The Bush administration has given Iran notice that its elite Revolutionary Guard Corps will be named a “specially designated global terrorist” group. This will give Washington the leeway to take aim at the group’s billions of dollars of business and personal finances and business ventures worldwide. This is the first time that the United States will have singled out a nation’s army. How will President George W. Bush’s call for sanctions compare to the sanctions against Iran during the presidency of James Earl Carter?

 

Iran was an early bone of contention for newly-elected president Carter. In truth, Carter’s transition team asked for an in-depth report on Iran even before he assumed the reigns of government. In re-evaluating the Carter presidency, J. Dumbrell wrote that Walter Mondale and his aide, David Aaron, had links to the Iranian resistance based in the U.S. They were persuaded that the Shah was not entitled to rule Iran, and determined he needed to be restrained. Others in Mondale’s periphery simply wanted the ruler removed from the throne.

According to Congressman David Bower, “… opportunists in the State Department were trying to out-Carter.” Once in office, the 39th president’s liberal left supporters felt justified in redoubling efforts to remove the Shah from the Peacock Throne. President Carter was to learn the hard way that the successful removal of the Shah would result in a political firestorm that would overtake his administration and result in an ignominious defeat of Carter’s run for a second term.

 

On Nov. 4, 1979, while the American public stood by watching in horror, a group of student dissidents who had adopted the moniker “Imam’s Disciples” entered the U.S. Embassy in Tehran with little resistance. The Embassy was ransacked and 66 diplomats and employees taken hostage. Fourteen hostages were later released, but the remaining 52 were held at various locations in Iran for 444 days. 

 

On Nov. 14, 1979, Carter signed Executive Order 12170 in which he, as President, found “the situation in Iran …an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security, foreign policy, and economy of the United States” and declared “a national emergency to deal with that threat.” Carter’s Executive order “blocked all property and interests in property of the government of Iran…”

 

As public support and sympathy for Carter waned, he remained indecisive on how to handle the hostage crisis. Not only were Americans being held hostage in Iran, they were being held hostage at home to double-digit inflation that had crept steadily upward from the 6 percent when Carter took office to over 12 percent in 1980. Carter’s economic policies were plagued by high unemployment, historical escalating interest rates (prime reached 21.5 percent in December 1980), and an ever-growing dependence on foreign oil. 

 

Negotiations, both overt and covert, were not productive and there were no indications that the captors were relenting. Finally in April 1980, Carter approved a risky rescue mission. The plan was doomed almost from the start. Three of the helicopters vital to the plan malfunctioned; eight servicemen lost their lives and three were wounded when on take-off their chopper crashed into a C-130 transport plane. The aborted attempt only added fuel, and video footage, to the Iranians’ gleeful assertion that the country Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini had dubbed “the Great Satan” was impotent; a toothless tiger.

 

When it became evident that Ronald Reagan would ride into the White House on a wave of discontent with Carter, the Carter administration entered into negotiations with the Iranians to release assets frozen by Executive Order 12170 following the taking of the hostages. Warren Christopher and a small contingent of State and Treasury Department officials flew to Algiers for face-to-face negotiations with an Algerian team representing the Khomeini regime. 

 

When a final agreement had been reached, the Carter administration had relinquished $7.977 billion to the Iranians. According to one source, the transfer required fourteen banks and the participation of five nations acting concurrently. Although negotiations continued into the wee hours of Jan. 20, 1980, Carter’s efforts to secure the release of the hostages on his watch remained fruitless. 

 

In view of the results of the Carter sanctions against Iran, the question now becomes: Will President Bush’s outlined sanctions against the Revolutionary Guard be an effective deterrent? The Guard is ingrained in Iranian society. According to numerous reports, the Revolutionary Guard is involved in pharmaceuticals, oil, smuggling, training terrorists, providing IEDs and rockets to Iraqi insurgent groups, as well as to Hezbollah and HAMAS, and in Iran’s ever-growing nuclear program. Members of the Revolutionary Guard have been spotted at various training camps south of Baghdad. 

 

Sanctions against what has been called a “radical state within Iran’s Islamic state” would only be as successful as the support of U.S. allies worldwide. Fear of retaliation by the Revolutionary Guard, and fear that the U.S. will, indeed, declare war on the global terrorists that currently plague operations in Iraq, will keep many European allies at bay. Oil prices vary daily, depending on the latest news out of the Middle East; nations of the world appear to stand by doing no more than hand-wringing as Iran pursues its determined course of nuclear proliferation. In the end, will there be more similarities between the Bush and Carter White House than either man ever dreamed?