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American Hostage Crisis Essay

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THE AFTERMATH AND THE AMERICAN HOSTAGE CRISIS
Hostility against the U.S. was extremely high when the Shah, who was suffering from cancer, came to America for treatment in October 1979 (Smith). On November 4, 1979, thousands of young Iranians, many of them college students, overran the United States embassy's 27-acre compound in Tehran, seizing the 66 Americans inside. "They seemed to be kids about 20 years old . . . kids from small towns with rather strict upbringings," one hostage, John Limbert, recalled. "Many of them had never seen an American before." The 14-month standoff that followed frustrated and humbled President Carter. During this hostage crisis, President Carter launched, on April 24, 1980, a risky military rescue operation, which …show more content…

In terms of the impact of that aspiration, this is one of the factors that triggered the rising hostility between Iran and the other Persian Gulf Arab monarchies. That made matters tricky when the Iran-Iraq war broke out in September of 1980, in which Iraq and its Arab Nationalist and Sunni Muslim-dominated regime of Saddam Hussein initially invaded Iran and made territorial gains therein, and Iran eventually gained ground and gained back their territory. By early 1982 Iran regained almost all the territory lost to the invasion. The Hussein-run Iraqi government offered a truce when they realized they can’t win, but Iran refused, only conceding if Iraq were to replaced Hussein with an Iranian-backed Islamic government. Hundreds of thousands died over the course of eight years, in this devastating war. Ultimately the war ended with no Islamic revolution in Iraq. In final conclusion, Iran’s pursuits deteriorated their relations with the west, and that is what is most felt in the modern world. The impact of the revolution is highly pivotal, but it is important to know from where its origins and inspirations

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