what did carter do to free the hostages in iran

Written by: Gregory Fifty. Schneider, Emporia State University

By the terminate of this section, you lot volition:

• Explain the causes and effects of continuing policy debates virtually the office of the federal government over time
• Explain how and why policies related to the environment adult and changed from 1968 to 1980

On November four, 1979, militant Islamic fundamentalist Iranian students seized the U.Due south. embassy in Teheran and took hostage the 66 Americans inside. For the side by side 444 days, until January 20, 1981, when Ronald Reagan was inaugurated as president, the hostages' captivity dominated the news, reminding Americans every solar day of their nation's limited ability to do annihilation to complimentary them. The crunch paralyzed the assistants of President Jimmy Carter, who was unable to secure their release. He was already unpopular and perceived as weak considering of the inflation that plagued the economy and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. The hostages' plight sealed his political fate and helped ensure the election of Ronald Reagan.

Iran had been a cardinal American ally in the Middle East since a British- and American-sponsored insurrectionre moved nationalist leader Mohammed Mosaddegh from power in August 1953. Islamic republic of iran then became a pawn in the Cold War. During World War II, Soviet troops had occupied the northern half of the country. After the state of war, the Soviets' failure to withdraw by a deadline established by the Un, Corking Great britain, and the United States alarmed the Truman administration, which saw the potential threat of Soviet advances into the oil-rich nation.

The leader of Iran subsequently the war was the young heir to the Peacock Throne, Shah Reza Pahlavi. Pahlavi was linked to the British Anglo-Iranian Oil Visitor, a British company that controlled 51 pct of the Iranian oil that the company had developed since the early twentieth century. By 1950, Britain's control of Iranian oil reserves (and the profits from them) had enraged nationalist politicians. A growing Islamic fundamentalist movement used violence against the British to miscarry them.

Shah Reza Pahlavi of Islamic republic of iran was supported by Western countries like the United states and Britain during his postwar reign.

In 1951, later on the assassination of the prime minister, Iran'south parliament elected the anti-British nationalist Mohammed Mosaddegh as the new prime number government minister. Mosaddegh seized the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company, claiming information technology as government property and cartoon an angry response from the British, who contemplated invading Iran to restore their citizens' rights. The The states held them back. Instead, during the kickoff year of the new Eisenhower administration, the Primal Intelligence Agency and the British sponsored a coup, called Operation Ajax, to remove Mosaddegh from power. President Dwight Eisenhower feared growing communist influence in Iran, with the Iranian communist party, the Tudeh Party, growing in influence through the Mosaddegh years. Get-go in August 1953, CIA amanuensis Kermit Roosevelt organized antigovernment mobs, including members of a Teheran wrestling club, that sparked demonstrations against Mosaddegh'due south government. Mosaddegh was overthrown past mobs enervating the return to power of the Shah, who had fled to Italy.

With the Shah dorsum in command, the United States began to provide Islamic republic of iran with military and economical assistance, and the Shah became a reliable marry of the United States in the Common cold War. Iran served as a listening post on the southern border of the Soviet Union and as a base for U-2 spy planes, as well. Through the 1960s and the 1970s, the Shah received billions of dollars in U.Due south. military machine assistance. The Shah's authorities also arranged for a 50-l separate with the United States of the profits of the Anglo-Iranian Oil Visitor. The Shah had gradually modernized and westernized his nation for decades. He too spent lavishly on his own family and interests while the Iranian people suffered economically, adding to growing dissent against his authorities past the 1970s.

Much of that dissent came from an Islamic movement led by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, an Islamic fundamentalist religious leader who began to criticize the Shah for the western and, he believed, anti-Muslim influence he brought to Iran. Using the ability of his secret police and with the bankroll of the military, the Shah was able to crush Islamic dissenters, and, in 1964, Khomeini was exiled, initially to Turkey, and then to Iraq and later Paris. Throughout the 1970s, the Shah's grip on power was bolstered past American strange aid and military help, paid for with Iran's oil revenues, and Iran had 1 of the most modern air forces in the world as a event. The Shah supported the creation of OPEC (Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries) and the 1973 embargo, which collection up oil prices in America, and further enriched him and his regime.

Ayatollah Khomeini lived in exile during the Shah'south rule but returned to Islamic republic of iran in 1979 during the country's revolution.

During the late 1970s, the winds of revolution swept Iran. Protesters confronting the Shah included middle-grade liberals who wanted political and economic reform, equally well equally communist political party members and militant Islamic fundamentalists, including some radical students. In tardily 1978, the secret police force crushed Islamic protests at the holy metropolis of Qom. Islamic resurgence was based on resistance to both the Shah and the United states of america. The exiled Khomeini linked the two and began calling the U.s.a. the "Corking Satan." Guided by democratic and moralistic strange policy, Carter officials pressured the Shah to reform his government and ameliorate contacts with dissenting groups. Merely it was too late; in January 1979, the Shah, secretly ill with cancer, fled the country for exile (initially in Egypt, then Morocco). On February 1, 1979, the Ayatollah returned to Islamic republic of iran from France and gained command, with pro-Khomeini forces seizing the air force. The formerly pro-Shah military refused to launch a ceremonious war and surrendered to the new ruler later in the month.

The Ayatollah declared Islamic republic of iran an Islamic Democracy, returning the land to sharia law (the theocratic police of Islamic tradition) and waging a rhetorical state of war against the United States. The Shah hoped to render, although the CIA rejected a plan to overthrow the new government. By the autumn of 1979, tensions betwixt Iran and the United states were at a peak. The Shah asked to come to the United States for handling of his cancer, which he had kept hidden from President Carter. Foreign relations expert David Rockefeller and former Secretarial assistant of Land Henry Kissinger lobbied on the Shah'southward behalf and Carter agreed, allowing the Shah to seek treatment and providing sanctuary in a luxurious dwelling house in Santa Monica.

Students at Tehran Academy removing a statue of Shah Pahlavi during the 1979 Iranian Revolution.

The Shah's entry into the U.s.a. in October sparked mass protests in Islamic republic of iran. A group calling itself Muslim Students Following the Line of the Imam (the name for an Islamic leader) prepared for an attack on the fully staffed U.S. embassy in Teheran. The diplomatic mission had been attacked in February, but the attackers were repulsed by Marine guards. Daily protests intensified through the fall until, on Nov 4, a group of 150 young militant students attacked the chemical compound, overpowered the guards, and seized the diplomatic mission and its 66 employees. The Islamic republic of iran hostage crunch had begun. What was meant to be a short-lived, symbolic takeover lasted 444 days and helped destroy the Carter administration as Khomeini endorsed the students' actions and spurned any negotiations for a return of the hostages.

Carter hunkered down, intent on solving the crisis. Khomeini allowed 13 female and African American hostages to be freed, citing the Islamic duty not to hold women and trying to cause a split in American public opinion by appealing to blackness radicalism in the U.s.a.. He used the American media, focused as information technology was like a laser beam on the hostage crisis, to his advantage. ABC News ballast Ted Koppel began a nightly program, "America Held Hostage," that later morphed into the late-night news program Nightline.

Carter did non possess any leverage to free the hostages and considered just a few options. In Apr 1980, he froze Iranian assets and prevented military spare parts from being shipped to Iran. Just the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan on December 24, 1979, had further added to Carter's troubles. He got tough with the Soviets, cancelling an artillery control understanding, boycotting the 1980 Moscow Olympics, and catastrophe grain shipments to the Soviet Union. He also announced the Carter Doctrine, which stated that a Soviet move on the Persian Gulf represented a directly threat to the United states, just his popularity sank equally American viewers were reminded daily of his inability to complimentary the hostages.

Two U.Due south. hostages from the embassy in Teheran, photographed during the 1979-1981 crisis.

Carter gave up trying to achieve a peaceful solution to the earnest crisis and endorsed a rescue endeavour promoted by National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski. On April 24, 1980, a squad of 118 highly trained soldiers from Delta Force, an elite U.Southward. armed forces unit of measurement, were to land in the desert south of Teheran, assault the embassy, and free the hostages. The mission, dubbed Eagle Hook, failed disastrously. Three helicopters malfunctioned and their mission was scrubbed. Every bit the other helicopters took off from the desert base of operations, one of them crashed, killing eight of the soldiers. Delta Strength evacuated and was forced to leave their dead teammates backside. Iranians celebrated the disaster, just Carter's approval ratings went upwardly for the moment in low-cal of the rescue attempt. In the summer, however, with the economy wracked by high inflation, high interest rates, and a recession, the Republicans nominated for president Ronald Reagan, a long-time anti-communist who promised an finish to détente and a become-tough advancement against Iran. In November, Reagan was elected, and on the day of his inauguration the hostages were freed.

The 1980 effort to rescue hostages from the captured U.S. embassy in Teheran failed, resulting in a crashed helicopter.

Carter'due south successor had his own difficulties with Islamic radical groups taking hostages, and his own difficulties freeing them, leading his administration to conduct a merchandise of arms for hostages (in violation of Reagan's own promise non to negotiate with hostage takers), which created the Iran-Contra scandal in his second term. U.S.-Iranian relations have never improved. The Islamic Republic still riles the populace with its attacks on America and sponsors terrorism throughout the Eye E to the present day.

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Review Questions

ane. The U.S. and British effort to overthrow Iranian Prime Government minister Mohammed Mosaddegh was as a result of all the following except

1. increased communist presence in Iran
2. nationalization of the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company
3. fears of growing instability and loss of western influence in Iran
4. fear of a takeover by the Shah Pahlavi

ii. President Jimmy Carter's most meaning fault in the Iran hostage crunch was

1. allowing the crisis to define his presidency
2. non negotiating with Khomeini
3. letting the Shah enter the United States for medical treatment
4. attempting to free the hostages with Operation Hawkeye Claw

3. Jimmy Carter lost the ballot of 1980 to Ronald Reagan for all the following reasons except

1. the Soviet Matrimony'due south invasion of Transitional islamic state of afghanistan
2. his inability to solve the Iran hostage crunch
3. lingering discredit associated with the Watergate scandal
4. loftier inflation and unemployment

4. According to the leadership of the Iranian Islamic Republic, the "Neat Satan" was

1. Shah Ravi Pahlavi
2. Mohammed Mosaddegh
3. the Us
4. President Jimmy Carter

5. The principal reason for American involvement in maintaining a close friendship with Iran was

1. America's fright of fundamental Islamic revolutions
2. the geopolitical significance of Islamic republic of iran and its oil
3. the close relationship with America'southward ally the democratically elected Shah
4. Iran's proximity to Transitional islamic state of afghanistan

6. The takeover of the U.South. diplomatic mission in Tehran can be all-time seen as a

1. spontaneous surprise attack past Iranian students
2. well-planned takeover meant only to capture American documents
3. a culmination of continued anti-American hostilities in Tehran
4. a announcement of war by the Iranian regime

Gratuitous Response Questions

1. Explain why the dominion of Shah Ravi Pahlavi provoked dissent in Islamic republic of iran by the 1970s.
2. Explicate why President Jimmy Carter failed to resolve the Islamic republic of iran hostage crisis.

AP Practice Questions

A student sit-in in Washington, DC, in 1979.

Refer to the image provided.

ane. The state of affairs in the photograph is like to the treatment of which group?

1. American soldiers held prisoner during World War II
2. Interned Japanese Americans during Earth War II
3. American prisoners held by the North Vietnamese during the Vietnam War
4. Women protesting for the correct to vote

2. The state of affairs in the photograph illustrates which of the following trends?

1. Conflict betwixt America and the Centre East
2. American want for dominance in the U.N. Security Quango
3. The need to protect American oil interests
4. The continuing back up of American interests in Israel

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Primary Sources

Jimmy Carter, Address to the Nation on the Rescue Attempt for American Hostages in Iran, April 25, 1980. https://teachingamericanhistory.org/library/document/address-to-the-nation-on-the-rescue-endeavour-for-american-hostages-in-iran/

Carter, James. "Document for November 6th: Letter from Jimmy Carter to Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini regarding the Release of the Iranian Hostages, 11/06/1979." https://www.archives.gov/historical-docs/todays-doc/?dod-date=1106

Suggested Resources

Bill, James A. The Eagle and the Lion: The Tragedy of American-Iranian Relations. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1988.

Farber, David. Taken Hostage: The Iran Earnest Crisis and America's First Encounter with Radical Islam. Princeton, NJ: Princeton Academy Press, 2005.

Rubin, Barry. Paved with Good Intentions: The American Experience in Iran. New York: Penguin Books, 1981.

Sick, Gary. All Fall Downwardly: America'due south Tragic Run into with Islamic republic of iran. New York: Penguin Books, 1986.

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Source: https://billofrightsinstitute.org/essays/jimmy-carter-and-the-iran-hostage-crisis

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