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Originally Posted by RIJIMMY
Or, if under Carter, we utterly destroyed them when they took AMericans Hostage on American soil? I think alot of things would be different, and honestly better for AMerica if we did.
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We didn't have the military capacity under Carter to utterly destroy them, short of going nuclear. Khomeini had yet to begin purging the Shah's military leadership. Iran's military was still pretty formidable and was equipped with advanced American hardware. Heck, even after most of their leading generals had been liquidated, they were still able to fight Iraq to a standstill.
Plus, without a nearby staging base, where would we have assembled the necessary couple hundred thousand troops and the required equipment to wage an invasion of Iran? Iran is a totally land-locked country, and at the time was surrounded by countries that were hostile to the US.
Remember, we were about 5 years removed from Vietnam, and the country as a whole didn't have the stomach for an all-out war, even if we had the capability to wage one.