Rusty at My Pet Jawa noticed an anniversary that escaped my notice -- twenty-five years ago, Islamic revolutionaries in Iran commandeered our embassy in Teheran and took dozens of Americans hostage. This act of war went without effective response from the USA and set the stage for our present war against Islamist terrorism. Indeed, it informs our present muscular foreign policy so much that this could be considered an anniversary of the Bush Doctrine.

Rusty writes:

Like the English before us, America found itself in the position of standing between the Iranian revolutionaries and their vision of the global caliphate. The US became the 'Great Satan', the obstacle, the one nation with the power to stall the inevitable coming of Sharia law to all Muslim nations (and eventually beyond). So, the jihadis declared war on that day. Their war aims were simply stated and straightforward--weaken American resolve so that jihad could spread unchecked throughout the Islamic world from Morocco to Indonesia. Unlike the English before us, America retreated, only fighting the jihadis through our proxies and never fully aware of the dangers of this cancerous ideology. We had bigger fish to fry. The Cold War seemed much more imminent and the stakes certainly were much higher. We slept.

September 11th may have awakened us to the fact that we were at war, but that war had been declared long ago. It was declared 25 years ago today by the extremists in Iran. Today, the Islamic Republic of Iran is seeking nuclear technology--technology that could lead to the development of nuclear weapons--and the Europeans have taken the Carter route in dealing with the mullahs. For each concession given to them by the Europeans, the jihadis in Iran see Western weakness. They saw this weakness in the US as we gave them cash in exchange for the hostages. They saw this weakness as Reagan retreated from Lebanon. We can bear to show them weakness no more.

When the Iranians overran the embassy, I was sixteen years old and in my senior year of high school, and even I understood that the sacking of an embassy constituted an act of war. At first the mullahcracy kept the facade of blaming it on overexuberant students, but when it became apparent that the Carter administration would take no action in response to the provocation except file diplomatic protests, the government explicitly took over the siege and the hostages themselves. It may have been no coincidence that two short months later, the Soviets invaded Afghanistan, secure in the knowledge that Carter was incapable of opposing them militarily.

Teheran became a symbol of retreat and humiliation for the United States, and after a decade of quasi-socialist meddling with the economy and two big shocks of oil shortages had left our economy ruined, Americans had had enough. When Carter came on television to lecture the country that America was not special -- the infamous "malaise" speech -- we were ready to throw off the stultifying so-called leadership of the Left and allow real conservatives a shot at running the country.

Since then, it hasn't been all smooth, especially in regard to radical Islamofascism. Reagan's mere presence got the hostages released from Iran, but he wavered on Islamist terror, cutting deals with the Iranian mullahcracy to free more hostages in Lebanon but leaving us looking weak and inviting further attacks. Those came in a rush during the 1990s, and we alternately treated them as crimes or ignored them altogether. It took us 22 years and a catastrophic attack that left 3,000 Americans dead before we finally learned the lesson of Teheran: the Islamofascists are at war with us whether we recognize it or ignore it, and ignoring it just increases the scale of murder.

We're awake now, and the election proves that Americans still recognize the danger of this war and the need to prosecute it on the offensive rather than the defensive. Too bad we didn't learn it 25 years ago when we could have stopped it in its tracks.

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» 25th Anniversary of the Iran Hostage Crisis from InTheBullpen.com
We must remember that it was appeasement that helped start what we know today as terrorism. Unfortunately, President Carter’s ways of complete disregard for the reigning party of Iran gave way to the Mullahs that are still in power. A once pro-Western ... [Read More]

Tracked on November 5, 2004 2:18 AM

» Daily Dish from The Cool Blue Blog
It's the 25th Anniversary of the war on Islamic Fascism. As I noted here, the Carter approach doesn't work. Joan Baez is herself a metaphor for the Democratic Party and Instapundit chronicles events similar to what I witnessed in New [Read More]

Tracked on November 5, 2004 6:40 AM

» Anniversary from Professor Chaos
Today marks the 25th anniversary of the Islamist war against America ... [Read More]

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» A 25 Year Anniversary from Cranial Cavity
25 years ago today the war on terror began in Iran. The hostages that were taken by the Mullahs and Islamofascists remember it well.In the minds of many, terrorists struck their first blow against the United States on Sept. 11, 2001. But others look ba... [Read More]

Tracked on November 5, 2004 2:08 PM