Iran may be on the verge of gaining devastating leverage over President Donald Trump as the search for a missing American pilot entered its second day Saturday — drawing dark parallels to a hostage crisis that analysts warn could define his presidency the way the 1979 crisis defined Jimmy Carter's.
Iranian state media has already broadcast calls for residents to capture the "enemy's pilot or pilots" and turn them over alive to security forces for a reward. A Black Hawk helicopter involved in the search was hit by ground fire on Friday. A second American aircraft, an A-10 Warthog, crashed in the Persian Gulf region, though its pilot was rescued.
Experts told Yeganeh Torbati of The New York Times that Trump will face an unthinkable choice if Iran captures the missing airman.
"They really do want to present this image of victory and also to humiliate Trump,” said Hamidreza Azizi, an Iran security expert at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs.
Iran would likely parade the captured pilot on camera rather than negotiate privately, maximizing propaganda value while extracting concessions behind the scenes, wrote Torbati.
Trump himself repeatedly called Jimmy Carter's handling of the hostage crisis "pathetic," but may be staring down a version of his own.
"A U.S. hostage in Iran would likely compound the existing skepticism among Americans about this war and complicate Trump’s already unappealing options for ending the US military operations in Iran," Brookings Institution vice president Suzanne Maloney warned.
The analysis comes as Iran's parliament speaker taunted Washington on social media Friday: "Hey! Can anyone find our pilots? Please?"
