It was plain and simple. When the Iranians took the Americans hostage, there was no ready made plan for such a contingency. Virtually all our planning revolved around how to win a war with the former Soviet Union. I can even recall the CNO coming aboard my US Navy ship back in the 70's and stating that it would take about 28 minutes to destroy the entire Soviet Navy if war were to occur. Knowing that both countries had balastic missles, talk like that scared the Hell o...