There was nothing inevitable about the fall of Iran into the hands of the Islamofascists. In fact, the formidable Iranian military, which we had trained (one of our instructors of their officer corps there in the 1970s was Norman Schwartzkopf), was eager to work with us to create a successor regime to the failing Shah, but Carter recoiled from the necessity of imposing martial law to do so. Our failure to do so led to the loss of morale among the Iranian officer corps, such that they stayed neutral in the power struggle that commenced when the Shah left the country. Big mistake; one of ths first things Khomenine didn upon taking power was to execute most of the officer corps. Those lucky enough to escape finished out their lives as taxi drivers in New York and Washington.

In retrospect, the fall of Iran may have been the single greatest foreign policy blunder of the last 50 years, not excepting Vietnam. Had Iran not become a bastion of international terror, it is unlikely we would be where we are today. Rather than feel sorry for Carter, we should impeach him retrospectively.