Let's play a game...

We'll call it the "Foreign Policy Game", okay? Here's how we'll play:

On this day, in 1981, 52 Americans were released from 444 days of forced captivity in Iran. Let's see what each of us would have tried to do, had WE been in the White House at the time of the crisis and not James Earl Carter. Here's the rules...

We can only assume to "use" technology and resources available to the President at the time of the crisis. Thus, because "smart-bomb" technology was in its infancy, we cannot advocate the surgical removal of specific targets by single-plane attacks that we don't KNOW (empirically speaking, that is) were a resource of the administration and the military in 1980.

We can assume that the President of the United States had far more information available to him THEN than anything available to the public or media THEN, so let's feel free to make assumptions based on information available only NOW. Example: Iraq hadn't invaded Iran at the time of the hostage taking, but the signs were there for months prior to the actual invasion. We should not hesitate to employ the information we have now concerning the state of international affairs, simply because it hadn't happened yet. In short... play the Monday-morning quarterback to your heart's content.

I would ask that any assumptions on international assistance or good-will be backed with evidence of same. While it might be safe to take for granted the good-will and assistance of the UK during the crisis, would unilateral carpet-bombing of Tehran (if that is our determined course of action in this study) by the US be supported by West Germany, or France? Or even the UK? If you assume it to be so, then be ready to support the assumption is all I ask.

The reason for this little intellectual exercises?

Ryan got me thinking through the post concerning his "boner-inducing" encounter with Slick Willy Clinton outside the EDR, and his comment that had Carter been there instead, he wouldn't have walked 10 feet to shake his hand. Ryan's contempt for the former CIC is well known, of course... for his conduct while President as much as for his conduct after. My position has always been that, while Carter has the legacy of failed policy covering his term from start to finish, his abilities as a President were at least AS scrupulous and honest as anything Bill Clinton managed to accomplish in his TWO terms, if not abundantly MORE SO. To hold such contempt for the man and his legacy as PotUS, while allowing for the determined dishonesty of another's is contradictory at best.

So, what would YOU (read any of us) have done differently?

Let's hear it.