Iranian politics were even stranger. The Ayatolla khomeini was convinced that Jimmy Carter was actually a communist because the FBI did not arrest Iranian communist party Tudeh party members in the US who had organized so many Tudeh party Persian student groups at US universities. He actually thought that Jimmy Carter's human rights campaign was a US plot to give cover for the Tudeh party to subvert Iranians. Obviously Carter was not a red but the Ayatollah was convinced that he was.  And that is the main reason why Iran waited to gave the known anti communist Reagan the hostages back instead of Carter. As someone who was experienced at instigating fights between Khomeini, Tudeh and Iranian Trotskyite fedayeen groups, I had a first hand view of it.