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Washington D.C., November 4, 2019 On November 4, 1979, a group calling itself the Students Following the Line of the Imam stormed the gates of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran, seized control of the compound, and took several dozen American diplomats, Marine guards, and others hostage. Thus began a 444-day ordeal that shocked the world, fundamentally altered the political scene in Iran, and cemented negative perceptions in the West of the countrys Islamic leadership.

Forty years later, the Iran hostage crisis is still critical to understanding the bitter nature of relations between Iran and the United States. It instantly formed a core part of the American narrative about the Islamic Republic as a regime willing to flout international law and universal moral principles, a view that has colored much of U.S. policymaking ever since.

Today, the National Security Archive is posting a small sampling of declassified records that recall that pivotal episode. They include a memo from National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski to President Carter suggesting several hardline actions including replacing Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini as Iran's leader and even overt intervention (see Document 07). Carter was not prepared to take up any of these options but they indicate the level of alarm created by events in Tehran.

The documentsare part of the soon-to-be-publishedU.S. Policy toward Iran: From the Revolution to the JCPOA, 1978-2015, a collection of almost 2,000 documents that is the latest in the Digital National Security Archive series through the academic publisher ProQuest.

While many American officials have been tempted to dismiss the clerical regime as barbaric and irrational, Irans rulers have long viewed the U.S. government through their own narrative, as a serial violator of other countries sovereign rights with a particularly malign interest in Iran. Those Iranian views, which were at the heart of the motivations for the embassy seizure, trace back to the 1953 coup dtat against Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddeq, which the United States and Great Britain helped to engineer. (See prior postings.) Although the overthrow owed much to the support of a sizable cohort of the population at the time, Washingtons evident desire to manipulate Irans internal politics would begin to fester in the collective memory.

The events of 1953 might not have figured so significantly had Irans monarch, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the coups main beneficiary, not developed into a despotic ruler whose accretion of power, suppression of political rights and social development, and failure to rein in state and court corruption fostered conditions Iranian society could no longer abide.

Although the Shahs relationship with his American patrons from Eisenhower to Nixon was complex, much of Irans political opposition came to see the United States as not only tolerant of his excesses but actively encouraging him at the expense of the interests of the people of Iran. Mass popular resentment began to grow by the mid-1960s, notably after the violent suppression of demonstrations following public denunciations of the Shah by the emerging cleric Ruhollah Khomeini who the Shah arrested in 1963 and later exiled to Iraq. Among Khomeinis chief grievances was the charge that the regime was kowtowing to foreign that is, American influence.

Conditions continued to deteriorate steadily, accelerated by the economic dislocations and skyrocketing corruption stimulated by the oil boom of the 1970s. Richard Nixons decision to rely on Iran as a buffer against Soviet aggression in the Persian Gulf region removed any pressure the Shah felt from previous administrations to nudge the country toward meaningful internal reform. American Embassy officials were instructed to avoid activities that might aggravate the Shah, including seeking contacts with his opposition, which curbed their ability to come to grips with the depths of popular animus against the regime.

By the time Jimmy Carter took office in 1977, and a year later praised Iran as an island of stability in one of the most troubled areas of the world, the country was on the verge of revolution. Despite his expressed interest in human rights, Carter became identified in Iran, particularly in the eyes of the clerical opposition, with the Shah who repeatedly resorted to violence tosuppressdemonstrations through the end of 1978. On January 16, 1979, Mohammad Reza fled the country andtwo weeks laterKhomeini returned from years of exile.

Twenty-five years of growing repression under the monarchy, and the belief that Washington was behind the Shah's excesses, fed into the motivations of the hostage-takers in November 1979. But the return of the charismatic Shiite leader from exile did not mean the future direction of Iranian politics was sealed. Post-revolution Iran witnessed months of deep crisis punctuated by political demonstrations, ethnic and tribal uprisings, bombings, and other unrest. According to the embassy-takers, one of their core concerns was simply to take some dramatic symbolic action to support Khomeinis position.

A number of events during that period can be counted as proximate causes of the embassy seizure. Among them were expressions of outrage from various quarters in the United States against harsh treatment of Iranian citizens by revolutionary authorities. In Tehran these statements were taken as signs of Washingtons continued intention to interfere in the countrys affairs. Ironically, the Carter administration was hard at work not only at developing a foundation for good relations with the mostly moderate Provisional Government but also at trying to reach out to key religious figures in belated recognition of their political significance. But the great majority of these attempts were rejected, perhaps not surprisingly given that one aim of the revolution had been to eliminate the American presence.

On May 17, 1979, one such expression of opposition to Iranian conduct took the form of a U.S. Senate resolution condemning a string of executions ordered by Irans revolutionary courts. The move, mainly symbolic, struck a nerve in Tehran in part because one of the resolutions sponsors, New York Republican Senator Jacob Javits, was said to be a Zionist and to have had ties to the Shah and the previous regime including an apparent financial arrangement between Javitss wife and the company Iran Air. The vehemence of the reaction, spearheaded by Khomeini himself, flummoxed Washington but the episode came to symbolize the alleged harmful intent of the U.S. which the hostage-takers aimed at fending off.

A much more widely recognized pretext for the November 4 takeover was the Carter administrations decision to allow the Shah into the United States for medical treatment. Iran experts inside the State Department had warned for months that to do so would create huge problems for U.S. policy and even endanger diplomats in Iran but Carters senior advisers one-by-one lined up in favor of admitting the Shah. In retrospect, the reasons evidently included mounting pressure from influential Shah supporters (primarily leading Republicans such as Nixon, Henry Kissinger, and David Rockefeller), the related political costs of being seen to abandon a once-loyal anti-communist ally, and the personal views of Carter. The president clearly understood what was at stake, asking his aides at one key point what they would tell him to do after the embassy was overrun.

The shah eventually arrived in New York on October 22, 1979, but this did not immediately lead to the embassy seizure. The reason may be that by their own account the perpetrators had only begun planning the operation a couple of weeks beforehand. The final event that seems to have prompted the assault came on November 3 when National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski, a noted hawk when it came to dealing with the Shahs opposition, met face-to-face with the head of the Provisional Government Mehdi Bazargan on the anniversary of Algerias revolution which was being celebrated in Algiers. The meeting was televised and made world headlines, but it also evidently led the Iranian student group to draw the wildly exaggerated conclusion that the United States might be on the verge of another regime-change operation aimed at Iran, along the lines of the 1953 coup. Hoping to stave off any such possibility, they launched their own operation the next day.

The hostage episode was rife with ironies, starting with the Bazargan-Brzezinski meeting. It was actually the charg daffaires in Tehran, Bruce Laingen, who would become the most senior American to be taken hostage, who recommended to the Iranian prime minister that he use the occasion in Algiers to meet with senior American officials.

Another paradox was that the United States had neither the capabilities nor the intention to foment another coup in Iran. Despite assumptions by the students and most Iranian officials, the world of 1979 was vastly different from 1953. Jimmy Carter was not Dwight Eisenhower and did not sharehis inordinate fearof communism (at least not until the December 1979 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan). The United States was furthermore in no position to mount serious hostile action against Iran during the revolution, in part because they knew so little about the situation or the players (even less than they had known about the Shah and his regime) and had virtually no contacts among potential counter-revolutionaries. To be sure, this was not for lack of trying on the part of a wide range of would-be plotters; according to a substantial documentary record Washington was approached by a stream of individuals and groups inside and outside the country promising to overthrow the mullahs but the Americans rejected all entreaties prior the embassy seizure.

There is also no indication in the record that throughout 1979 the great majority of U.S. officials gave serious consideration to anything beyond shoring up ties with anyone inside the Iranian political system who would talk to them. Brzezinski himself is on the record as pressing Carter to consider different kinds of military action but the president and other senior officials including the Joint Chiefs of Staff discarded all such ideas although, as this posting confirms, ironically the takeover led to a revival of talk over possible military and political reprisals (again rejected).

U.S. intelligence agencies were also nowhere near as formidable as they were reputed to be. The Carter administration, much to the dismay of critics, had substantially cut back on the CIAs HUMINT capabilities in a deliberate move to counter the public perception of the agency as a rogue elephant. As noted, U.S. capabilities in Iran even to gather intelligence much less conduct covert operations on the scale of regime change were already circumscribed. Shortly after the hostage taking, a career CIA officer on Brzezinskis staff lamented to his boss: It is supremely ironic that we should stand accused of so much espionage out of our Embassy in Tehran when we have done so little. (See Document 5)

Beyond the human tragedy experienced by the several dozen Embassy personnel held against their will, the hostage episode had several momentous political consequences, many of which were sharply detrimental to Iran. It instantly cast the regime in the harshest light, increasing its isolation from much of the rest of the world. This in turn made it far too easy for various political actors in the West to dismiss the regime as untrustworthy, not to say barbaric and irrational, thus complicating future efforts to win domestic support, particularly in the United States, for policies that arguably were in the interests of an important regional player. More immediately, the crisis helped precipitate the immensely costly Iran-Iraq War by feeding into Saddam Husseins calculation that Iran was a vulnerable target. Later in the war, Western distrust and ill will, arising in part from the takeover, contributed first to reluctance to show support for Iran, despite being the aggrieved party, and later to a readiness to justify engaging in direct fighting with Iranian forces.

The hostage crisis also contributed to the growing public sense of American global impotence in the United States that undoubtedly hurt Carters reelection chances and helped bring Ronald Reagan to office, with all of the attendant implications for the country and the international environment. Reagan himself drew lessons from the crisis, vowing never to be placed in the same vulnerable position as Carter although he too ultimately suffered politically and damaged the countrys standing as a result of the Iran-Contra affair. (The concept of taking hostages adopted by Hezbollah and others in Lebanon was undoubtedly encouraged by the perception of the impact of the Tehran episode.) The crisis even contributed to developments in areas such as military preparedness as one of the main recommendations of the Holloway Report (Document 10) after the failed rescue mission was to build up American special operations capabilities.

Over the coming months, the National Security Archive will post additional e-books drawn from the upcoming ProQuest publication,U.S. Policy toward Iran: From the Revolution to the JCPOA, 1978-2015.

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1979 Iran Hostage Crisis Recalled | National Security Archive

DUBAI (Reuters) - Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei told Irans elite Revolutionary Guards on Sunday to develop more advanced and modern weapons, amid increasingly tense disputes with the United States and Gulf Arab states.

FILE PHOTO: Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei gives a speech to a group of scholars and seminary students of religious sciences in Tehran, Iran September 17, 2019. Official Khamenei website/Handout via REUTERS

Tensions in the Gulf have risen to new highs since May 2018, when the Trump administration withdrew from a 2015 international nuclear accord with Tehran that put limits on its nuclear program in exchange for the easing of sanctions.

As U.S. sanctions have been reimposed, there have been a series of attacks in Saudi Arabia and the Gulf that Washington and its allies have blamed on Iran, which denies responsibility.

The Guards should have advanced and modern weapons ... Your weapons should be modern and updated. It should be developed at home. You need to develop and produce your weapons, Khamenei said in a speech at Imam Hossein Military University in Tehran.

Today the Guards have a powerful presence inside and outside Iran ... Americas hostile approach has increased the Guards greatness, Khamenei said, according to state TV.

Washington and Riyadh have accused Iran of being behind attacks on Saudi oil facilities on Sept. 14, which temporarily knocked out half Saudi oil output. Tehran denies any role in the strikes which were claimed by Yemens Iran-backed Houthi forces.

Amid the tensions, Washington plans to deploy about 3,000 troops to Saudi Arabia, including fighter squadrons, an air expeditionary wing and air defense personnel.

Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan arrived in Tehran on Sunday, saying he would continue efforts to defuse the row between Tehran and Riyadh, which have been locked in proxy conflicts in the Middle East.

Khan, who also met Khamenei, is visiting Tehran after he said U.S. President Donald Trump had asked him to help reduce tensions with Iran.

Pakistan does not want conflict between Iran and Saudi Arabia, Khan told a joint news conference with Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, broadcast on state television.

I am happy to facilitate talks between Tehran and Riyadh, said Khan, saying he had constructive talks with Rouhani and planned to visit Saudi Arabia on Tuesday.

Khamenei told Khan that U.S.-allied Gulf Arab States were under the will of the United States and warned that any attacker would regret taking action against Iran, according to state television. Ending the war in Yemen will have a positive impact on the region.

Saudi Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Adel al-Jubeir said on Sunday that Riyadh had not asked Islamabad to mediate.

The minister told reporters in Riyadh the Pakistani prime minister was acting on his own initiative and said Iranians needed to change their behavior, their policies if they want countries to deal with them as with normal countries.

Irans foreign ministry said before Khans visit that Tehran was ready for talks with Riyadh with or without a mediator.

Rouhani told the news conference after meeting Khan that any effort based on goodwill is welcomed ... during the meeting, we agreed that the regional issues can be resolved through diplomacy and through dialogue between countries.

Writing by Parisa Hafezi, additional reporting by Olesya Astakhova in Riyadh; Editing by Raissa Kasolowsky and Edmund Blair

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Khamenei tells Iran's Guards to develop advanced, modern ...

Netanyahu recently eclipsed David Ben-Gurion as Israels longest-serving prime minister, but once again he is fighting for political survival, with another vote to determine his future as prime minister set for Sept. 17. In a wrinkle of history, some of his opponents are the same people who vigorously opposed his push to strike Iran several years ago.

Regardless of the outcome of the election, the landscape of the current Iran crisis could change quickly, and Trump even said during the recent Group of 7 summit that he might meet in the coming weeks with President Hassan Rouhani of Iran. That prospect has set off alarms in Israel, where some officials raise fears in private that the American president in whom they had invested so much hope has gone wobbly. But Netanyahu, at least publicly, says he isnt worried. In an interview in August in his office in Jerusalem, he acknowledged the possibility that Trump, like Obama before him, might try to avoid a war and instead attempt to reach a settlement over Irans nuclear program.

But this time, Netanyahu said, we will have far greater ability to exert influence.

The first public revelation about a clandestine uranium-enrichment program in Iran came in the summer of 2002, as America was preparing for war with Iraq. Western intelligence services had found that scientists at a nuclear facility near Natanz, in north-central Iran, had begun an effort to enrich uranium ore. A dossier of these findings leaked to a group affiliated with the M.E.K., which went public with the information at a news conference in Washington. The Bush administration, preoccupied with Iraq, chose to pursue a path of negotiation with Iran, coupled with sanctions. For many Israeli officials, the revelation reinforced a conclusion that they had already drawn: The United States was making war on the wrong country.

The Israeli leadership grew even more concerned in 2005, when Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was elected president of Iran. Ahmadinejad immediately made known his views about Israel, unleashing fiery rhetoric calling for the end to the nation and calling the Nazi extermination of Jews a myth. He increased support for militant groups like Hamas and Hezbollah and, American and Israeli analysts agreed, he also began to accelerate the nations nuclear program. In a nation built by survivors of the Holocaust, the moves confirmed for many that Iran presented an existential threat.

Israels leadership at that time was going through an uncertain moment. In January 2006, Ariel Sharon, Israels prime minister, suffered a stroke that left him in a vegetative state. A deputy, Ehud Olmert, stepping up to replace him, gave a free hand and endless resources to the clandestine campaign that the Mossad, Israels civilian intelligence agency, was running to stop, or at least delay, the Iranian nuclear project. In 2007, Ehud Barak, a former prime minister, became Olmerts defense minister and issued a written order to the Israeli militarys general staff to develop plans for a large-scale attack on Iran. But Olmert thought that many were exaggerating the immediacy of the Iran threat. His own position, he recalls now, was that it was not Israel that should lead a military operation, even with the knowledge that Iran might indeed succeed in getting a bomb. Just as Pakistan had the bomb and nothing happened, Israel could also accept and survive Iran having the bomb.

Netanyahu, then in the leadership of the conservative Likud party, took a starkly different position. He had gone to high school and college in the United States, earning a business degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and working at the Boston Consulting Group, where he became friends with the future Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney. During his first term as prime minister from 1996 to 1999 he warned a joint session of Congress that only the United States could prevent the catastrophic consequences of a nuclear-armed Iran.

Now the Likud leader was once again enlisting Israels closest ally into what Uzi Arad, one of his former top advisers, describes as a personal crusade against the Iranian threat. Speaking at the annual conference of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, or Aipac, in Washington in 2007, Netanyahu demanded more sanctions on Iran. He also met with Dick Cheney, then the vice president, and, according to Arad, warned that if the West failed to present a credible threat of military action, Iran would surely get the bomb.

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The Secret History of the Push to Strike Iran

Tehran Iran has seized almost 10 tons of narcotics destined for Europe and uncovered one of the country's largest trafficking rings, police said Thursday. "This huge narcotics shipment, which was hidden in a petrol tanker and reached here via Iran's eastern border, was supposed to be offloaded and then smuggled to European countries," state television reported from the northwestern city of Urmia, not far from the Turkish border.

Iran's deputy police chief Ayoub Soleimani said the shipment comprised 3.9 tons of morphine and 5.8 tons of opium. He said that nine suspected traffickers were arrested with an additional 44 pounds of heroin and 130 firearms in their possession.

Neighbouring Afghanistan produces some 90% of the world's opium, which is extracted from poppy resin and refined to make heroin and morphine.

Iran is a major transit route for Afghan-produced opiates headed to Europe and beyond. The illegal drugs are often first shipped from Iran and other Asian nations to east Africa, where smuggling networks help move it into Europe and even into the U.S. black market.

Iran confiscates and destroys hundreds of tons of illicit narcotics every year. According to the latest UN figures, Iran accounted for 91% of the world's opium seizures and 20% of heroin and morphine seizures in 2017, amounting to 694 and 43 tons respectively.

Iran has repeatedly threatened Europe that if it does not do more to mitigate the impact of U.S. sanctions imposed on its economy after President Trump's unilateral withdrawal from the 2015 nuclear deal, it could invest less in combating drug trafficking.

Washington pulled out of the landmark nuclear deal between Tehran and major powers last May and re-imposed sanctions on key sectors including as oil and banking, in addition to targeting Iranian military units and senior politicians.

Mr. Trump said the moves were necessary to force Iran to renegotiate what he has called the "worst deal" ever negotiated. He believes the agreement gave Iran far too much economic reward for too little oversight of its nuclear program, and no promise to reign in its conventional weapons program.

But the moves by Washington have enraged Iran, seemingly leading the country to lash out with attacks on shipping, a U.S. military drone and, the U.S. and its allies say, the recent assault on Saudi Arabian oil facilities.

Iran has sought to demonstrate that it has multiple means of responding to any perceived aggression, including proxy forces across the Middle East. With the seizure of narcotics on Thursday, Tehran clearly wanted to highlight yet another way it could chose to show its displeasure.

"Despite the international pressure and economic sanctions, Iran is still the world's bulwark against drug trafficking," state television reminded the world on Thursday.

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Iran says it stopped 10 tons of heroin and opium reaching ...

ABQAIQ, Saudi Arabia (Reuters) - Saudi Arabia on Friday took media on a tour of oil facilities damaged by attacks that Washington and Riyadh blame on Iran, showing melted pipes and burnt equipment, as Tehran vowed wide retaliation if heightened tensions boil over into hostilities.

The kingdom sees the Sept. 14 strikes on its Khurais and Abqaiq facilities the worst attack on Gulf oil infrastructure since Iraqs Saddam Hussein torched Kuwaiti oilfields in 1991 as a test of global will to preserve international order.

U.S. President Donald Trump said on Friday the United States was imposing sanctions on Irans central bank over the attack. U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said the bank was Tehrans last source of funds.

Asked about the possibility of a military response on Iran, Trump said the United States was always prepared and that a military strike was always a possibility.

Iran denies involvement in the attack, which initially halved oil output from Saudi Arabia, the worlds largest petroleum exporter. Responsibility was claimed by Yemens Houthi movement, an Iran-aligned group fighting a Saudi-led alliance in Yemens four-year-old conflict.

At Abqaiq, one of the worlds largest oil processing plants, reporters saw a punctured, blackened stabilizer tower that Khalid Buraik, Saudi Aramco vice-president for southern area oil operations, said would have to be replaced.

As reporters examined a shattered separator dome draped with a red tape labeled Danger, Buraik said 15 towers and facilities had been hit at Abqaiq, but it would regain full output capacity by the end of September.

At Khurais oilfield to the west, which the Saudi defense ministry says was hit by four missiles, Reuters reporters were shown repair work under way, with cranes erected around two burnt-out stabilization columns, which form part of oil-gas separation units, and melted pipes.

We are confident we are going back to the full production we were at before the attack (on Khurais) by the end of September, Fahad Abdulkarim, Aramcos general manager for the southern area oil operation, told reporters.

We are working 24/7...This is a beehive.

Workmen wearing red high visibility jackets and white helmets moved through the site, a large compound the size of several football stadiums containing interconnected structures of piping and towers.

A mound of blackened debris lay on the ground. An executive said the scorched mess once covered much of the surface of the facility but now only a small mound is left.

Some workers sprayed what appeared to be water on the ground. Mobile cranes and water trucks stood near the crumpled, mangled remains of a fire-damaged stabilization tower.

The Sept. 14 attacks intensified a years-long struggle between Saudi Arabia and Iran, who are locked in a sometimes violent contest for influence in several flashpoints around the Middle East.

Saudi Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Adel al-Jubeir said on Thursday the attacks were an extension of the Iranian regimes hostile and outlawed behavior.

Iran has warned the United States against being dragged into a war in the Middle East and said it would meet any offensive action with a crushing response.

Tehran amplified that message on Friday when a senior Revolutionary Guards commander said Iran would respond from the Mediterranean to the Indian Ocean against any U.S. plots.

If the Americans think of any plots, the Iranian nation will respond from the Mediterranean, to the Red Sea and to the Indian Ocean, said General Yahya Rahim-Safavi, a senior adviser to Irans supreme leader, state news agency IRNA reported.

Lebanons Iranian-backed Hezbollah movement warned Saudi Arabia against betting on a war against Iran because they will destroy you, its leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah said.

Your house is made of glass and your economy is made of glass. Like the glass cities in the UAE, he said.

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo had called the attacks an act of war but on Thursday he said Trump, who has ordered more sanctions on Iran, wants a peaceful solution to the crisis.

Irans foreign minister on Friday questioned Pompeos remarks and listed repeated Iranian diplomatic initiatives.

Coalition for Peaceful Resolution?, Mohammad Javad Zarif said on Twitter, and listed eight diplomatic initiatives by Iran since 1985, including a peace plan for Yemen in 2015.

He later said Saudi Arabia and its ally the United Arab Emirates seemed to wish to fight Iran to the last American.

Oil prices were on track for their biggest weekly jump since January, lifted by rising Middle East tensions after the attack. Brent crude was up more than 7% from last Fridays close at $64.69 a barrel, U.S. West Texas Intermediate was $58.47.

Chinese President Xi Jinping told Saudi King Salman in a phone call that China condemned the attack and called on all parties to avoid escalating the situation, Xinhua reported.

Despite being a relatively low-profile diplomatic player in the Middle East, China has close economic and energy relations with both Saudi Arabia and Iran.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said groundless accusations against Iran over the attacks were inflaming tensions, Interfax news agency reported.

Additional reporting by Meg Shen and Twinnie Siu in Hong Kong, Writing by William Maclean; Editing by Maher Chmaytelli and by Jon Boyle

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Media visit Saudi oil plant damaged in strike blamed on Iran