The Siege of Mecca: The 1979 Uprising at Islam's Holiest Shrine by Yaroslav Trofimov

Author:Yaroslav Trofimov
Language: eng
Format: mobi
ISBN: 9780307472908
Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Published: 2008-09-09T00:00:00+00:00

The American hostages’ fate, as well as the ramifications of Islamist violence that now infected Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, monopolized President Carter’s attention. At eight a.m. Eastern time on Friday, November 23, the morning after Thanksgiving, the president greeted his senior advisers—Brzezinski, Vice President Mondale, Secretary of State Vance, Defense Secretary Brown, and the CIA director, Stansfield Turner—at the Camp David helipad. Then they all retreated to the red-brick Laurel Lodge for a two-hour debate.

Just as at the National Security Council gathering three days earlier, the continuing standoff in Mecca was still seen by top administration officials as a “data point” in America’s escalating confrontation with Iran. Despite well-informed cables from Ambassador West in Jeddah, the assumption that Shiite militants were involved one way or another still held. The CIA added to this mistaken perception, warning in a memo that Khomeini was “seeking to exploit the situation at the expense of the U.S.” and that Iran had started broadcasting the ayatollah’s inflammatory speeches in Arabic to Saudi Arabia’s Shiite minority.

From Tehran, the American chargé d’affaires, Bruce Laingen—who continued to hide in the Iranian Foreign Ministry building—had managed to pass a confidential message to Vance the previous night. Laingen’s language betrayed the stress of recent days. “The public atmosphere here is one of dangerous emotional frenzy,” Laingen reported. “Khomeini and his entourage of clerics have skillfully used the seizure of our embassy…to develop a mass psychology of hate that may have few parallels in history.”

With American lives now lost to Khomeini-sponsored hysteria over the Mecca upheaval in Pakistan, and with American hostages in Tehran facing trials and possible execution, President Carter asked administration officials gathered in Camp David to explore America’s options. “The violence in Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, on the heels of Khomeini’s statements about trials and punishment for our hostages, were grave threats to world peace,” the president later described his thoughts.

Hawks, led by Brzezinski, believed it was time to prepare for action—blockading Iranian trade, bombing the Abadan oil terminals, or maybe even seizing an Iranian island. They brought along aerial photographs of Iranian refineries and other strategic targets. Carter, a retired U.S. Navy lieutenant, pored over these pictures, scrutinized maps and charts of coastal waters, and suggested mining the entrances to all Iranian seaports. Mondale and Vance disagreed, insisting on a softer approach. The secretary of state—who believed that it was still possible to reason with Khomeini—opposed any public threats to Iran and even objected to Carter’s suggestion to expel Iranian diplomats.

Carter, as he usually did in the early stages of the Tehran hostage crisis, followed Vance’s advice. Later that day, the president sent to Iran a stern—but confidential—message via several allied governments. He warned Khomeini that the United States would blockade Iran if American hostages were put on trial, and retaliate militarily if they were harmed. Iranian diplomats were allowed to remain undisturbed in the United States.

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