ABSTRACT
The hostage ordeal brought to the core of Iranian politics some of the most radical elements of the fundamentalist camp and suffocated the moderate elements. In 1980, a few months into the hostage crisis, Abolhassan Bani Sadr was elected Iran’s first president. The hostage crisis led to the first major confrontation between Washington and the fundamentalists. Bazargan and policymakers in Washington failed to understand the organic connection between the hostage crisis and the ongoing power struggle in Iran. Eventually, six months after the crisis began, Carter opted for a daring, but ill-advised, rescue operation called “Eagle Claw,” which had been designed immediately after the taking of the hostages. The benefits of the hostage crisis, however, were gradually outweighing its costly consequences, which included Iran’s diplomatic isolation, war with Iraq, and economic sanctions imposed on the country by the United States.
