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Mission 8 - Tactical Considerations
Iran Hostage Rescue Mission Part 2

Hostage Rescue 101 | Facing the Iran Threat

Robert Baer was a case officer for the CIA's Clandestine Services between 1976 and 1997, specializing in the Middle East and Central Asia. He is the author of Sleeping with the Devil: How Washington Sold Our Soul for Saudi Crude. We asked him a common question among analysts: For the past four administrations, why didn't the United States ever face the threat that Iran posed to our interests in the Middle East?

You fight the wars you can. And Iran was too hard.

First of all, we were scared of Iran. Iran had the ability to upset the Gulf - destabilize it with their navy - and basically cut off gasoline to us. It also had a formidable army. And we always assumed they were crazy. What were they going to do? Start hijacking planes into Beirut and shooting the passengers? We didn't know.

Plus, attacking Iran would be a logistical nightmare. It would have been an expensive, long-term war - you'd have to occupy the country. It would have been harder than going after Saddam.

And there were always people in Washington who really believed there was an opposition in Iran we could appease and bring around. This goes back to the Reagan administration, and it had a lot to do with Israel. The Israelis always had the view that Iran was a good counter-weight to Arab nationalists like Saddam and Assad - who were their real enemy. They always wanted to leave the door open to dealing with Iran.

Now, Iran worked with Syrian and Lebanese groups. The Syrians could enlist Iran to get free oil and use the Pasdaran, the Iranian intelligence service, to run terrorist operations against us. But we always thought that was an anomaly. Eventually, the idea was, you could bring a Shah-type person back, a secular leader who could stop the Iranians from supporting terrorists.

It was wrong, but that's what happens in Washington. There's a herd mentality. Everybody goes to the same conferences. They trot out people who know next to nothing about the subject. And for a long time there was this view in DC circles that we could deal with the Iranians eventually.

Now, in Iraq, the Pasdaran are everywhere. They want to take advantage of the instability there. Will the Student Democracy movements be able to topple the regime? I really don't know. But it's a complicated situation, and there are no easy solutions.