Iran Hostage Crisis Research Paper

Iranian Hostage Crisis

"It was like throwing a burning branch into a bucket of Kerosene-Anti American sentiment in Iran exploded", as one America Leader said when the Shah came to the United States. The tension between the United States and Iran initiated in the premature stage of the Shah's rule. The Iranian Hostage Crisis was the fuse that ignited the apprehension between America and Iran. The Iranian Hostage Crisis was significant because it caused the American government irrevocably weakened the United States relationship with Iran and how United States deals with other countries affairs.

1941, Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi was officially inaugurated the king of Iran. The shah maintained a pro-Western foreign policy and to develop a strong economic stability in Iran. Many Iranian citizens were displeased with the shah's changes to their traditions. For example, the Shah changed the Islamic calendar with the "Imperial" calendar and he put more limits on the king's power by putting Iran under the subjugation of the United State (Addis).

The Iranian citizen's hatred toward the shah grew as the years passed, until the first uprising in 1953. This rebellion was led

by a power hungry man, Mossadegh, the leader of an Iranian communist party called the Tudeh party (Robert 19). In response, the Shah allied with President Eisenhower to form the famous Operation T-P Ajax. This operation undermined the Mossadeq's government by bringing influential figures, planning false reports in different newspapers and provoking street violence. On August 19, 1953, Mossadegh was forced from power and he was able to arrest thousands of members of the Tudeh Party (Dan 22).
The 1953 rebellion led to many more rebellions that faced the Shah. Though the next couple of year, there were rebelling, rioting, and protesting. These actions led to a lot of chaos and bloodshed though out the country of Iran, which cause majors instability throughout the country. More people became anti –shah because of his strives to westernize Iran and the over through of Mossadegh. In addition, it made the Iranian have an escalating detestation toward America because of their support of Shah (Robert 16-18). The worst rebellion was in 1978, it started off with multiple rallies, which reeked havoc through the streets of Tehran. The next day was called "Black Friday" because thousands of people were murdered and the majority of the stores in downtown Tehran were all burn down (Robert 47).
In attempts of fighting back the shah formed a covert police agency called the Savak (Dan,5).the Savak was a special police force who were trained by the CIA(Cohen 17). Not only were they a police Unit, also they were required to spy on citizens to find government enemies who were plotting against the shah (Dan 32). The Savak were very cruel to the Iranian citizens, which made them one of the most feared organizations in the world (Cohen 13). In addition to forming the Savak, the Shah got help from America. President Eisenhower budgeted one million dollars into the Iranian military in order to help the shah resume control over his country once again(Robert,19). Lastly, he made a treaty with other European Countries as well as the United States to export oil to them to improve their economy (Terry 32).
All of the Shah's attempts to improve the state of his country were a complete fail. Shah left Iran in 1979 to Egypt due to his advanced cancer. He left the last Prime Minister, Shapour Bakhtiar, to rule Iran until the Shah returned. Eventually, he went to New York better treatment for his lymphatic cancer.
After the Shah fled to the United States, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini made an amusement in the local Paris newspaper that he was planning on returning to Iran from his exile. Also in the announcement Khomeini made it very clear that he is going to take back the power from Bakhtiar (Dan 72). When Bakhtiar heard, he immediately orders the Iranian army to prevent Khomeini's plane from landing. This caused a huge amount of rioting and multiple injuries. In the end, he was not successful and Khomeini's plan landed in Tehran (Addis). Right away when Khomeini arrived Khomeini started his movement towards restoring Muslims belief in Train called the Muslim National Movement (Robert 71-72).
It was a normal day in the American Embassy in Tehran. With its twenty-seven acres of land, dozen buildings, almost a dozen United States marines guarding the inside of the embassy, and the typical demonstration outside the embassy gates (Mendez 34). All the sudden the students started shaking the gates and broke the lock open. The students wear a band that said "Allah o Akbar" as they stormed in like a colony of ants. They covered the grounds of the embassy in a matter of seconds, keeping in mind their main goal (Robert 110).
A couple month before, students from five different university came together to plan an attack on the American embassy. All of these students were very loyal to Khomeini and in opposition to America. They needed to find a way to get in the embassy, but there was a small problem. The embassy was just upgraded with new security measures due to a previous minor attack. The students did not give up and they kept on trying to figure out a way to get in. lucky for them, they discovered that there was one unbolted window on the fist floor that was large enough for a person to fit through it. They began planning the attack; the students formed five groups of people and assigned to take over one of the five buildings in the embassy (Robert, 110-112).
No one expected this attack, the people inside the embassy did not even realize what was going on only until someone came in and told them (Robert 112).

Right away, the Americans inside the embassy compound managed to sound an alarm and put the embassy into lockdown mode. Ten men were assigned the task of disposing of the sensitive documents that the embassy had in storage (Mendez 128). Meanwhile, the students showed up at the second floor's entrance one of the security guards named Algolacinski went out to try to appease them. They instantaneously took his hostages and threaten to kill him if they did not get in. The students barge in and immediately started to wreak havoc throughout the embassy and taking people into hostage. The causes of the attack six ambassadors were able to escape (Robert

112).
Right way President Carter got to work on several ways to free the hostages, in the mean time making it very clear to the world that freeing the hostages was his number one priority. He was willing to go to any length to free the hostages, even if that meant putting the Shah on trail or dropping an atomic bomb on Tehran (Robert, 138). He declared a full economy ban on all goods that were going to Iran, President Carter ordered all Iranian money in the American banks to be frozen, and he broke all relationships with Iran (Dan, 21).
Concurrently, in Iran Khomeini was establishing his power and Bakhtiar kept trying to fight. He orders the Iranian army to fight off Khomeini, but the army refused to fight him. On November six (in the middle of the Iranian Hostage crisis) Bakhtiar announced that he was resigning as Foreign Minister and going to going the Revolutionary council as Khomeini adviser. This made Khomeini official the ruler over Iran (Robert, 146-147).
In 1980, President Carter announced that they were going to attempt a very risky rescue mission called Operation Eagle Claw. This operation involved elite rescue teams that were ultimately going to regain control over the embassy compound. Unfortunately, due to a severe desert sand storm the helicopter, which was caring the elite rescue team, malfunctioned. Through this disaster, several servicemen were killed and Operation Eagle Claw was aborted (Cohen 24).
Even though Operation Eagle Claw was a fail, President Carter did not lose hope and he proceeded to plan a new rescue mission. This time the mission was to rescue the six American ambassadors who escaped to the Canadian embassy on the day of the attack. Along with Antonio Mendez, a top-level CIA operative, they devised a rescue plan called Canadian caper. He disguised himself as a Hollywood as a Hollywood producer with his cast of deep cover CIA operatives. Their cover was that they were coming to Tehran to scout different locations for their film named Argo. While pretending to find an ideal backdrop for the film, Mendez and his colleague succeeded in contacting the six American ambassadors. Because they dress up as different actors/ actresses in the movie, they were able smuggled them out of Tehran(Mendez,55-60).
The last night President Carter time in office he spent the whole night trying to free the 52 hostages who remain. At 8:30 the next morning President Carter calls Ranold Ragan and he told him that even though everything was ready for the hostages to be recessed nothing was really moving. Ragan was not able to share the good news that the hostages were freed in his inaugural address. The two presidents were so concerned about the hostages that even when Ragan was about to swear on the bible he mouthed to Cater asking if the hostages were let out yet and Carter mouthed back "not yet" (Goldway, 62). Finally, on January 20, 1981 after 444 days in confinement the hostages were freed, 20 minutes after President Ragan's inaugural address.
The Iranian Hostage crisis had a major impacted on President Carter losing his reelection. People thought he was incapable of dealing with a situation in the time of crisis. Other said he made the United States look weak in front of other countries FINiSH ("The Iranian Hostage Crisis").
Since the Iranian Hostage crisis, America tried to improve the way they dealt with other countries problems. Instead of controlling their decision of the country they will try to provoke them to change different things to improve the welfare of their country. But this was not easily said, with the United States relation with Iran. After the Iranian Hostage crisis, the tension between Iran and United States was higher than ever. Prior the attack there was more terrorist threats and attacks that were amid toward America. The relationship between Iran and United States had be crippled ever since ("The Iranian Hostage Crisis").