Recalling the Hostage Crisis That Made Iran Forever Hostile to the U.S.

Nov 5, 2019
Also available in
About the Authors
Simon Henderson
Simon Henderson

Simon Henderson is the Baker Senior Fellow and director of the Bernstein Program on Gulf and Energy Policy at The Washington Institute, specializing in energy matters and the conservative Arab states of the Persian Gulf.

Articles & Testimony

A former correspondent in Tehran reflects on how the crisis set the stage for many of Washington’s current difficulties with the regime, and whether anything has really changed.

Forty years ago this week, the U.S. Embassy in Tehran was seized by revolutionaries apparently angered by diplomatic contacts between the nine-month-old, post-Shah Islamic regime and U.S. officials. This motive, seeking to make the new Iran implacably and permanently hostile to the United States, has been very successful, in the judgment of most of us. The elusive question has been whether the people of Iran share their government’s view...

Read the full article on the Hill website.

The Hill

To top

Recommended

Topics

U.S. Policy

Regions & Countries

Iran