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impact to american iranian hostage crisis
impact to american iranian hostage crisis
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444 Days in Hostage
Tension rises as the relationship between two countries weakens. This can lead to war or many other types of crises. A mob of young Islamic revolutionaries captured 66 Americans and put them in hostage on November 4th, 1979 in the American Embassy in Tehran (PBS). Thirteen of these hostages were woman and therefore released and one was send home for severe medical conditions (Jimmy Carter Library). No one could clearly tell who the Islamic students symbolized or what they wished to succeed. An Islamic government ruled by Ayatollah Khomeini risen up to power and Khomeini never favored the Americans (PBS). Special oil discounts that were given to Americans from the Shah were the cause of the Iranian hostage crisis of 1979 (Iran Chamber Society). The hostages had to go through many hardships as well as Jimmy Carter, the President of the U.S at the time who was put to the test with dealing with weak foreign relations. During the Iranian hostage crisis the civil liberties of the Iranians and Americans were violated due to the Shah, poor government leaders, and how the American hostages were treated.
Throughout the Iranian hostage crisis, the Iranian's civil liberties were violated because of the Shah. The special oil discounts given to America from the Shah established conflict between the U.S and Iran and as a result the United States went to a confrontation with Islamic clergy in 1963 (PBS). The Shah put down the uprising, putting Ayatollah Khomeini into exile in Iraq commencing Iran's Islamic revolution (Iran Chamber Society). Then the U.S offered the Shah to come into New York for medical treatment (Jimmy Carter Library). Student supporters of Ayatollah Khomeini used that as an excuse to take American hostages...
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...uade them to remove the special discounts on oil.
In the course of the Iranian hostage crisis, the freedoms of Americans and Iranian’s were diminished. This was the result of the Shah, poor government leaders, and how the American hostages were treated. The Shah had a big impact on Americans and Iranians because of the conflict they started with special oil discounts. Poor government leaders like Jimmy Carter and Ayatollah Khomeini put chaos into America and Iran. The way the American hostages were accounted shows how people can be treated like they have natural rights one day and have them taken away the next. We can conclude that there are many ways to start conflict. And conflict can lead to many unexpected tragic events. A strong attribute that all government officials should strive for is the ability to resolve a problem before it gets bigger and bigger.
Kinzer tells us that the Iranians celebrated their nationalism in taking control of their oil, but their success was a shock to the British multinational companies in Iran. They did not like the idea of Iran nationalization, so they plan a coup to overthrow the Prime Minister Mossadegh. But this plan failed and the British were disarmed and sent back to their country closing down their embassy in Iran. The British tried to present their case to the United State in a way that the United State would intervene. So they presented a case that Mossaghe is not only nationalizing the Iranians oil, he is also leading Iran into communism. This case stirred the American action and they feared if they assassinate Mossaghe, his seat will be open and communist ...
For decades, U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East had depended on a friendly government in Iran. The newly appointed leader, the shah of Iran, began Westernizing the country and taking away power from the Ayatollah, powerful religious leaders. The United States poured millions of dollars into Iran’s economy and the shah’s armed forces, overlooking the rampant corruption in government and well-organized opposition. By early 1979, the Ayatollah had murdered the Shah and taken back power of the government. A group of students who took the American embassy hostage on November 4th, 1979, turned the embassy over to the religious leaders. Carter knew he must take action in order to regain the American embassy and the hostages, but with all of the military cutbacks, the rescue attempt was a complete failure and embarrassment. It took the United States 444 days to rescue the hostages. This was the final straw for many Americans, and enough to push them to the “right” side of the political spectrum, Republican.
The Iran-Contra Affair involved the United States, Iran, and Lebanon. The affair coincided with the Iranian hostage crisis, which promoted the United States’ actions in sending weapons to Iran. The Reagan administration decided to trade arms for hostages in hopes of successfully retrieving American hostages from Iran. Iran was at the time under the power of Ayatollah Khomeini, who had put his full support behind the hostage crisis and believed there was nothing that the United States could do to Iran. America’s only chance of rescuing the hostages was to put their support behind Iran in the Iran-Iraq War, which involved the shipment of weapons to Iran f...
Amanpour, Christiane. "1979 Hostage Crisis Still Casts Pall on U.S.-Iran Relations." CNN. Cable News Network, 04 Nov. 2009. Web. 01 Mar. 2014.
The 1953 Iranian coup d’état was the CIA’s first successful overthrow of a foreign government. It was seen as an action to stop a possible Iranian communist takeover led by Mohamed Mossadeq, the Iranian prime minister at the time. But in actuality, the U.S. and Britain were more afraid of the imposing Soviet threat in the region. Because Britain and other western countries issued sanctions on Iran as a consequence to oil nationalization, the Britain and the U.S. feared that Mossadeq would turn to the Soviet Union in an effort to stabilize Iran’s economy. Fearing that Iran would soon be influenced by communism, the U.S. looked at the option of regime change as an answer to the ongoing crisis. In 1953, under the Eisenhower administration, a CIA coup to overthrow Mossadeq was authorized. After three days of CIA organized riots in Iran, Mossadeq surrendered, Fazlollah Zahedi, as chosen by the CIA, succeeded Mossadeq as prime minster of Iran. Now that Mossadeq, once a leader of the democratic movement in Iran, was no longer a political force, Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi came back to power, now with little political opposition and supported by the United States and Britain. The CIA coup was originally intended as a solution for the Iranian oil crisis, but its occurrence later caused undesirable results in future. Although the real reason for the CIA overthrow of the Iranian government was to protect geopolitical interests from the Soviet threat in the region, the United States, did not foresee the negative, long term effects of coup, some of which are still evident today.
In November 1979, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, a recently overthrown Shah of Iran, asked President Jimmy Carter for admission to the United States. President Carter initially refused, knowing that ramifications would come from the Shiite community. However, upon learning that Pahlavi had cancer, President Carter, in a conversational gesture, allowed Pahlavi and his wife to enter the country. As President Carter had guessed, Shiite students, in the city, of Tehran schemed a plan to “free” Pahlavi and bring him to justice for his crimes. On November 4, 1979, they took over the United states embassy in Tehran and took hostage of the sixty-six Americans in the embassy. After over one hundred days of negotiations, President Carter grew tired of waiting, and order a military helicopter strike. Because the strike did not receive the right amount of planning, the helicopters ran into swirling sand, and nine of the helicopters crashed. Immediately following this botched evacuation, Iran became stingier, and the negotiations dragged on for almost an entire year before the American’s gained their freedom. Many historians theorize that had the evacuation received the proper planning, the operation could have actually resulted in success, and the prisoners would not stayed in captivity for so long.
To begin with President Carter immediately ordered for all imports from Iran to be stopped, and 8 million US dollars were frozen in Iran assets (Iran Hostage Crisis). This was an attempt to weaken the economic standpoint of Iran, in hopes to pressure them to give back the hostages. However, Iran went unphased from the economic sanctions placed on them by the United States and its allies (Britannica). Contrary to the United States short term effects, Iran faced significant long term conflicts regarding their global stance. As a request to free the hostages, Iran demanded for the assets to be unfrozen, immunity in all civil cases, and for the US to assure they will not to intervene with Iran’s culture or lifestyle in future affairs. Much to their liking, they closed a deal in which all three requests were meet (Iran Hostage Crisis). In the big picture Iran lost allies and ties to other countries around the world. However from the crisis, they upset the American people and their president, they were never forced to pay for the damages they had done. Because of this incident it left a bitterness between the two countries which still lingers
The late 20th century was a very turbulent time in American history. In 1976, Jimmy Carter was elected to the presidency, and he had many goals to help better America. However, on November 4th, 1979, a group of radical students seized the United States’ embassy in Tehran, Iran. This completely altered the course of American history and relations with the Middle East. This crisis had many impacts on the United States. It caused the Energy Crisis which in turn caused the Recession of 1979. The Iran Hostage Crisis also had political consequences for President Carter. It was a major factor that contributed to him losing the election of 1980 to Ronald Reagan. Additionally, this crisis led to many instances of racial discrimination toward Iranian-Americans and Iranian immigrants. Even after the Hostage Crisis was resolved, the bad blood between the two countries continued; the United States helped Iraq in the war against Iran, and the Iranians backed a second hostage situation in Lebanon. The Iran Hostage Crisis was a very important event that impacted America in many ways and destroyed our relationship with Iran. The consequences of this event are still felt today and continue to our foreign policies toward Iran.
Iran has both historic and current legitimate reasons to distrust the United States. In 1953, Muhammad Mossadegh, the democratically elected leader of Iran, was overthrown in a coup d’etat, codenamed Operation Ajax by the CIA. Although Operation Ajax was at first a failure, American spy Kermit Roosevelt ignored a telegram from the CIA to call off the coup. Bethany Allen-Ebrahimian analyzes the result of his decision, “the next day, on August 19, 1953, with the aid of “rented” crowds widely believed to have to have been arranged with CIA assistance, the coup succeeded. Iran’s nationalist hero was jailed, [and] the monarchy [was] restored under the Western-friendly shah”. Although relations between the Iranian government and the United States
Rising tensions in the Middle East lead to perhaps the most infamous event during President Jimmy Carter’s administration: the Iran Hostage Crisis. During November of 1979, Iranian university students with growing anti-United States sentiment stormed the United States embassy in Tehran, capturing and holding 60 Americans hostage for 444 days. Though Carter issued a risky military operation with intent to send an elite rescue team into the compound in April of 1980 (often referred to as Operation Eagle Claw), the mission failed and resulted in the death of eight American servicemen when sandstorms compromised helicopters, resulting in one of the helicopters to crash into another aircraft during take-off. The incident proved disastrous for Carter
Before the hostages were taken, there was already a lot of tension between the U.S. and Iran(HIstory). Their prime minister at the time was Muhammad Mossadegh(History). Mohammad wanted to nationalize their oil industry, which the UK and the US were in charge of running(History). This would have severely damaged their economy at the time because of how large the demand of oil was. To try and defend themselves the US and the UK set up a plan to overthrow the prime minister, which resulted in success(History). They replaced him with a new leader who, for sake of time, was called Shah(History). He turned out to be a
In the 1970’s Iran, under Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi was a very centralized military state that maintained a close relationship with the USA. The Shah was notoriously out of touch with working class Iranians as he implemented many controversial economic policies against small business owners that he suspected involved profiteering. Also unrestricted economic expansions in Iran lead to huge government expenditure that became a serious problem when oil prices dropped in the mid 1970’s. This caused many huge government construction projects to halt and the economy to stall after many years of massive profit. Following this was high rates of inflation that affected Iranians buying power and living standards. (Afary, 2012) Under the Shah, political participation was not widely available for all Iranians and it was common for political opposition to be met with harassment, illegal detention, and even torture. These measures were implemented by the Iranian secret police knows as ‘SAVAK’. This totalitarian regime combined with the increasing modernisation of the country paved the way for revolution.
In All The Shah’s Men there seems to be a very strong hatred for all foreign powers, including the United States, taken by the citizens of Iran. I believe that this ultimately occurred because of the impatience of certain government officials in Washington D.C., and also in Great Britain. If only there could have been better communication between countries, I feel that there would have been a solution reached. The stubbornness of the British for the most part, led to many lives being lost, and a feeling of perpetual disgust being shown towards the United States for their involvement. Although the British were our allies and we did have an extreme fear of communism taking over the free world, this coup was disorganized, forced along too quickly, and put forth without any guidance or strong evidence, which in the end proved to completely defy what the United States was trying to impose on the world, and what Mossadegh was trying to give his people; freedom and democracy.
Although the Iranian Revolution was caused by combination of political and religious motivations and ideas, the desires of the people supporting the movement were more dominantly religious ideas that were wished to be imposed in society and in a new government. The Shah, or king, of Iran at the time was Muhammad Reza Pahlavi, who had developed relations with nations in “western” world, specifically with the United States. The United States supported the White Revolution, which was a series of social reformations the Shah made to remove Islamic v...
Iran lost the support of the US in 1979 after the hostage crisis in Tehran, Iran. In Tehran, “66 members of the US embassy staff were taken hostage by Khomeini’s supporters” (Steele 12). The hostages were held for 444 days (Steele 12). The aftermath of the crisis was the international isolation of Iran. The US being a superpower, drove similar responses in its allies. Iran had lost a majority of their allies, which would hurt them during the war. In addition to the loss of the support of the Western countries, the Arab countries were also against Iran and supporting Iraq. The Arab countries also shared Iraq’s trepidations about the Iranian rhetoric of “exporting Islamic Revolution” (Karsh). As reported by graduate Mr. Jacek, Iran was left to defend itself economically and militarily. The other superpower at the time, the Soviet Union, had a positive relationship with Iran in the beginning. The Soviet Union had been supporting Iran in the beginning of the war. The Soviet Union then carried out an invasion of Afghanistan, and Tehran opposed the Soviet role in the invasion of Afghanistan. Iran’s relations with the Soviet Union became problematic, which negatively affected Iran (Karsh). The war with Iraq slowed down Iran’s research. Near the end of the Iran – Iraq War, Iran started working with a rogue nation, North Korea. The countries partnered up to work