Taken Hostage - Background and Causes of the 1979 Hostage Crisis - Book Report/Review Example

?Running head: TAKEN HOSTAGE- BACKGROUND & CAUSES OF THE 1979 HOSTAGE CRISIS Taken Hostage- Background & Causes of the 1979 hostage crisis [Your Institution] [Your class and instructor’s name] Abstract This report will enlighten the background, causes and effects of the 1979 hostage crisis by taking critical information from the book taken hostage: the Iran hostage crisis and America's first encounter with radical Islam. We will take a look at what happened on Wednesday Nov. 4, 1979 which turned it into a revolutionary day which is, and will be remembered for a long time; maybe forever. This paper will clarify the reasons behind the hostage crisis in Iran along with its impacts on the US government and its economy. We will also see the facts this event exposed about US government and about the President of that time. Numerous words will be added from the book ‘Taken Hostage’ to justify the claims and to clarify all the details with substantiations. Taken Hostage- Background & Causes of the 1979 hostage crisis After reading the book taken hostage: the Iran hostage crisis and America's first encounter with radical Islam, I have become a big fan of David Farber. Every word of the book holds a clear background of the story that revolves around the historic hostage situation that continued for 444 days. The story, on which the book is based, holds enormous depth within. David Farber’s analysis is based on a narrative point of view which looks beyond the day-to-day circumstances of the predicament with the interpretation of the lessons for America’s contemporary war on terrorism. As mentioned in taken hostage by Farber (2005); “Most of all, in analyzing America’s first major confrontation with the forces of militant Islam, I have foregrounded the difficulty American policymakers had recognizing how devoted Islamic mutants in Iran were to creating an Islamic state. Over and over, American policymakers kept expecting the Iranians to realize that the real danger in the region was the Soviet Union…” (p. 5). This tells that America’s policy makers failed to realize what was coming on them which was the actual reason why they got over powered by the Iranian students thirty years ago on Wednesday Nov. 4, 1979. It was the time when the diplomatic relations between Tehran and Washington ended forever. The reason behind the hostage situation was the anger that many Iranians felt over Jimmy Carter, the US president of that time. Iranians were angry on the US president for allowing Shah Reza Pahlavi, who was the deposed ex ruler of Iran to enter the US for a medical treatment. Broadly, the United States had helped to establish the Shah Reza Pahlavi in the 1950's, and had powerfully backed his regime, despite the fact that Shah's government was dishonest and its human rights record was terrible. It was believed in Iran that this was just the aperture move leading up and American-backed return to the power by the Shah Reza Pahlavi. This became a state that was nothing less than a war, and as a result; Jimmy Carter’s presidency was broke. It was the Ayatollah Khomeini, who after Shah's entrance into the U.S., called for anti-American street demonstrations. The situation got this worst because Americans were not prepared for the crisis which came suddenly and made it the most difficult decade for America in their entire history (Farber, 12). As stated by Farber (2005), “A furious mob rallied outside the American embassy in Tehran. There were thousands of people who appeared to be students, mostly men but, woman too. The women were in black, shrouded in chador. A small group cut the thick chain that secured the main gates and filed into the twenty seven acre embassy compound… the embassy personnel were blindfolded with hands tied behind. Now, the 444 days of captivity had begun” (p. 12). At this moment the environment of serious hostility began between America and Iran and is still intact on the present day. This hostage crisis showed entire world the inability of the Carter administration's policy of diplomacy in dealing with confrontational foreign powers. Ronald Wilson Reagan took advantage of this opportunity and cashed it by coming into the presidency, and the Reagan Revolution began. Reagan battled against Carter in the 1980 election and widened his recourse by espousing moderate policies, gaining much of his support from ill-affected populists and blue collar workers. It should how weak American government was when it actually was taken as the most dominant force in the entire word. When America was expecting Carter to take some serious action about the hostage situation in the American embassy, Carter came out soft and instead of a serious warning he politely talked to the militants and asked them to release the hostages. This was his big turn down. American nation turned against him because they were not expecting him to come this feeble in front of the whole world. Even Carter failed in all of his actions that he took against Iran in terms of breaking them economically. He froze all the Iran’s foreign assets, sent choppers on operations but even the choppers were stuck in the sandstorm when they were landed to refuel. As mentioned by Farber, the chopper incident happened on April 24, 1980 when the units of the rescue force landed in the Iranian desert for aircraft refill before heading to Tehran, A puzzling series of events took place at this refueling point, along with desert sandstorms which reduced visibility, and equipment failure. As an outcome, the rescue was canceled. However, even in the retreating process, one of the helicopters impinged on a transport airplane which caused an explosion which killed eight members of the rescue mission. Numerous of the incinerated American bodies were later part of grim street demonstrations protesting the abortive U.S. "invasion" of Iran (p.174). All these occurrences made America look less powerful and showed deficiencies in its armor, militarily and morally. Ultimately, the Shah was the looser and his regime had been inhibitory. This came at a time when the Soviets were escalating and they added Afghanistan to their world in 1980. So as a result, America was getting the weaker of the two super powers. All of these events seemed to reiterate its inability to get things done and solve its problems by its own. This was the time for the world as well as to americans to realize that America wasn’t as strong as it seemed to be. America always came dominant by utilizing various scenerious that helped it gain its targets and it always needed, and will need other countries to stay in power. Furthermore, while America’s uncertain role in the world was unhinging and often harsh and dissentious struggles over equality, inclusivity and ethnical standards were a part of the atmospherics, effecting how Americans reacted to the Iranian hostage crisis, in every income range in the late 1970s Americans were far more fearful about economic issues. Here is where American society’s larger crisis lay. People of America were expecting some massive betterment in the economy of America with each new generation, but in 1970s the American dream seemed to become a total unrealistic fantasy. The economy wasn’t working out for America; the prices were increasing with increments of debts and stagnating incomes. Iran was a huge cause behind this crisis. Iran’s precious oil had no more business to do with America and Americans looked outward at their newly cutthroat economic competitors like, Germany and Japan and at the evermore dominant petroleum exporting countries like Saudi Arabia, Iran, Kuwait and Iraq with increasing fears and boiling hostility. Despite of the fact that America in the later years regained their economic power and dominance, the historic hostage 1979 crisis showed the weaker sides of America to the entire world (Farber, p. 17). References Farber, David. (2005). Taken Hostage: The Iran Hostage Crisis and America's First Encounter with Radical Islam. (pp. 5-174). Retrieved from: Google Books Database. Anonymous (2011). Iran-U.S. Hostage Crisis- 1979-1981. Retrieved from: http://www.historyguy.com/iran-us_hostage_crisis.html Read More