CARTER: 1953 Coup Atrocity is "Ancient History"

Jimmy Carter's Failed Presidency Has Roots in 1953

Just as George W. Bush's presidential legacy will forever be dominated by the disastrous Iraq war, the Presidency of Jimmy Carter (D-GA) is most associated with the traumatic, humiliating 444 day hostage crisis in Iran.

Had there been no hostage crisis, Carter may well have been re-elected, and his party may have stayed in power for many more years. In fact, the hostage crisis so consumed him that he refrained from campaigning for a 2nd term to focus on the return of the 52 American prisoners from the U.S. embassy in Tehran.

Instead, Ronald Reagan became President for the next 8 years, and his Vice President, George H.W. Bush, was elected President for one 4 year term. His son George W. Bush served as President from 2001-2008. In total, the 20 years of Reagan/Bush Republican rule may have never happened had it not been for the hostage crisis.

And the hostage crisis never would have happened had it not been for the atrocity of the 1953 CIA coup which overthrew Iran's democratically elected leader, Dr. Mohammad Mossadegh.

As significant as the history is, few people today--and even fewer in 1979--had ever even heard of the 1953 coup. The media hardly mentioned it, and the White House had no interest in raising the subject voluntarily.

During a February 13, 1980 press conference broadcast live on TV at the height of the hostage crisis, in what may have been his only official comment on the subject as President, Jimmy Carter shrunk from a reporter's question about the coup:

Q: You cut me off at the pass. Mr. President, do you think it was proper for the United States to restore the Shah to the throne in 1953 against the popular will within Iran?

PRESIDENT CARTER: That's ancient history, and I don't think it's appropriate or helpful for me to go into the propriety of something that happened 30 years ago.

1) To be more accurate, the coup was 27 years old, not 30.

2) The distance in time between the Iranian hostage crisis of 1979 and today is over 27 years ("ancient history") Yet the U.S. still whines about it...

3) Those who do not heed the lessons of history are doomed to repeat it.