The Rice Thresher (Houston, Tex.), Vol. 68, No. 1, Ed. 1 Friday, May 16, 1980 Page: 4 of 12
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VOICES FROM THE TOWER/a faculty forum
by Camille Jones
In light of the still-enduring Iranian
embassy crisis, many questions have arisen
about the nature of the crises and American
foreign policy alternatives. "Voices" this
week focuses again on the Iranian situation
with international relations expert Dr.
Richard Stoll of the Political Science
Department.
Considering the assertiveness displayed
by the British during the Iranian embassy
incident recently in London, and their
emphasis on their intolerance of terrorism,
how should this signal to American foreign
policy the necessity for assertive strategies?
If you take "the British lesson" at face
value, you never negotiate and go in there
and get the people out. However, it's
important to note that the British operation
(not to downgrade its difficulty) was
basically a lot easier than any American
rescue attempt. They were after all, the
government in charge of the country where
the hostages were being held. The difficult
part of the American mission was not the
actual rescue operation itself, but rather
getting into Iran undetected and getting all
set up. So, although it has words of wisdom
for us I'm not sure that we could draw any
direct lessons from it and act immediately
one way or the other.
President Nixon advocated in his "20/20"
interview with Barbara Walters not only
more force against the Iranians with the
embassy incident but also actions
immediately after the hostages were taken. i
How would his policies, if initiated today,
have arrested or altered the present Iranian
dilemma?
I think, first of all, that there would have
to have been some delay no matter how
quickly the President wanted to act simply
because we didn't have the intelligence
information to mount any kind of attack
and presumably the units that would be used
weren't trained for the specific situation at
hand. As I recall from the news reports,
training and planning have gone on for
around three or four months so it's unclear
just how much more quickly Carter could
have mounted the attack before he did.
So it seems a little unfair to say that
something should have been done
immediately except if Nixon was referring to
another kind of military action such^s a
blockade or an air strike. However, the basic
problem with that kind of action would have
been that it simply didn't get to the heart of
the matter. No action like that could have
freed the hostages — it would only have been
seen as a symbolic action that would imply,
"We're going to do something nasty to you
now and if you don't release them, we're
going to do something nastier to you later."
Outside of Carter and his staff, no one
knows exactly how much earlier the
operation could have been done, but
immediate action would have been foolish.
The broader point of Nixon's statement
would seem to be that Carter should not
have relied simply on a variety of diplomatic
means to get the hostages out, that he should
immediately have gone to some type of
firmer action. Now this is a line of thought
that both Nixon and Kissinger have argued
on numerous occasions.
It should be noted, however, that there
have been several occasions where action
has been taken against the United States
when Carter wasn't President recently and
these things did not happen. For example,
when the two Americans were killed in the
demilitarized zone between the Koreas, the
U.S response was to mount what might be
called a show of force. What happened was
they were out chopping down trees in an
area supposedly easy to observe across the
DMZ and were killed by some North
Koreans. The U.S. response was not a
military action of a combat nature but rather
in a short period of time to send back in
American troops to cut down the trees with
very visible massive military support.
Since the recent hostage attempt issued by
Carter was "unsuccessful," how does this
attempt modify our credibility as an
international strength to the Iranians? How
can it be changed?
It's not clear to me that from the point-of-
view of conveying a message that the United
States would be willing to use force that the
attempt was in that sense a "failure." We
demonstrated quite graphically that: A)We
were willing to mount such an operation and
B)We were quite capable of penetrating
quite a distance into Iran without them
knowing anything about it. It seems at this
point that one thing that could be salvaged
from their raid is to convey to the Iranian
government (whatever that is) not in a public
way but quite quietly that we were willing to
of town, the fact that the raid was mounted
had nothing to do with Vartce not having
access to the President. It had to do with the
fact that, apparently, Carter was convinced
that this was now the correct course of
action. I think we tend to be a little too
preoccupied with what we might call
legalistic solutions to foreign policy advice.
I think it's fair to say that Carter has
around him a range of opinions and
probably will continue to receive a range of
opinions. But if Carter has now decided to
take the role of the hard-liner, it doesn't
matter who is advising him. He is apparently
a man who, I'have been told, once he makes
up his mind is very firm and refuses to
change it. So it remains to be seen, if we
think that Carter has been "captured" by
Brezinski — which I think is very much of an
they believe) that the U.S. has intervened
militarily before, that the United States
government in fact put the Shah into power,
maintained him in power, was trying to put
him back into power, and then tried to move
in with military action to rescue the
hostages.
I don't think they would see much change
with Reagan. We may perceive that Reagan
would be more likely to do some drastic
military action, but, I think at this point,
they're willing to believe that the United
States would do it anyway and what they
would see as the "fine tuning" between
various presidential candidates really
wouldn't make much difference to them.
In light of the fact that the War Powers
Act does stipulate that the President (and
One thing that could
be salvaged from the raid is
to convey to the Iranian
government that we were
willing to do it once and might
be very willing to do it again,
maybe not even taking the
steps to avoid hurting
Iranians.
—Richard Stoll
do it once and might be very willing to do it
again next time, maybe not even taking the
steps to avoid injuring Iranians (perhaps we
would come in with full air strikes, etc.). In
that immediate sense, it may have not hurt
our credibility. In fact, it may have increased
it.
There are two schools of thought on those
kinds of threats — some say, "Well, now
you've done it; you've cut the ground out
from under the moderates." Some say,
"They've lost all credibility negotiating
within the Iranian power structure," simply
because the U.S. has been exposed as doing
something so drastic. On the other hand,
that is, falling back on the Nixon-Kissinger
line, they argued that the U.S.'s willingness
to use forces actually strengthens the hands
of the moderates in a domestic situation
simply because they can turn around and
say, "There, you see, the U.S. won't tolerate
this. We had better give the hostages up or
they'll come back and do something far
beyond what they'd done before."
It's been implied quite frequently that
Zbigniew Brezinski has had a great deal to
do with many events in U. S. foreign police as
the National Security Advisor, and that
Secretary of State Cyrus Vance really didn't
have as much input as he should. How do
you think that our new Secretary of State
Edmund Muskie, with his congressional and
senatorial expertise, is going to change this
idea? Do you think he will confront
Brezinski?
I believe he will confront Brezinski and I
believe that, in general, he will sound more
like Vance than Brezinski does. The name of
the game, though, is to convince the
President. And it seems clear that although
there was this somewhat questionable
maneuver of holding the meeting where the
raid was decided upon while Vance was out
overstatement — whether Muskie can
mount his own "rescue operation."
Despite the outlined options open to
Carter, specifically in terms of the War
Powers Act and unwritten international
laws, what options are really open to Carter
at the moment?
It seems there are two broad policies he
can take. One is to simply go back to waiting
it out; not saying very much about the crisis.
He has other responsibilities, but basically
going on the belief that sooner or later the"
Iranian government will have to release the
hostages if, for no other reason, than they do
have a country to run and it's probably
taking up too much of their time.
The other is to go to a much stronger
series of pressures, and, at this point, if
Carter wants to escalate in this sense, I
would think he'd have to go to some military
or quasi-military option. That is back to the
blockade another rescue attempt and — I
think the least likely of all of them — some
type of military demonstration, that is the
straflng-the-Imperial-Palace sort of thing to
demonstrate that the U.S. is willing to use
force again. It is interesting to speculate that
although the hostages have been moved to a
number of locations, each separate location
would be easier to get into than the U.S.
Embassy (although multiple locations is in
some ways more difficult). I think it would
be fair to say that they have not completely
ruled out another rescue attempt.
Seeing that this is an election year, what
difference would it make if we have someone
•of the ideology of Ronald Reagan in office?
What can Iran expect? Will he be more
"successful?" How would he affect the
Iranian situation?
My feeling would be that they wouldn't
see much difference. They believe (I believe
Congress) does have the option of
evacuating endangered Americans overseas
as well as endangered troops overseas, could
this possible imply that this option has been
available to Carter all along, or, if not, is
there really a strong inclination to believe
that Carter has violated the War Powers
Act? Further, in any way, can you stipulate if
or how his actions were unconstitutional?
By taking the action and, in a sense, by
getting away with it, in reality there were
really very few cries in Congress raised about
it. It seems to me that the War Powers Act is
dead as an effective means of restraining the
President.
It's also fair to say that the major intent of
the people framing the act was not to prevent
something like Iran but to prevent another
Vietnam. It seems a bit far-fetched to argue
that anything about the Iranian situation is
like Vietnam, but on the other hand, in terms
of violating more or less the letter of the law,
I think you could perhaps make a case for it,
excepting of course where there is very vague
language that says the President will consult
"when possible."
Clearly, in terms of time, it was possible:
this was in the works for months. The line
that Carter's people appeared to be giving
out is on the need for secrecy. Perhaps they
have broadened the definition of "when
possible" in saying it was not possible
because it would have leaked out and
endangered the lives of the American
hostages as well as the rescue team. It's fair
to say that he stretched the meaning of tat
particular phrase far beyond what the
framers intended to give it. It seems,
especially despite all the hearings going on
— and none have emerged on possible War
Powers violations — that Carter has
effectively killed the War Powers Act as a
policy instrument.
The Rice Thresher, May 16, 1980, page 4
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Dees, Richard. The Rice Thresher (Houston, Tex.), Vol. 68, No. 1, Ed. 1 Friday, May 16, 1980, newspaper, May 16, 1980; Houston, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth245441/m1/4/: accessed July 18, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu.; crediting Rice University Woodson Research Center.