Iran+Hostage+Crisis

Iran Hostage Crisis

On November 4th, 1979, the US embassy in Iran was taken over by students in Iran. They took 66 hostages but six of them escaped. Then 13 of the hostages were released by November 19 and 20, 1979. However the rebellion group still had 53 US hostages. This event was seen around the world as a strike against US. President Carter tried many times to negotiate with the Iran people but was unsuccessful. However, Ronald Reagan who was running for president at the time was also attempting to negotiate with them. Finally on January 19th, 1981, the remaining hostages were released back to the US which ironically was the inaugural day for President Reagan.
 * 1) Rescue Missions
 * 2) Canada & Switzerland to the rescue
 * 3) Hostage Life

Recue Missions The US also made plans on how to get the civilians out of the embassy safely and back to US grounds. After they had their plan all laid out and practiced with a crew picked and ready to perform the operation, they put it to work. They started this plan on April 24th, 1980 and it went on threw that next day April 25th when it failed. Their plan was to have eight helicopters release from an air craft carrier near Iran. Six of those eight helicopters made it to the safe zone safely, one returned back to the carrier after early problems after take off, and the last one got a fractured propeller and was forced to land early. Those soldiers and pilots were picked up by another helicopter and brought to the base. The next phase of this operation was for six helicopters to meet up with C-130’s who would refuel the helicopters if needed, but the helicopters had to fly threw a sand storm while the C-130’s flew over it. The sand storm was too much for the helicopters so they radioed in to head quarters asking if they could abandon the mission and return to base. Headquarters agreed with the proposal and on the way back one of the helicopters crashed with one of the planes killing eight people and severely injuring the survivors. It was President Carter directly that gave the pilots permission to return to base. After the Iranians found out about the rescue attempt they became aggravated and tightened up security of the hostages. The US actually did make plans for a second rescue attempt but the plan never went into action due to one of the helicopters shooting off one of its rockets on a practice run of the mission while trying to land quickly. If that were to happen when executing the plan then that rocket could have killed the hostages and the entire plan would have gone to dust. Canada & Switzerland to the rescue For those six civilians that managed to escape capture from the Iranians, they went to the Canadian and Swiss embassies to hide. The Canadian ambassador Ken Taylor then managed to get hold of six Canadian passports for them to leave the country and have a chance to return home. The plan was successful and allowed all six to return home after first taking a flight to Switzerland and then a second flight back to the US. Since then this plan is now known as the “Canadian Caper”. Hostage Life Soon after the Iranian students captured the US embassy, in about mid November they released 13 people. The reason being, the captors considered the sick and therefore released them. Then in July of 1980, the Iranians released Richard Queen who was one of the many hostages they held captive. He was released because of serious illness. Doctors later diagnosed the sickness as multiple sclerosis. As for the remaining hostages, they were held until January of 1981. They were held prisoners for a total of 444 days. At first, the captives were kept in the embassy in the dinning room where they were all together. But after the rescue attempt failed they separated all of their prisoners to different locations like jails, prisons, etc. After a while they were all moved back together to a prison that the Iranians thought was secure enough to hold them. During their captivity the prisoners were beaten, their hands were bound day and night, and they had the constant fear of being executed.

Analysis

The Iran Hostage Crisis was seen as a strike against theUS from many different countries around the world. This event gave spark to many of the countries in the Middle East that don’t like theUS to start making plans on how to strike us as well. So not only now did the country have to deal with the problem they had inIran, but now they had to deal with possible/ future strikes from other countries.

Before any of this even happenedIran and theUnited States had been allies together in World War II. TheUS persuaded the shah of Iran Reza Shah to actually step down and for his son Mohammad Reza Pahlavi to take over because we had better a better relationship with him. During the war though,Iran didn’t want anyone to useIran as a base for the war. But theUnited States in fear thatIran was going to joinGermany invaded their country in order to be able to re-fuel their planes and send materials toRussia to help them out. After the war was done, Winston Churchill said thatIran was the “Bridge to Victory”.

About 30 years after all of that now, the Iranians kicked Mohammed Reza Pahlavi out of the country. For about a year he was traveling from country to country to make speeches still. Then he became very ill and went to theUnited States in seek of good medical treatment. That’s around the time when theIran students took over theUS embassy. They then demanded that theUS send back Mohammed Pahlavi toIran for them to send to trial for things they thought he should be punished for. But theUS refused to saying they were just trying to give him medical help so the Iranians just kept their hostages.

Mohammed Reza Pahlavi got kicked out of Iran for the reason of the Iranian government transitioning power and becoming the Islamic Republic. The government officially changed on January 16th, 1979 to become what it still is today. Mohammed Pahlavi was very close in relations with the United States and Great Britain in general but when the Iranian government changed they lost some of that trust and partnership with both of those strong nations. After taking leadership into his own hands from his father on September 16th, 1941 he was kicked out of Iran indefinitely on January 16th, 1979. He wasIran’s leader for almost 38 years before he was forced to leaveIran.

After being in the United States for a while and not getting better, Mohammed Reza Pahlavi left the United States and headed to Egypt. As soon as he got there he received urgent medical treatment for an Egyptian hospital. He was there from March of 1980 to July 1980, when he sadly passed away on the 27th. The President of Egypt gave Mohammed Pahlavi a state funeral inEgypt shortly after the Shah’s passing.

In the mean time theUnited StatesandIraneventually worked out an agreement with theUSprisoners condition. The prisoners were eventually returned back to theUnited Statessoil safely and without much harm done to them while they were held captive for those 444 days inIran. This entire event greatly damaged the relations between US andIranfor a long time, even today they still don’t get along that well since the Iranians have some moreUScivilians being held in their jails accused of spying on them. The relationship withGreat Britainwas also bruised.

Works Cited Page

“Iran Hostage Crisis." //Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia//. Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia, 16 May 2011. Web. 19 May 2011. []

"Iran Hostage Crisis Timeline - Timelines.com." //Timelines.com: Discover, Record and Share History with Timelines//. Timelines® and The History of Us®, 2011. Web. 19 May 2011. []

"Mohammad Reza Pahlavi." //Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia//. Wikipedia, 25 May 2011. Web. 26 May 2011. []

"INSTANT HISTORY: Iran Decides Not to Party Like It's 1979." //(FOR WHAT IT'S WORTH) //. Instant History. Web. 03 June 2011. []

Author: Ryszard Kapuscinski , Title: “Shah of Shahs”, Publication date: 1982, Genre: Non-fiction/literature, pages: 152, original title: “Szachinszach” translator: William R. Brand