On the morning of November 4, 1979, revolutionary Muslim students overtook security at the United

In late 1979, Iranian militants seized the U.S. embassy in Tehran. They trapped ninety hostages. The Iranian militants demanded the return of Shah Reza Pahlavi. Ayatollah Khomeini, the leader of the Iranians, released some of the hostages but held 52 of them to use as pawns to get Pahlavi. In the Middle East, most hostages are released after a few days, but Carter was forced to start negotiations for their release.

This fact shattered the hopes of millions of Iranians who thought the revolution would bring more freedom, not less. Women lost many of the social gains they had made under the Shah, and were forced to wear head coverings and full-body cloaks called chadors. Opponents were imprisoned and tortured as harshly and cruel as was done under the Shah. A parliamentary democracy existed mostly on paper, with true authority residing with the mullahs. With the Shah in exile, Khomeini identified the U.S. as 'the Great Satan' and an 'enemy of Islam.' Subsequent to this Khomeini regime, under the Shah dissent was also ruthlessly suppressed, and he jailed and tortured his political opponents. Moreover, under the Shah, Iran became a police state, monitored by the hated SAVAK secret police. Furthermore, the Shah's reforms, particularly those concerning the rights of women, angered Shia clerics such as the Ayatollah Khomeini, who fled into exile in Iraq and later France beginning in 1964. The US was intent on keeping the Shah in place in Iran in the 1970s, for many reasons, especially as a deterring buffer against Soviet expansionism ("Iranian Civil

After the successful overthrow of Prime Minister Mossadegh, the Shah was back in control of Iran and was supported by the United States, even though he was extremely brutal to his citizens. The Shah used United States military trained Iranian police force, called SAVAK, to carry out his orders. This caused a strong dislike for the Shah by the citizens of Iran and a strong Islamic uprising. This uprising ended with the Shah being exiled from his country and the radical Muslim Ayatollah Khomeini gaining power over

In January, The Shah fled the country to Egypt, and a new ruler came into power. Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini returned after being in exile for 14 years, and many of the people happily accepted him back (“The Iranian Hostage Crisis”). Everything went well until October, when the Shah- still in Egypt- obtained permission to travel to the United States for cancer treatment.

The Hostage Crisis in the late 1970s was considered one of Carter’s biggest failures. More than 60 members of the United States Embassy were taken hostage in Tehran. Their capturers were mere Iranian Students who were able to keep them captive for 444 days ("Jimmy Carter", 2016). This event portrayed President Carter as inept (“Jimmy Carter”, 2009). He did not negotiate their release and the rescue attempt the government tried failed. A group of student had held American citizens for over a year and nothing much was done about it. This was one of the most undermining events of Carter’s Presidential career and an embarrassment to America (Fink, 2002). Carter’s private negotiations with Panama about the canal led to more mistrust of the American citizens. They thought he was going to simply give it away without thinking about the consequences for America. Once again he lost more respect and distrust from his country (“Jimmy Carter”,

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

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

It all took place while the Shah was outside of the country. When he came back, Iran’s constitutional monarchy had fallen apart and the Shah possessed absolute power. It could be said that the aftermath of the 1953 Iranian coup was the undermining of authority. According to Jacob G. Hornberger, founder and president of The Future of Freedom Foundation, "The coup, in essence, paved the way for the rise to power of the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. U.S. officials, not surprisingly, considered the operation one of their greatest foreign policy successes - until, that is, the enormous convulsion that rocked Iranian society with the violent ouster of the Shah and the installation of a virulently anti-American Islamic regime in

Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, the Shah of Iran, received support from the U.S. upon his agreement to keep the Iranian oil industry from nationalizing and guaranteeing the supply of oil to the United States. In exchange, the Shah was given aid, both military and economic. Iranians resented the U.S. supported government naming it “anti-Islamic” and claiming it was "westernizing" Iran. When rioting took place, the Shah exiled several individuals including the popular nationalist, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. During the Iranian Revolution, the Shah was brought down from power and exiled, and the U.S. did not intervene. The Shah was denied entrance to the U.S by the Carter administration, even though he was gravely ill and needed medical attention. Almost a year later, he was allowed entry into the United States. Ayatollah Khomeini returned to Tehran. At his knowledge of the Shah 's stay in the U.S., he encouraged Iranian students to invade the American Embassy in Tehran. The Iranian Hostage Crisis was an effort to rescue over 50 Americans who were

Shah's regime in the autumn of 1964 and continued his pro-policies, the United States, Iran and their dependents for all US personnel immunity from prosecution provided with an agreement. Khomeini against the Shah was to give a speech. He Iranian independence and sovereignty, in exchange for a $ 200 million loan that Shah and his own benefit, and all those who also voted in favor majlis fraud described as the dedication of the agreement as condemned is; The government lacked all legitimacy, he concluded.

Finally, 444 days later on January 21, 1980, the crisis was resolved and the hostages were released. “The capture of the U.S. embassy in Tehran was a glimpse of something new and bewildering. It was the first battle in America’s war against militant Islam, a conflict that would eventually engage much of the world.”

The Iranian Revolution was the first of many popular civil insurrections that resulted in the overthrow of an autocratic monarchy which lasted from 1977 to 1979. It consisted of non-violent demonstrations by the revolutionaries until late 1978, due to the shah’s decision to violently silence demonstrators. The shah, during the time period, was Mohammed Reza Pahlavi. He was viewed by many to be a western-puppet who implemented a variety of systems and programs that suggested westernization. Iran was being transformed under his rule, and there were efforts to separate from Islamic culture and religious values. However, because of Pahlavi’s anti-traditional changes, he saw a broad coalition of forces formed against him. These revolutionaries

However, the ideas had already spread throughout the Iranian people and religious protesting escalated continuously. People’s ideas of recreating a religious based government persisted to an unstoppable level. Khomeini, whom many protesters felt to be a hero, said in a speech in 1979, “Do not try to westernize everything you have! Look at the West, and see who the people are in the West that present themselves as champions of human rights and what their aims are. Is it human rights they really care about, or the rights of the superpowers? What they really want to secure are the rights of the superpowers. Our jurists should not follow or imitate them” (Ayatollah Khomeini: speech on the uprising of Khurdad 15, 2010). Based on this quote, the “voice” of the protesting Iranians was that westernization was not a good thing because the west does not care for human rights and freedoms of the lesser powers in the world and that the way to change for the better is to impose the Islamic values that already existed into society. In January of 1979, the Shah fled the country under the pressure of the people and Khomeini returned to Iran to be greeted as a hero (Bentley & Ziegler, n.d., p. 1117). Fighting erupted between Khomeini’s supporters and remaining military officials and on the eleventh of February the government fell. On the first of April, Khomeini proclaimed the beginning of the new Islamic republic (Islamic

Before the revolution, Shah Reza Pahlavi was the ruler of Iran. Under his leadership power was clustered and concentrated among his close allies and networks of friends and others with whom he had close relations. By 1970s, the gap between the poor and the rich was widening and huge distrust about his economic policies grew. Resentment towards his autocratic leadership grew fuelling people to dissent his regime further. Shah now was considered an authoritarian who took full control of the Iran government preventing the Iranians from expressing their opinion. The government has transformed from the traditional monarchial form of government to authoritarian with absolute authority replacing individual freedom of the Iranians. This transformation to Iranian was unacceptable because they needed to control their own affairs. They wanted self-government where they could take control as opposed to what Shah was doing. Shah was seen as a western puppet for embracing authoritarian form of government (Axworthy, 2016).

Various factors influenced the 1979 Iranian revolution, but at the core of this significant event was Islamic fundamentalism. The Iranian religious leader, Ayatollah Khomeini, led this movement to end the thirty-seven-year reign of Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi, also known as the Shah of Iran (Diller 1991, p.152). The revolution was a combination of mounting social, economic, political and religious strains. The nation of Iran was never colonized, unlike some of its bordering countries, making its people intolerant of external influences. The Shah had gradually westernized and secularized his country, creating a strong American presence that was being felt