Guests Of The Ayatollah: The Iran Hostage Crisis by Mark Bowden Page B
Authors: Mark Bowden
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Israel.”
The Islamic Revolution of Iran represents a new achievement in the ongoing struggle between the peoples and the oppressive superpowers. It has kindled hope in the hearts of the enchained nations and has set an example and created a legend of self-reliance and ideological steadfastness for a nation contending with imperialism. This was in reality a conquest over the curse of blindness that the superpowers had imposed so that even the intellectuals of the oppressed world could not conceive of any other freedom than under the benediction of another superpower.Iran’s revolution has undermined the political, economic, and strategic hegemony of America in the region.
It went on to explain that “the world-devouring America,” which for years had been exploiting Iran’s resources, was now engaged in “spiteful attempts” to regain power.
We Muslim students, followers of Imam Khomeini, have occupied the espionage embassy of America in protest against the ploys of the imperialists and the Zionists. We announce our protest to the world; a protest against America for granting asylum and employing the criminal Shah while it has on its hands the blood of tens of thousands of women and men in this country…. And, finally, for its undermining and destructive role in the face of the struggle of the peoples for freedom from the chains of imperialism, wherein thousands of revolutionary and faithful humans have been slaughtered.
It was signed, “Muslim Students Following the Imam’s Line.”
A few miles away from the embassy compound, a furious Bruce Laingen was finally allowed to see the foreign minister Ibrahim Yazdi, a gentle, professorial man with a sparse, graying beard who had been out of sight—conspicuously, Laingen thought—throughout the ongoing siege. Laingen unloaded on the minister, protesting the seizure of his embassy and reminding Yazdi of his obligation and promise to protect it under long-standing rules of international diplomacy.
Yazdi heard this out patiently. He seemed troubled, acknowledged his government’s responsibility to protect the embassy, and apologized for what had happened. He was surprised by how agitated Laingen seemed. After all, this sort of thing had happened before. The foreign minister spoke English fluently; his exile during the shah’s years had been spent primarily in Waco, Texas, where he had worked as a medical researcher and had been Khomeini’s man in America in the years leading up to the revolution.
“Calm down,” he told Laingen, and couldn’t keep from adding, “I told you so.”
Yazdi had warned weeks ago that there would be consequences he might not be able to control if the United States admitted the shah. In a meeting with the State Department’s top Iran hand Henry Precht, the foreign minister had likened welcoming the shah to “opening a Pandora’s box.” Yazdi was in a position that both Laingen and Vic Tomseth, the chargé’s acting deputy, recognized as precarious. Tomseth thought now that he had not fully appreciated how precarious. The foreign minister was one of a group of primarily secular intellectuals who had formed a brain trust around Khomeini when he was in the last months of his exile in Paris. Along with Prime Minister Bazargan, he was part of a practical political faction that wanted to see the new Iran form a Western-style democracy. They wanted to show the world that postrevolutionary Iran was not some renegade nation of religious fanatics but a serious country, one that understood its obligations in the world, and one that was led by sober, practical, well-educated people. But he was increasingly under attack, as was Bazargan, by hard-line clerics who claimed the revolution for Allah alone and who wanted a radical Islamist state. These street demonstrations, and the rampant anti-Americanism, were tools in the mullahs’ arsenal. Any politician who dared step up to defend the need for continued ties with the Great Satan before the
The Islamic Revolution of Iran represents a new achievement in the ongoing struggle between the peoples and the oppressive superpowers. It has kindled hope in the hearts of the enchained nations and has set an example and created a legend of self-reliance and ideological steadfastness for a nation contending with imperialism. This was in reality a conquest over the curse of blindness that the superpowers had imposed so that even the intellectuals of the oppressed world could not conceive of any other freedom than under the benediction of another superpower.Iran’s revolution has undermined the political, economic, and strategic hegemony of America in the region.
It went on to explain that “the world-devouring America,” which for years had been exploiting Iran’s resources, was now engaged in “spiteful attempts” to regain power.
We Muslim students, followers of Imam Khomeini, have occupied the espionage embassy of America in protest against the ploys of the imperialists and the Zionists. We announce our protest to the world; a protest against America for granting asylum and employing the criminal Shah while it has on its hands the blood of tens of thousands of women and men in this country…. And, finally, for its undermining and destructive role in the face of the struggle of the peoples for freedom from the chains of imperialism, wherein thousands of revolutionary and faithful humans have been slaughtered.
It was signed, “Muslim Students Following the Imam’s Line.”
A few miles away from the embassy compound, a furious Bruce Laingen was finally allowed to see the foreign minister Ibrahim Yazdi, a gentle, professorial man with a sparse, graying beard who had been out of sight—conspicuously, Laingen thought—throughout the ongoing siege. Laingen unloaded on the minister, protesting the seizure of his embassy and reminding Yazdi of his obligation and promise to protect it under long-standing rules of international diplomacy.
Yazdi heard this out patiently. He seemed troubled, acknowledged his government’s responsibility to protect the embassy, and apologized for what had happened. He was surprised by how agitated Laingen seemed. After all, this sort of thing had happened before. The foreign minister spoke English fluently; his exile during the shah’s years had been spent primarily in Waco, Texas, where he had worked as a medical researcher and had been Khomeini’s man in America in the years leading up to the revolution.
“Calm down,” he told Laingen, and couldn’t keep from adding, “I told you so.”
Yazdi had warned weeks ago that there would be consequences he might not be able to control if the United States admitted the shah. In a meeting with the State Department’s top Iran hand Henry Precht, the foreign minister had likened welcoming the shah to “opening a Pandora’s box.” Yazdi was in a position that both Laingen and Vic Tomseth, the chargé’s acting deputy, recognized as precarious. Tomseth thought now that he had not fully appreciated how precarious. The foreign minister was one of a group of primarily secular intellectuals who had formed a brain trust around Khomeini when he was in the last months of his exile in Paris. Along with Prime Minister Bazargan, he was part of a practical political faction that wanted to see the new Iran form a Western-style democracy. They wanted to show the world that postrevolutionary Iran was not some renegade nation of religious fanatics but a serious country, one that understood its obligations in the world, and one that was led by sober, practical, well-educated people. But he was increasingly under attack, as was Bazargan, by hard-line clerics who claimed the revolution for Allah alone and who wanted a radical Islamist state. These street demonstrations, and the rampant anti-Americanism, were tools in the mullahs’ arsenal. Any politician who dared step up to defend the need for continued ties with the Great Satan before the
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