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Essay On Iran Hostage Crisis

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The Iran Hostage Crisis, the beginning of United States interactions with Islamic extremists and economic reform in the middle east lasted from 1979 to 1981. The birth of these extremists lies in the economic policies of the United States and the middle east. The Shah, who was the supreme leader of the nation of Iran, was an ally of the United States for several decades. Despite his support from the U.S. government, he was known as a brutal leader who used excessive force and torture of his people, mostly Iranian students who spoke out against him. After decades of death, torture, abuse and other heinous crimes against humanity, the people of Iran began supporting Ayatollah Khomeini, a fundamentalist. To force events to transpire quicker, students took action by attacking the United States embassy and capturing hostages. These protestors saw the embassy as a physical representation of support for the Shah and his oppressive and cruel regime. The Americans who were working in the embassy on that day were taken hostage. What was suspected as being a relatively short hostage situation …show more content…

backed coup, his relationship to the U.S. became an even greater source of disapproval with the Iranian people. Many Iranian began to echo the thoughts of the exiled Khomeini, who preached that that reliance on the U.S. or any other foreign nation was devastating Iran. He pointed to the benefits the British and the Americans were getting from Iranian oil while thousands of people were dying because of the Shah. For several decades the U.S. would support the Shah’s economic development and regional leadership plans. These plans would be paid for fully by exporting the country’s enormous oil wealth. The Shah would use also billions of dollars from the exporting of his oil reserves to purchase modern and more deadly weapons developed within the United States. Weapons he would use on his own people and as a deterrent for other nations to become involved in Iranian

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