Carter shuts down oil imports from Iran
On this day in 1979 President Jimmy Carter responds to a potential threat to national security by stopping the importation of petroleum from Iran.Earlier that month on November 4 66 Americans at the U.S.Embassy in Tehran had been taken hostage by a radical Islamic group.The alarming event led Carter and his advisors to wonder if the same or other terrorist groups would try to strike at American oil resources in the region.
At the time the U.S.depended heavily on Iran for crude oil and Carters cultivation of a relationship with Irans recently deposed shah gave the radicals cause in their view to take the Americans hostage.Not knowing if future attacks were planned involving American oil tankers or refineries Carter agreed with the Treasury and Energy Departments that oil imports from Iran should be discontinued immediately.
This ended Americas formerly friendly association with the oil-rich nation.The U.S.and Iran had previously enjoyed a healthy diplomatic relationship Carter had even enlisted the Iranian Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavis help in reconvening peace talks between Israel and Egypt.Carter also sought Irans help in supporting nuclear non-proliferation talks with the Soviet Union.
Carter and the shah affirmed their desire to collaborate on alternative energy and oil conservation.He even once toasted Iran under the shah as an island of stability in the Middle East.While Carter and the shah planned closer collaboration on energy issues and the Middle East peace process an Islamic revolution was brewing in Iran.The shah who was reviled by the revolutionaries as catering to evil Western influences was deposed in January 1979 and replaced by a clerical regime led by the Ayatollah Khomeini.
In October 1979 the exiled shah came to the United States for cancer treatment.Carters hospitality toward the shah enraged the group of radical Iranian students who on November 4 stormed the U.S.Embassy in Tehran and took 66 Americans hostage.The ensuing hostage crisis which lasted 444 days eroded Carters popularity and he lost his bid for re-election to Republican Ronald Reagan.
Reagan went on to serve as president from 1980 to 1988.
