AMERICAN HISTORY

American History

American History

Introduction and History

This paper highlights one of the most important events in the American history after 1976. For this paper, I have selected the topic of Iran Hostage Crisis.

Events following the forceful takeover of the American Embassy in Tehran, Iran, in November 1979, by a group of radical students. Sixty-six American citizens were captured during the takeover, and 52 of them were held hostage for more than a year.

Coming in the wake of the 1978 Islamic revolution that replaced Iran's ruler, Mohammed Reza Shah Pahlavi, with religious fundamentalist Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the hostage crisis was the most dramatic expression of the decidedly tense relations between the United States (which had supported the shah) and Iran's new rulers. Originally intended to last for only three days (according to one of the captors), the 444-day-long hostage situation deeply affected both the Iranian political scene (where a host of post revolution figures were vying for power) and that of the United States (where President Jimmy Carter is said to have lost his 1980 reelection campaign in part because of his treatment of the crisis) (Assersohn, 2005).

For many decades before the Islamic revolution, the United States and Iran had enjoyed a particularly close relationship. The shah of Iran provided the Americans with a steady supply of oil, receiving substantial economic and military aid in return. In 1963, Iran embarked on the White Revolution, which was designed to modernize the country rapidly. The shah's reforms, however, drew heavy criticism from conservative quarters, particularly from Ayatollah Khomeini's Islamic clerics.

Desperate Times

As the crisis dragged on, the administration called on the military. The United States launched a failed airborne commando raid called Operation Eagle Claw in April 1980 that ended in disaster after a rescue plane and a helicopter collided during a sandstorm in the Iranian desert. Eight people were killed in the accident. Without enough spare helicopters to continue, mission leader Army Col. Charles Beckwith aborted the mission. The hostages later told the press that their treatment worsened thereafter (Holt, 2001).

President Carter took full responsibility for the disastrous attempt; Secretary of State Cyrus Vance, who had opposed the mission, resigned in its wake. Beckwith wrote in his memoirs that he had recurring nightmares after the failed mission.

In Iran, hard-line anti-Western clerics gained influence over moderates during the hostage crisis and justified the situation by documenting what they saw as U.S. actions hostile to Iran. The students who had captured the embassy published classified documents that revealed U.S. intelligence activities in Iran.

In 1980, the Shah died in exile in Egypt. After Iraq invaded Iran in September 1980, starting the eight-year Iran-Iraq War, the Iranian government became more receptive to resolving the hostage situation. The United States had broken diplomatic ties with Iran because of the ongoing crisis; negotiations for release were brokered through Algeria. Iran demanded $24 billion in exchange for the hostages' release, later dropping that figure to $20 billion, and then $8 billion (McManus, 2000).

Negotiations

Sixty-six Americans were originally taken captive in the seizure of ...