this post was submitted on 20 Jun 2025
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It was part of an overall plan to commit treason in order to sabotage Carter by preventing the hostages from being released before the election so that Reagan would win.
You're mixing up your Reagan-era Iran scandals.
First, there was the Iran Hostage Crisis, where Iranians stormed the US embassy and took a bunch of hostages in 1979. While I have no doubt there was Republican fuckery going on, Carter really didn't do himself any favors with his handling of that. The hostages were finally released, after more than a year, the day Reagan was inaugurated
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran_hostage_crisis
Iran-Contra was a scandal where the Reagan administration sold arms to Iran (who was fighting Iraq, then an American ally), circumventing Congress. They then gave the money to the Contras, a group of rebels in Nicaragua, again circumventing Congress:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran%E2%80%93Contra_affair
You are correct that part of the goal was to release hostages, but those hostages were taken by the Lebanese well after Reagan's first election.
This reminds me how there’s a world of difference between learning history and living it. In my mind’s eye, I can still see Walter Cronkite saying every evening that it’s the XXXth day of the Iran hostage crisis. And still I remember Ollie North’s trial. There’s no way I’d mix them up.