For Every Action, There is an Equal and Opposite Reaction
Foreign policy can be a slippery slope, it’s difficult to have a policy between two diverse countries where their beliefs, values, and cultures are entirely different. As a result, when countries are entwined within a foreign policy, the decisions made may only benefit the very few people at the top. Unfortunately, when the leader of a country only takes their needs and wants into account and disregards policies to help make their country better domestically, problems will arise. As we saw through Taken Hostage, the tension of foreign policy between Iran and the U.S. was not a result of just one action, but instead the result of actions over the years. The Iranian people already had
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Although the hostage crisis took place in 1979, the disapproval of the United States and Iran foreign relations took place over a century before the overthrow of the embassy. A major threat to the United States was the fear of the Soviets spreading their communist beliefs internationally. Due to this, the United States came to conclusion that the best way to stop the Soviets was to use a containment strategy (Cold War Intervention 1954). This entailed the United States doing what they thought was necessary to stop the spread of communism. Unfortunately, the prime minister of Iran at that time supported Soviet beliefs along with the idea of nationalism. The nationalist beliefs of the prime minister gave him the idea of nationalizing the Britain and American owned petroleum refineries in Iran, and god forbid someone touches the U.S. oil. With the fear of Soviet communism having an influence on Iran, the United States successfully completed a covert CIA operation that overthrew Mossaegh. Thus, replacing him with a pro-western Shah, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, who despised the Soviets just as much as the United States. With the new anti-communist Shah in place, the fear of the Soviets influencing Iran had finally subsided. However, even though the United States needs were satisfied, American intervention with Iranian affairs was deeply resented. By the time of 1970 the Iranian people
In early 1951, the nationalization of Iran’s oil industry by Mosaddegh was the trigger for the United Kingdom to begin discussion with the United States to overthrow Mosaddegh and return the power to the shah. When the coup attempt was thwarted, the CIA decided to call off continuing with the operation because they did not want it to get traced back to the United States. However, Kermit Roosevelt believed that the United States should not be done interfering with Iran, and
In January 1979, Iranians opposed to the Shah’s rule invaded the American embassy in Tehran and held a group of 52 American diplomats and other hostages for 444 days. The Shah left Iran and the victorious Ayatollah Khomeini returned that February. Of the approximately 90 people inside the embassy, 52 remained in captivity until the end of the crisis. The reputation of the Ayatollah Khomeini and the hostage taking was further enhanced with the failure of a hostage rescue attempt that cost lives. The Ayatollah Khomeini set forth several demands to be met prior to the release of the hostages. The US had options of their own; however, the risk to the hostages required the utmost consideration. In order to secure their freedom, outgoing
The American public was so captivated by the Iran Hostage Crisis because they were blindsided by this radical action and their knowledge of America’s involvement in Iran was limited. The media played a major role in influencing their emotions and they already had trouble trusting the American government. This unknown involvement began in 1943 when President Roosevelt, Prime Minister Winston Churchill and Joseph Stalin met in Tehran to discuss how to remove the British and Soviet military forces from Iran because Iran wanted to be its own nation. The United States aided the young Shah, the ruler of Iran, and his government with military weapons and loans. Over time, Prime Minister Mossadegh, of Iran, gained more and more power until he was the true ruler of Iran and the Shah was just a figurehead. The United States, fearing the spread of communism, devised a secret plan for the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), to over throw Prime Minister Mossadegh.
On David Farber 's book Taken Hostage, Farber informs us about the Iran Hostage Crisis and America 's First Encounter with Radical Islam. This book tells us how the United States and Iran got into conflict, leading to the Iranians holding American Embassy members hostage as revenge for them feeling betrayed by the United States. It also informs us about other events that occurred in a decade that caused the United States many problems. Farber talked about all the events that lead to the Iranian Hostage Crisis. November 4, 1979, seizure of the United States embassy in Tehran and the hostage of four hundred and forty four days following, were the first steps leading up to the perpetual War on Terror. Farber believes the failure from American policymakers and more specifically from President Carter, to identify the severity of the crisis made for the prolonged crisis. The sheer ineptitude of Carter administration was the cost of the US to lose it’s way economically, culturally, politically and even military. Carter struggled to respond to the impulses of Islamic fundamentalism within the prevailing Cold War paradigm. They saw the real battle as against secular modernism and they recognized that the US was the major force spreading this cultural and political belief throughout the world. The media misrepresentations of the struggle and mass media manipulation of Americans played on the peoples emotions. Although Carter was popular at the beginning of his presidency, this began
November 4, 1979, seizure of the United States embassy in Tehran and the hostage of four hundred and forty-four days following, were the first steps leading up to the perpetual War on Terror. In the book Taken Hostage by David Farber informs about the Iran Hostage Crisis and the First Encounter with Radical Islam. United States and Iran got into conflict, leading to the Iranians holding American Embassy members hostage as revenge for them feeling betrayed by the United States. It also informs us about other events that occurred in a decade that caused the United States many problems. Farber believes the failure of American policymakers and more specifically from President Carter, to identify the severity of the crisis made for the prolonged crisis. The sheer ineptitude of the Carter administration was the cost of the US to lose it’s way economically, culturally, politically and even military. Carter struggled to respond to the impulses of Islamic fundamentalism within the prevailing Cold War paradigm. They saw the real problem as against modernism and they knew that the US was the major force spreading this belief throughout the world. The media misrepresentations of the struggle and mass media manipulation of Americans played on the peoples emotions. Although Carter was popular at the beginning of his presidency, this began to change when he was unable to solve economic problems and was unsuccessful in negotiating the release of the American hostages in Iran.
The Iranian hostage crisis was one of the most dramatic events in a series of problems that took place during President Jimmy Carter’s term. The crisis, beginning in November of 1979, received the most coverage of any major event since World War II. It was one of many problems faced in light of the United State’s complex relationship with Iran. The effects on both the US and Iran were astronomical, especially politically as well as economically and socially. It took a heavy toll on American relations with the Middle East and changed the way we engage in foreign affairs. In light of this crisis, Iran started an international war that we are still fighting thirty-two years later.
On November 4th, 1979, a group of enraged of Islamic revolutionists invaded the United States Embassy in Tehran. They had taken 60 Americans hostage for 444 days until President Ronald Reagan had taken Oath of office. It was nearly minutes after Reagan had taken office that they were released. Ayatollah Khomeini enforced an anti-Western Islamic theocracy, overrode the pro-Western monarchy of the Shah of Iran. Iran had felt that the United States was interfering with their internal affairs. They feared that they would return the Shah to power. The Shah had fled to mexico and the doctors there had uncovered that he was suffering an aggressive cancer. With this recent discovery they pushed the Shah to be admitted into a
However, at that time to the American people the crisis invoked a feeling of national inferiority; for one of the first times, the US had been manipulated by a foreign country and could do nothing about it. However, the Iranian Hostage Crisis proved to be more than just an embarrassment for the country. It’s evident 33 years later that the Iranian Hostage Crisis had other significant effects on the political environment of the United States, including the negative influence on the 1980 presidential election, complete destruction of diplomatic US- Iran relations, and the establishment of a precedent for foreign, anti-American terrorism as an effective strategy against the US.
President Carter, like other presidents before him, had concentrated mostly on the Soviet Union. This was caused by the Cold War and the tensions that arose from it. Therefore the US’s main attention had been directed away from the Middle East. Since Iran was anti-communist then “the United States supported any regime that was not communist” (Bechtel 2). There was more of a reason for the president to focus on the Soviets than the Iranians, but he “did not ignore Iran during this period but it was not perceived as a hot spot ”(Farber 80). The main situation the US faced with Iran was the issue over oil and even when discussing the ownership over oil fields, there was never a moment where hostages were involved. The United States had made "innumerable pleas, resolutions, declarations, special missions, and even sanctions" to try and return the hostages safely back home (Ismail). Such extents even included sending eight helicopters to rescue the hostages. “Three out of the eight were damaged in the sandstorm, the mission was aborted”, and the death of the eight persons caused the Secretary of State, Cyrus Vance to resign even though he opposed the mission to begin with (“Iran Hostage Crisis”). The President had to be prepared to attack if any of the hostages were harmed. There were three things that were first sought out when realizing what had happened overseas in Iran. First,
The people of Iran became angry that the United States would allow the Shah to seek medical treatment in the US, and overtook the U.S. embassy in Tehran. Many of them feared that the United States planned to return to Iran and reinstate Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi as their leader, because of the close diplomatic ties that had been established with him. The United States had helped him to overthrow Iran’s Prime Minister during a power struggle in 1953 and modernize Iran (“The Hostage Crisis in Iran”). The Iranian protesters- many of whom were college students- took hostages, 66 of the hostages holding American citizenship, and refused to release them until the Unites States stopped helping the Shah and turned him over to them. Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini decided to support the actions of the student protesters, and dissolved treaties that had been made with the Soviet Union and the United States, preventing international intervention towards the violent protests in Iran. Premier Mehdi Bazargan and most of the
In 1908, oil was discovered in massive quantities in Iran. Ever since, Iran has attracted a great deal of attention from other countries. In 1953, the United States felt that Iran was moving ever closer to Russia. To keep Iran out of Russian hands, the CIA overthrew Iran’s prime minister, Mohammed Mossadegh, and placed the Shah, Reza Shah Pahlavi, in place as dictator. However, the Shah was greatly disliked by innumerable Iranians because they felt he went against Islam and he let his secret police, the SAVAK, brutally control the people. In 1963, they openly rebelled. The revolutionaries were subdued forcefully and the leader of the rebellion, Ruhollah Khomeini, was exiled and sent to Iraq. This was the start of Iran’s Islamic Revolution. The people began to rebel more and more often until, on January 16, 1979, the Shah raced away to Egypt. On January 30, 1979, thousands of Iranians cheered for Ruhollah Khomeini as he came back to Iran after fourteen years as an exile. Then there was a major question: should the United States, the Shah’s former ally, allow him to enter the country? According to Vice President Walter Mondale, Jimmy Carter “went around the room, and most of us said, ‘Let him
In his 1979 state of the Union Address, President Jimmy Carter stated “We have no desire to be the world's policeman. But America does want to be the world's peacemaker.” However, nearing the end of Carter’s presidency the peace within the American Embassy located in Tehran, Iran was broken. 53 Americans were taken hostage by Iranian militants on November 4th 1979. The Iranian Hostage Crisis caused a loss of American confidence, caused Americans to view middle easterners differently forever, and also cost Jimmy Carter the chance of a second term.
for cancer treatment. The specific reasons for the Iran Hostage Crisis were the oil conflict, Iranian Revolution, U.S. overthrow of government, and forced modernization. These things created a lot of tension between Iran and the U.S. The oil conflict was the start to creating tension between the United states and Iran. The United States controlled Iran's oil, and Iran's minister wanted to nationalize the oil supply. The US and Britain did not want that to happen so they created a plan to overthrow the prime minister and get someone who would support their interests in oil. Finally, the Shah was their new leader and had close ties with the US. The Shah was replaced by Ayatollah Khomeini and the United States started to get away from Iran. Ayatollah Khomeini formed anti-American groups that held more than sixty people hostage from the American embassy. The people from Iran did not like Americans getting involved with their government. Since the Shah was able to come to the United States and get his treatment, it made the Iranian’s think that the United States was helping him out. That was the final straw to cause the students and militants from Iran to
The American government is known to promote democratic values throughout the world. Though the ideals America was fighting for during the Cold War, the government still managed to participate in the overthrow of democratically elected Prime Minister, Mohammed Mossadegh. Mossadegh threatened to nationalize Iran’s oil in 1951 and later gained the support of the Iranian government. The British companies had many investments in Iranian oil. It is with the approval of nationalization that the economies of both British and Iran were ultimately harmed. The British government requested the help of the US so that they could perform a coup to overthrow Mossadegh. With suspicions of Mossadegh supporting communism, and being supported by the Tudeh Party, the United States government was willing to sacrifice their democratic ideologies and credibility in the region for the insurance of an anti-communist leader. This would prove to cause problems that still resonate in today’s political and military negotiations in this region.
This paper will begin by providing background information on the Iranian Hostage Crises, then shifts to the different viewpoints taken by the divisions of the executive branch. This will provide the different policy options and supporting actors. The final part of the paper will focus on the foreign policy outcome.