What if The Iranian Hostage Crisis Happened Today?

"Denver Is Stuck In The 90s" (denver80222)
09/15/2014 at 07:30 • Filed to: Range Rover

In the movie "ARGO" Ben Affleck's character is tasked with extracting 6 escaped American Diplomats from a then hostile Iran. His chosen method of extraction was to pose as a film crew for an upcoming science-fiction film. Before he came to this conclusion while watching "Planet Of The Apes" on Channel 5 in his kitchen, an idea was passed around about riding bicycles to the Iraqi border. While that obviously wouldn't work for numerous reasons, I thought that if they had the advantages of today's technology, a similar plan might work.

My extraction solution is to airdrop six 2014 Land Rover Range Rover Sport Supercharged SUVs into the area. Three just outside Tehran, and Three just inside the Iraqi border. They should be airdropped using the same methods that the US Marine Corps uses to airdrop Humvees. The US Military attaches the vehicles to wooden palates and deploys them from cargo planes with two parachutes attached for a soft landing. In order for this plan to work, Ben Affleck's character would have to lead the six escaped hostages just outside Tehran, where they would retrieve three of the Range Rovers. The 2014 Range Rover Sport Supercharged gets 19-MPG highway and has a 27.7-gallon gas tank. The distance from the outskirts of Tehran to the Iraqi border is 510 miles; they would have just enough gasoline (assuming the tank was full at the start of the journey) to reach Iraq. Just inside the border they would retrieve the second trio of Range Rovers. From there they would drive to the Sulaymaniyah International Airport In Sulaymaniyah, Iraq. They would board a Swiss Air flight to Zurich, Switzerland; from there they would fly to Toronto, Canada. From Toronto they would fly to Washington D.C. where they would be greeted with praise upon their homecoming.

Now, many things can go wrong with this plan. For instance if they got lost on their way from Tehran to Iraq, they would surely run out of gasoline and perish in the desert. Or they may not even make it to the first set of vehicles for they may have been found by the Iranians and destroyed. They may even have been captured on the way to retrieve the first trio of Range Rovers; if they were captured they would probably be tortured and/or killed. Hopefully none of these awful things would happen under this extraction scenario, but there are always risks with this type of thing.

Denver80222 is a college student at the Art Institute of Colorado. He is also an talented artist, you can check out his work here: !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!!

Denver80222 wrote this for his Critical Thinking Class, the assignment was based off the movie Argo.

References:

Photo Credit goes to !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!!

(2014). Land Rover USA . Retrieved from

http://www.landroverusa.com/index.html

United States Marine Corps Department of the Air Force. (2005). Airdrop of Supplies and Equipment: Rigging High-Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicles. C1, FM 4-20.117/MCRP 4-11.3M/TO 13C7-1-111 . Retrieved from !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!!

Affleck, B. (Producer & Director). (2012). Argo [DVD]. United States: Warner Brothers Pictures.

Google. (2014). Google Maps Route Directions From Iran to Iraq . Retrieved from !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!!

DISCUSSION (4)

My citroen won't start > Denver Is Stuck In The 90s
09/15/2014 at 08:15

I would airdrop them 4 BMW 2002ti covered in dust so they would blend in (yes in today's day and age), they would drive to the border and into Iraq, there will be 4 Citroen XM V6 waiting for them at the border, they would drive them into an Antonov already going down the runway. The plane will land in Zurich and they will live there because Switzerland is cool.

DipodomysDeserti > Denver Is Stuck In The 90s
09/15/2014 at 08:21

The current Iraqi government is more of an ally to Iran than the US. They're not going to just let US military use their airports, particularly for an operation against Iran. Food for thought.

The Transporter > DipodomysDeserti
09/15/2014 at 09:10

We could just tell them that we'll stop fighting ISIS if they don't play along.

DipodomysDeserti > The Transporter
09/15/2014 at 09:23

If we were in a situation where Iran was kidnapping our diplomats, it would be in our national interests to let ISIS take over Iraq. We have already supported Sunni terrorists in Iran for decades.