Tuesday, November 04, 2003

A big mistake

On November 4,1979 militant students seized the U.S. Embassy in Tehran, demanding that the U.S. send the shah back to Iran so that he could stand trial. Thus begun the crisis in which 52 Americans were held hostage for 444 days. U.S. President Jimmy Carter ordered a complete ban of Iranian oil, with tougher sanctions to follow, which still remains. Beside all economical disaster for Iran, this incident had also great impact on shaping Iran’s political system. There is no doubt that Mullahs in order to establish their fanatic regime took advantage of this occasion as much as they could. Khomeini with his anti imperialism ideas could easily catch the attention of the other political groups. He appreciated the students’ achievement and called it the second revolution. Most of the political activists, with no foresight of the upcoming dilemmas, supported Khomeini and his indistinct outlooks. Subsequent to that illegal occupation, Mehdi Bazargan, the first prime minister after the revolution, and his liberal cabinet opposed it and insisted to put end on the crisis and release the hostages. But instead of that, Khomeini and his opportunist followers forced Bazargan and his ministers to resign. That event was very similar to what happened to Mohammad Mosaddesh in 1953. On august 1953, Americans orchestrated a coup d'état to get rid of Mosaddegh and establish a dictatorship. 26 years later Mullahs overthrew Bazargan’s government in order to reinforce their bases and bring another dictatorship which became much more dreadful and brutal than the other one. And all of these happened in consequence of that stupid act of some radical students on November 4,1979. The painful thing is that some of those students, who are now occupying governmental posts, still believe that they did a right thing.

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