Guests Of The Ayatollah By Mark Bowden

In 1979 the US Embassy in Iran was over run by students and the americans were taken hostage. This ordeal lasted 444 days and changed the wasy America and Midlle East relationships changed forever. As a story it is facinating and tragic. in a way we did this to ourselves you see Iran had democracy before but America needed that oil s the CIA helped get the Shah installed as a puppet with policies that was to our liking. He turned out to be a dictator with death squads but the US paid no atention because we were stilll getting that oil. There waas a revolution and for a short while it could have been aprgressive nation in good standing throughout the world. The Shah was sick with cancer and admitted to the United States. This action infuriated the Iranians and the takeover of the embassy was mostly symbolic. this tale of that year and a half is full of facinating details like when the women and African Americans were released to build sympathy among "the oppressed of America". On A human level this was interesting but more importantly we are still feeling the effects of this event in ways you wouldn't expectfor instance the current President of considered to be one hostage takers. The show Nightline started just as a nightly update on the Hostage crisis.President Carter lost the electionin part beacuse of the crisis. Delta Corce was created just to rescue the hostages. i did not know much about this period in history but i really learned a lot.