won. As bad as the old SOBs might have been, they were, to borrow a phrase attributed to Franklin Roosevelt, America's SOBs. The new SOBs were more likely Moscow's.

Such a charge was plausible with regard to the Sandinistas in Nicaragua. But it didn't apply to the Islamists who now governed Iran. The Ayatollah Khomeini and his followers loathed the godless communists of the Kremlin as much as they despised the great Satan of the West–their name for America.

This was one reason Carter thought he might be able to do business with Tehran. The radicals didn’t have politics to themselves in Iran; moderates retained a foothold. 

Carter was trying to develop a dialogue with the latter group when a new and vexing question arose. The shah of Iran, the deposed leader, had gone into exile a step ahead of the revolution. He roamed the Middle East and Europe before landing in Mexico. But now he wanted to come to the United States. He said he had medical problems that could be treated only in America.

The possibility that Carter might let him in set off alarms in the American embassy in Tehran. The embassy had been the focus of protests for months. Some had turned violent. Embassy officials warned of a recurrence, and worse. The government in Tehran showed little inclination to protect the embassy and the people who worked there. In another attack, the embassy staff might be on their own.

Iranians had long memories of the shah’s connections to the United States. In 1953, the shah had been deposed by another popular movement. He left the country for a time, then returned with the backing of the CIA and routed his enemies. In the following quarter-century he built a brutal security apparatus funded by American money and armed with American weapons. A visit by the shah to the United States, for whatever announced reason, would be seen as more plotting by the shah and the CIA against the people of Iran.

Carter listened and took the embassy's worries seriously. But he also heard arguments from others. Some said the United States would look weak if the president allowed foreign radicals to dictate policy on who was allowed to enter the United States. Some said American credibility with allies would be damaged. A few pointed to Carter's embrace of human rights and noted that access to medical care was a human right, or ought to be.

Presidents never make foreign policy decisions in a vacuum. In this case, Carter had to consider how his handling of the shah would affect his policy on arms control. A major treaty with the Soviet Union was under consideration by the Senate. Most of the people who were criticizing Carter for weakness on Iran were also opposed to the arms treaty. But some, like Henry Kissinger, might support the treaty if Carter cast a kind eye on the shah.

There was much Carter didn't know. How sick was the shah, really? Weren’t there good doctors elsewhere? What was the actual likelihood of an attack on the embassy? Were any of the fence-sitters on arms control truly persuadable, or were they simply trying to raise the price for their votes?

He tried to learn more about the shah’s health but got nowhere. He was told that for what ailed the shah, American doctors and facilities were the best. Maybe the embassy would be attacked, maybe not. Only Kissinger knew whether he’d torpedo arms control if Carter shunned the shah.

Carter took a leap. He allowed the shah to enter the United States.

And hell broke loose in Tehran. Militants stormed the embassy and seized scores of hostages. Carter became a hostage of a different sort after he pledged not to rest until the hostages were freed. A rescue effort failed miserably, killing eight American servicemen. Carter's reelection campaign already faced economic headwinds, but his failure on the hostages made victory impossible.

The hostages were held for more than a year. Some on the Iranian side wanted them released after a few months. But Khomeini refused to give Carter the satisfaction of seeing the hostages freed while still president. They were allowed to go home on the day Ronald Reagan took his oath as Carter’s successor.