US Embassy Hostage Crisis Days

4th November was the anniversary of the takeover of the US embassy in Tehran, in 1979, by Student Followers of Imam Khomeini's Path. US diplomats were taken hostage for 444 days and finally released when President Reagan was elected by the US voters.

I remember as a young teenager in those days, going outside the US embassy building in Tehran where I joined the discussion groups on the pavements, as was the custom in those days. There was still relative freedom in the aftermath of the revolution but up to a point. You could not, for example, publicly support the monarchy or Dr. Bakhtiar but Marxists groups and the MeK openly sold their newspapers in the streets. The Islamo-Socialists like MeK, supported the takeover from the very beginning and called it a heroic action against the US imperialism. They were still doing their futile best to win Khomeini's favour. The pro-Soviet Communist Tudeh party was also over the moon about what had happened as you can imagine. They too wanted to win Khomeini's favour and in their publications, Ayatollah Khomeini was always revered as Imam Khomeini in enlarged bold letters. Later when the moment was right, Khomeini did not hesitate to massacre any of their members and supporters, whether they had used bold letters to describe him or otherwise.

The other major Marxist organisation at the time, the Fedayeen took their time in deciding whether to support the takeover or not. In fact it was not until Khomeini referred to them as American Marxists that they decided it was in their best interests to go along with everyone else. This delay in supporting the take over, later played a key part in the split in the Fedayeen organisation into the Majority(Bolshevik) and Minority(Menshevik) factions, with the Majority becoming even more pro-Soviet and pro-Khomeini than the Tudeh party itself.

For days and weeks, the embassy became the focus of different political parties marching in support of the embassy take over and the occasion was exploited as a PR exercise to make themselves and their support for the take over known to the public. The Islamist groups would pledge in their slogans 'If America Attacks, We Shall Turn All of Iran into Karbala' while the Marxists would pledge in their slogans 'If America Attacks, We Shall Turn All of Iran into Vietnam'. Marxists argued sincerely that Vietnam was more contemporary and appropriate in the slogan than what had happened in Karbala 1300 years ago, while the Islamists would argue that this was an Islamic revolution and the Vietnamese were not Shiite Muslims.

It all seems like a comedy when I look back on those days and remember the slogans. Each group wanted to sound even more radical and uncompromising than the others, coming up with more and more heroic slogans. 'Savour that day that Khomeini will give me the Jihad Order, The Army of the World will not be able to match me!"

What was forgotten as usual in the midst of all this frenzy and excitement amongst the Iranians who were arguing the appropriateness of Vietnam or Karbala, was the national interest. When I joined the discussion groups outside the US embassy building, it was not expedient for my health and safety to publicly argue against the take over, instead I used to pose the question as a young innocent teenager would 'what is in our national interest to hold these Americans here?'. The question was asked in a way that it did not deny there was a national interest but was simply asked by a kid who wanted to learn the facts from his 'wiser' all knowing elders. Watching these 'wiser' elders dither and fluster in their replies on the rare occasions where my question was not ignored was often just as comical as the slogans I heard in those days.

Perhaps the one slogan that now has a serious ring to it was:
'Cannons, Tanks and Machine Guns Have no Effect Any More,
Carter has no idea of the joyous moment of martyrdom'

Carter and his diplomats who had called Ayatollah Khomeini a Saint and 'Iran's Gandhi', had no idea what a can of worms they had opened up.

I have been browsing the blogs these days, and a lot of the blogs by the younger generation of Iranians have been apologising for what happened back in 1980. Perhaps if they had watched former top ranking US embassy hostage, Bruce Langdon, on VOA Persian, they would not feel so apologetic. On his VOA Persian appearance, he seemed more apologetic and compromising to the mullahs than anyone else.

I watched with disbelief when Bruce Langdon tried to exonerate even Khomeini, saying his information! was that Ayatollah Khomeini was not so keen on the takeover but just wanted to go along with the power in the street :) Such a statement is typical of the deluded naive illusions of the Carter era officials. Khomeini did not need to go along with the power in the streets, Khomeini WAS the power in the streets. What Khomeini said happened, simple as that. The sad thing is Bruce Langdon is still so flimflammed after 444 days of being a hostage and 28 years after the event.

The post-Islamic revolution generation of Iranians do not need to apologise for what happened back then. We had nothing to do with it. We rejected very quickly the tragic mistakes of our previous generation who left us in this mess, and we are not as deluded as the US State Department officials and diplomats about the nature of these clerics ruling our country.

We have stood up to these Ayatollahs and 'useful idiots' all on our own in a variety of ways without any support from anyone or anywhere and we will continue to do so until an Iranian government is returned to our country and our Iranian Sun and Lion flag is raised again.