Above photo showing pro-government demonstrators on Thursday in Tehran marking the 31st anniversary of the takeover of the US Embassy and taking US diplomats and Embassy staff hostage for 444 days. The crowd displays the slogan of “Death to America.”
Uskowi: The mere “celebration” of the darkest days in the Iranian diplomacy shows the government’s continued pride in the unlawful acts of taking the accredited diplomats hostage. The Islamic Republic could have easily ended the “independent” act of the Students Following the Imam’s Line by expelling the “students” from the Embassy and freeing the hostages within hours of the Embassy takeover. Yet it saw if fit to become a hostage taker itself and keep the hostages for 444 days. The decision was the first of many foreign policy initiatives by the Islamic Republic against the norms of international behavior, which eventually worked against the national interests of Iran.
This blogger was publishing Neday-e Azadi, a daily newspaper in the first year of the new Islamic Republic. A newly created revolutionary “court” ordered our paper closed, along with other independent publications, days prior to the embassy takeover. It was not clear to us if the closing of the independent papers was a pre-emptive act to silence opposition to the takeover. But at a minimum it was the beginning of a calculated push by the rightist and fundamentalist elements within the new republic to get away with the non-conformists, ending in the embassy takeover and the fall of the Bazargan government.
In the next 31 years, the circles of non-conformists, as defined by the rightists and fundamentalists, grew larger by the year, highlighting in designation of Mir Hossein Mousavi, the wartime prime minister of the Islamic Republic, as an anti-revolutionary and anti-Islamic Republic agent. And such is the power and ruthlessness of the right, which on that fateful day on 3 November 1979 led to the hostage crisis.
Photo: By Amir Pormand, ISNA. Tehran, 3 November 2010
10 comments:
If the stupid Shah had not assasinated Dr Shariati, just before the revolution, he would have become the first Iranian President instead of that wimp Banisadr.
Shariati would never have allowed a thing like embassy take over or alianation of the left is in Iran.
A war would probably also have never taken place..
actually everything that happened is shahs fault.:)
Illuminati
Somebody has been reading my blog.
http://persicus-maximus.blogspot.com/2009/09/dr-ali-shariati.html
Keep it up Sir.
Everything has costs and benefits.
In this case, this action bought immense goodwill towards Iran in the third world. I was travelling in Southeast Asia shortly after this event, and people on the street (taxi drivers, in eateries, ...) were uniformely amazed at a) the courage of the Iranian people and Iranian government, and b) the inability of the US to do anything about it. On more than one occasion these service providers adamantly refused to take my money. One had a small photo of Ayatollah Khomeini in his wallet!
This action will go down in history as among the first that cracked the myth of US hegemony and power in the middle east.
No doubt Iran paid dearly for it, but at the time, as an Iranian living in Tehran all I felt was a rush of pride and power; that we had finally given back to the Americans what they did to us with Mossadegh in 1953. This feeling became even stronger after the failed hostage rescue attempt. We were on top of the world, and the world was in awe of our bravery.
This article is the reason why I have this website on the top of my list of “must read” blogs after a hard day at work. Glad to have accidentally stumbled upon your blog while googling on something completely different! Great read Nader, you are the cyber guardian of honest journalism. Keep up the good work.
Well, the truth is that Carter was a wimp and Iran knew this, in fact he's still a wimp and he almost single handedly killed the American economy while in office. He couldn't even successfully go over and rescue our innocent hostages from your terrorist kidnappers. The fact is when Reagan was elected the Iranian regime knew that he would have kicked the shit out of them so they freed everyone the day before he got into office. The Iranian regime and Amadinejad in particular are still a bunch of wimps who hide behind terrorist organizations to do their dirty work for them.
reader,
Thank you so much for your kind words.
Hi i've been reading this site for almost 2 years now all what I see or read I found them very interesting & useful keep it up & more grease to ur elbow
In response to Anonymous:
The fact is when Reagan was elected the Iranian regime knew that he would have kicked the shit out of them so they freed everyone the day before he got into office.
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What a load of bullshit! The Iranian regime freed the hostages not because they feared Reagan but because they don't want to release them under Carter's watch! They want to see Carter suffer his final humiliation when he left the office. Besides if Reagan want to kick the shit out of them, he should have done that after the hostage debacle which he didn't.
2:46 i think you are right.
Reagan or not Reagan,American had not the nerve to go against Mighty Iran.
Everything else is crap.If the US want a "retaliation" they were on their own,if they dare,of course.
You guys are hilarious... dream on and have a nice day.
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