THE IRAN HOSTAGE CRISIS: WHEN COMPROMISE FAILS
  • Title
  • Thesis
  • Historical Context
    • ECONOMIC CONFLICT
    • POLITICAL CONFLICT
    • HUMANITARIAN CONFLICT
  • The Iran Hostage Crisis
  • The Struggle to Compromise
    • FAILED NEGOTIATIONS
    • FAILED MILITARY INTERVENTION
  • CONCLUSION
  • Research
    • Annotated Bibliography
    • Process Paper
​Released hostages disembark at Rhein-Main Air Base in West Germany, January 1981, ABC News

CONCLUSION:
THE ALGIERS ACCORDS ​​& BEYOND


A compromise between Iran and America ultimately led to the hostages' release but severely strained 
​the nations’ relationship. The lasting effects of the conflict are still evident today.

The Algerian government offered to serve as an intermediary for the Iran Hostage Crisis, and the Algiers Accords were signed on January 19, 1981. The document encompassed a broad economic, political, and humanitarian compromise. In exchange for the hostages, the U.S. agreed to unfreeze Iranian assets and not intervene military or politically in Iran’s internal operations.
CBS World News Roundup, January 19, 1981, Gordon Skene Sound Collection
Warren Christopher, U.S. Deputy Secretary of State, being handed the formal document of the Algiers Accords, January 19, 1981, Mashregh News
Carter signs documents negotiating the release of the hostages, January 19, 1981, The Wall Street Journal
Carter discussing the hostage crisis with staff, January 20, 1981, The White House Historical Association
...the United States will restore the financial position of Iran, in so far as possible, to that which existed prior to November 14, 1979....The United States pledges that it is and from now on will be the policy of the United States not to intervene, directly or indirectly, politically or militarily, in Iran's internal affairs.

-Algiers Accords, January 19, 1981
Picture
The Algiers Accords printed in the newspaper, January 20, 1981, ​​The New York Times

Carter’s failure to end the crisis factored into his defeat in the 1980 Presidential Election against
​Ronald Reagan whose inauguration on ​January 20, 1981, was followed by the release of ​the hostages just five minutes later.
Picture
January 21, 1981, The New York Times​
In the hostage crisis President Carter identified himself closely with the fate of the imprisoned Americans, gambling that an intensive campaign of pressure and diplomacy would succeed in setting them free. When that high-risk strategy failed, he accepted the consequences with considerable grace, making no attempt to find a scapegoat or to deny his own responsibility. His approach may be faulted as unduly optimistic about the effectiveness of U.S. pressure on Iran or as insufficiently cautious about his own political fortunes, but it can scarcely be seen as a deliberate exercise in self-promotion.

-Gary Sick in All Fall Down
Released hostages, January 21, 1981, Quartz
Hostages arriving at Andrews Air Force in Maryland, January 27, 1981, Monte Carlo Doualiya
Buses holding hostages and their relatives traveling through the crowd of people on Washington D.C.'s Pennsylvania Avenue, January 27, 1981, CNN
Recently released hostages, 1981, KGOU

The crisis hinted at the rise of modern Islamic terrorism, which would increasingly manifest itself
in events happening directly after the crisis and into the 21st century. 
Picture
Bombings during the Grand Mosque seizure,
Mecca, Saudi Arabia, 1979, Stratfor
...in the aftermath of 9/11 [the hostages said]: 'My God, it began with us.

-Bruce Laingen, the former Chargé d'affaires of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran and hostage, in an interview with BBC News
Clip from a personal interview with David Bohrman,
​an original producer of Nightline
...in November 1979 the echoes of the Iranian revolution were felt in Saudi Arabia after Islamists temporarily seized the Grand Mosque in Mecca. The seizure of the holiest shrine for all Muslims sent shock waves throughout the Muslim world and within the U.S. foreign-policy-making establishment.

-Fawaz A. George in America and Political Islam: Clash of Cultures or Clash of Interests?
Picture
South Tower of the World Trade Center collapsing,
​​September 11, 2011, Thomas Nilsson
The Americans taken prisoner on November 4, 1979, did not know if they would ever come home. Every day they lived with the threat of trial and execution, of becoming victims of Iranian political violence or an American rescue attempt. They lived with the arrogance of Islamist certainty, which prompts otherwise decent men to acts of unflinching cruelty....The men and women held hostage in Iran survived nearly fifteen months of unrelenting fear. They were the first victims of the inaptly named 'war on terror.'

-Mark Bowden in Guests of the Ayatollah​
Khomeini in a way invents modern Islamic fundamentalism, by which I mean, there've been strands of Islamic fundamentalism around for 100 years, but what Khomeini does is he gives it political teeth.

-Fareed Zakaria in The Road to 9/11

The U.S. and Iran broke off formal diplomatic relations, the following decades characterized
​by a legacy of continued conflict and compromise only on areas of mutual interest.
Given the intense emotion of U.S.-Iranian relations during the revolution and the hostage crisis, the absence of significant interaction between the two countries was probably the best that could have been expected. For its part, Iran continued to denounce the United States in the most virulent terms on every possible occasion, and there was no evidence of an interest or willingness on the part of either country to restore even rudimentary political ties.

-Gary Sick in All Fall Down​
Picture
October 23, 1983, Before Its News
The approval of the ayatollah and the prime minister was absolutely necessary to carry out the continuing economic commitment of Iran to Hezbollah, and to execute the October 23 attack [on U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut]. Given their positions of authority, any act of these two officials must be deemed an act of the government of Iran.

-
U.S. District Judge Royce C. Lamberth in his decision for Peterson v. Islamic Republic of Iran, May 30, 2003
Picture
November 17, 1986, Time​
In [the American people's] minds were still vivid pictures of Americans being held hostage at the U.S. embassy in Tehran. Khomeini and his people were still the enemy. Americans recalled only too well seeing their country insulted by the Tehran militants burning American flags and hanging dummy figures of President Carter and other U.S. leaders. Could America's own much-loved President Reagan have forgotten so quickly? If not, what possessed him to be making shady deals with the despised Iranian leaders?

-Don Lawson on the Iran-Contra Affair in his book America Held Hostage: The Iran Hostage Crisis and the Iran-Contra Affair
Picture
January 26, 1992, The New York Times​
​America had no natural partners in the Iran-Iraq War, but its interests dictated that the United States allow neither Saddam [Hussein] nor Khomeini to dominate the region and the world’s energy supply. For most of the war, it was Iran that appeared on the verge of victory, so Washington had little choice but to support Iraq.

​-Bruce Riedel in "Lessons from America’s First War with Iran", the Brookings Institution, May 22, 2013
Picture
December 9, 2013, Time​
'We all know the dangers of Iran obtaining a nuclear weapon,' wrote Obama, who spent 18 months negotiating the [nuclear deal with Iran] in 2014 and 2015. 'If the constraints on Iran’s nuclear program under the [Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action] are lost, we could be hastening the day when we are faced with the choice between living with that threat, or going to war to prevent it'....Obama emphasized that the deal 'was never intended to solve all of our problems with Iran,' and he warned that undermining it despite no clear evidence of Iranian violations could hasten an arms race or outright regional conflict.

-Eli Okun in "Obama: Withdrawing from Iran nuclear deal ‘is a serious mistake’", Politico, May 8, 2018
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  • Title
  • Thesis
  • Historical Context
    • ECONOMIC CONFLICT
    • POLITICAL CONFLICT
    • HUMANITARIAN CONFLICT
  • The Iran Hostage Crisis
  • The Struggle to Compromise
    • FAILED NEGOTIATIONS
    • FAILED MILITARY INTERVENTION
  • CONCLUSION
  • Research
    • Annotated Bibliography
    • Process Paper