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President Carter's ineffective handling of the Iran Hostage Crisis. U.S. Embassy employees and Marine guards were held hostage for 444 days in Tehran, Iran by Iranian student revolutionaries. When it became clear that President Carter was unable to get the U.S. hostages freed either by negotiation or by force, Carter's credibility and stature in the U.S. and the world took a fatal fall. On the other hand, only months earlier, Texas businessman and millionaire Ross Perot had recruited a team of Special Forces type mercenaries to enter Iran and rescue a number of his employees who had been arrested and held prisoner. The Perot sponsored rescue mission was a success. Carter's attempt at a recue mission was a complete failure. It resulted in the deaths of eight American Serviceman at a desolate patch of desert in Iran, only halfway to Tehran. The team hadn't even reached Tehran. Carter has since been frequently referred to as a weak and ineffective President. Ronald Reagan was viewed as a tough, strong, clear-minded man who could, and would, kick butt and take names. The Iranian revolutionaries apparently shared this view of Ronald Reagan. At virtually the exact same time that Reagan was taking the Oath of Office as the newly elected President, on January 20, 1981, the Iranian revolutionaries were untying the hostages as quickly as humanly possible and pushing them onto jet planes headed for The United States.

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15y ago

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