It’s been a year since the sad and chaotic retreat from Kabul. Most Americans have moved on to other crises. As time goes by the events of the last few days before the US backed Kabul government collapsed and the last remnants of US presence in the country were forced to flee for their lives have gone hazy. It was an embarrassing defeat that really no one wants to relive. Yet there are important lessons to be drawn from this experience. As has been said many times “those who do not remember history are doomed to repeat it”. It sounds trite but sadly there is a great deal of truth in the maxim. On the anniversary of the event The House Foreign Affairs Committee Lead Republican Michael McCaul has published an interim report entitled, “A ‘Strategic Failure’: Assessing the Administration’s Afghanistan Withdrawal.” This is a useful but incomplete history of the evacuation and the events leading up to it. It is incomplete because of the administration’s refusal to supply testimony and documentation of these events, particularly from the State Department. Nevertheless, by interviewing many of the participants and reviewing available documentation and reporting at the time valuable insight if not a full explanation of the actions of the principles involved can be gained.
I talked about history repeating itself. I was in Tehran when the Shah’s government collapsed, and thousands of Americans were stranded in a once friendly and now hostile country. This happened over the course of only a few days and, like in Kabul, our government was caught without an evacuation plan amidst chaos. I remember the day the troops guarding the Embassy compound turned their guns around and now were virtually imprisoning us instead of guarding us. I say we were without an evacuation plan, that strictly wasn’t true. It was a thick ring binder with at least the outline of a plan. The only problem with it was that it was hopelessly and dangerously out of date and useless. I remember being in the secure conference room discussing the plan. I said to the deputy chief of mission (the Ambassador was not present) “what are we going to do now that the evacuation plan which relied on the support and cooperation of the Iranian military and police to help us get out is no longer viable? Are we going to update the plan?” The chargé looked me in the eye and said “no”. I think at this point he was suffering from a nervous breakdown. It’s not unusual for someone to smoke an unlit cigarette as he was attempting to do but he was actually attempting to flick off ashes from his unlit cigarette!
Within a few days the Embassy was overrun. Several attackers were wounded, two marines injured, and several local staff killed or wounded. I am not talking about the November take over I am talking about the February 14 event of the same year that was actually far more violent. It’s an event that most Americans don’t remember and is oddly poorly documented. I suspect that it isn’t remember even by history junkies because if the lessons of that day would have been headed the later in the year event would not have occurred. Also, on the same day, Amb Dubbs in Kabul was killed.
There was no serious evacuation plan because the USG could not conceive the Shah’s government would collapse so quickly and completely. Government officials probably thought that the billions of dollars in weapons and training given or sold to the Iranian forces would produce a military that would stay loyal and withstand political disturbances (sound familiar?) At that time there simply wasn’t sufficient force in the region to provide immediate support in any case—because no one in “management” could imagine the disaster to come. Furthermore, the State Department and Embassy kept issuing soothing reports that everything would work out OK or at least transfer of power to a post Shah government would be fairly smooth. In addition, Amb. Bill Sullivan was violently against withdrawing Embassy family members and “nonessential” staff from the country because he believed it would weaken support for the Shah’s government, almost word for word what Amb. Wilson said about Afghanistan. How violently was he against withdrawing dependents? (at least). When a high-ranking member of his staff sent his wife out of the country on his own initiative, Amb. Sullivan in an open country team meeting called him “a yellow-bellied coward”. At that exact moment the acrid smell of burning tires drifted into the well-insulated classified conference room. An embassy staff car had been attacked and set on fire at the gate. Amb. Sullivan was a veteran diplomat. He had already “lost” one embassy in Laos, and I assume he was dead set against loosing another. He had a commanding presence. His country team was totally cowed to the point he could make grown men tremble by simply calling on them at a meeting. No one was going to argue with him.
Meanwhile it was clear to most of the staff on the ground that things were coming to an ugly end. To me the final demonstration that the Shah was finished was when the airport which was full of desperate people trying to get out were told over the loudspeaker that no plane was flying because the pilots were going on strike to support the revolution and the hot tired people in the airport began to cheer.
In the final days of the Shah’s regime there was a strict curfew. In response, people went to the roofs of their apartments and houses and chanted all night, “death to the Shah, death to America”. Not a good lullaby to fall asleep to. I felt as if I was in the Colosseum with 50,000 people screaming death to me, death to me for hours on end. Electricity was cut off from the consulate only a block or two from the Embassy. It was cold and we were working by candlelight using manual typewriters which luckily had been put in storage and not yet disposed of when the electric ones came into use. Everyday I was driven to work with an armed guard using a different route and at varying times. That was when times were good. Several Embassy employees had been assassinated in the prior year. One day, on the way home I noticed that my driver was sweating like someone had poured a bucket of water over his head. I said, “Ali, what’s the matter? Traffic is light today” He said it was exactly like the day he was driving two US military attaches to work when the car was forced to stop and the two officers were shot and killed. Ali said that some of the brains of one of the men struck him on the back of his neck. I said “oh, I now understand!” Another Embassy staff member, a local, was shot and killed walking the short distance between the consulate and Embassy. I carried a gun when I walked the same route between the two locations.
I was in Tehran for a year and with one or two small exceptions I only saw the Embassy, the commissary, and my apartment. I never saw the famous rug market nor the crown jewels. Too unsafe. Riots were breaking out all over the city and as things got worse police and soldiers began to fire directly into the crowds. There is a famous picture published by the English language Kayhan newspaper showing bodies piled several feet high after one such massacre. All the while nothing was being done to prepare for an evacuation. All the while soothing words were coming from the Embassy and Washington. Sounds familiar?
Fighting closed in on the consulate. There was a huge line of desperate people trying to get visas for the States. The line went around the block. Whenever the shooting started around the Consulate the crowd would scatter and as soon as the shooting stopped it would reappear as if by magic. It was a precursor to the scene at Kabul airport. Finally, the Consulate was forced to close. It was basically a store front operation with no wall around it and no possibility of securing a perimeter. I was basically out of a job. I would drive myself to the Embassy (the guards that used to accompany me had fled) In any case Embassy vehicles were easy targets. I was able to drive to the Embassy because my landlord found a set of local plates for my car, so I was able to ditch the US diplomatic ones. This enabled me to blend in with local traffic. I had no job, but I helped out as much as possible.
On the day of the takeover, I was still in bed when I received a phone call from a colleague who was at the Embassy. He said, “don’t come in, they’re shooting at us”. I wasn’t overly concerned because they were always shooting around the Embassy. What I didn’t realize was that he was under a desk with bullets coming in thick and fast. I got up out of bed and walked to my small balcony. I could hear increasingly heavy shooting coming from the direction of the Embassy which was about a mile from my apartment. Then it got very loud with machineguns joining the heavy rife fire. I will skip over my adventures over the next few hours, days, and weeks. That’s a good story for another day.
The Ambassador at the Embassy told the Marines to use tear gas only as the building was stormed. Faced with overwhelming odds, no prospect of relief, and conscious that any further attempt at self-defense would lead to many casualties on both sides before inevitable defeat, the Ambassador ordered the Marines to put down their arms and the entire mission surrendered. The gunmen were one of many self-generated rebel groups. In the early chaos of the revolution the interim government had only a tenuous control of these groups. The rebels were intent on lining up the Embassy staff against a wall and shooting them. Fortunately, the new acting Foreign Minister Yazdi arrived by taxi and told the rebels that it was a bad idea to execute the Embassy staff. After an argument Yazdi prevailed and the staff was simply held under house arrest at the mission. It was a close-run escape. From a distance, when the shooting stopped, I could only imagine that everyone was dead given the intensity of the shooting. No one answered the Embassy phone, and I didn’t have a radio. My heart sank and I felt horribly isolated and vulnerable. It was a day or two before I heard by phone from another colleague outside of the Embassy compound who did have a radio what had happened. After about a week alone in my apartment I was called to work to help the thousands of American citizens who had been living and working in Iran get out. Not only was I a consular officer but I spoke fluent Farsi and was able to interface with members of the new regime. A car came to my apartment with several of the gunman. They took me to the Hotel Hilton which was one of the evacuation points. I then worked my first 24-hour workday and continued to work for several weeks until the backlog of evacuees had been cleared. I was then able to evacuate myself.
Meanwhile back at the Embassy the gunmen were free to roam wherever they wanted. The building was thoroughly looted. All unburned classified communications were seized. Even the contents of the shredders were confiscated, and secret messages painfully reassembled over the next few years. I took a brief tour of the mission at that point. I had to wear a gas mask to do so as the building still reeked of tear gas. Every piece of furniture was overturned and smashed. Windows were shot out and there was no heat or power. What work that was being done was happening at some of the various outbuildings that were not damaged. Some of the consular officers working there were forced at gunpoint to issue visas for friends and families of the gunmen. There was zero security at the mission. To be crude but make a point there was nothing stopping the gunman from filming the Ambassador on the toilet if they chose to do so.
When I got back to Washington, I was astounded to hear that officials thought that conditions at the Embassy were returning to normal and that relations with the new government were improving daily. Nothing could be further from the truth. I ran into a senior officer that I knew slightly. He said that he was glad things were going so well in Tehran. It was if someone had punched me in the gut. I went to see my old Foreign Service Institute teacher and found him teaching a new class of students. Naturally they were interested in my fresh from Tehran observations. To be polite I told them that it was a very bad idea to go there. One bright young man said, “they promised all our wives jobs there”. I said, “If you love your wife, you won’t let her go there”. Another asked “what kind of car should I bring to Iran?” I pulled the key of my new Buick out of my pocket and said, “Here’s the key to my car. It’s sitting in the Embassy parking lot with a few dozen more. Take your pick”. They had no idea what they were getting into. No one told them the true state of affairs there. Despite my warning they were reassured by the Iran country desk officer that things were fine. All went and were either captured in the November takeover, the one everybody remembers, or escaped with the help of the Canadian Embassy and the CIA. I often wonder if they remembered my warning.
Finally, I and a dozen of the recent evacuees met with the Secretary of State, Cyrus Vance. Let me assure the reader the average junior officer never has a chance to meet informally with the Secretary of State. He thanked us all for our service and asked if we had any questions. I asked the Secretary “why were we still there?” I said, “we didn’t have an Embassy, that it was a low security prison.” Pretty bold stuff for one so junior but that’s my personality and I believe I was suffering from PTSD. He deflected my question and that was that. He, the State Department brass, and the administration could not believe that all the money spent and all the high expectations for a US Iranian relationship were gone. Totally gone. They had too much invested in what they thought the relationship was and couldn’t see that it wasn’t what they thought it was and in any case that mirage was gone. I expect many in the Biden administration had no idea what the state of the Afghan psychic was and how shallow the roots of their new Westernized ally were.
I have some thoughts on how to combat the delusional thinking that characterized the Iranian and Afghan debacles but that should be the topic of another paper. Just as a start we really have an image of ourselves as not only omnipotent, but always morally in the right. We need to see ourselves in a more realistic light and be more humble. I don’t know if we can do that.
I’ve left out as much of my own personal experience of these events as I could. It’s an interesting story that I will relate in a future writing.