Iran hostages 1979?

[SHRED]

Did Iran seize the American hostages because they wanted the return of the Shah for trial/execution?

I am a bit hazy here as to why they took the hostages in the first place.
Usually people want something in return when they take hostages. If was pure hatred then I would think they would have killed them.

[JHB]

1. You could start with Wiki

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran_hostage_crisis

[William769]

2. You beat me to it.

:(

[SHRED]

3. found this there ..thanks!

"The students justified taking the hostages as retaliation for the admission of the Shah into the U.S., and demanded the Shah be returned to Iran for a trial. The new Iranian regime believed the Shah was in the U.S. so that the U.S. could carry out another coup d'etat in Iran."

[JHB]

4. I don't think it started off with that specific intent...

...but once they had they'd overrun the embassy and had the hostaqges, yes, they demanded the extradition of the ex-shah, who was in the US for medical treatment.

[DinahMoeHum]

5. There's a new book out about it. . .

titled "Guests of the Ayatollah"

http://theguestsoftheayatollah.com/

[dipsydoodle]

6. Given the 1000's of Iranian deaths

at the hands of CIA trained SAVAK is was trivial but effecitve retaliation.

[nradisic]

7. Here's your answer...

Khomeini and his followers were not going to allow a repeat of 1953. The first Iranian Revolution, in 1953 was orchestrated by the CIA out of the US Embassy in Tehran, after which the Shah was installed as the ruler by the US. In 1979 the Islamic Revolution was in the process of ousting the Shah and the last thing they wanted was a repeat of 1953, so they took over the US Embassy to make usre that the US could not pull a fast one on the Iranian people again.

This pattern has repeated itself throughtout history...we supported Saddam and then had to take him down....we supported Bin Laden, gave him financing and stinger missiles in the 1980's and look where that brought us...then you have the IRAn-Contra deal....these were all occurences under REPUBLICAN administrations. "People who hate government should not be allowed to govern"

When will America learn from making repeated mistakes in electing the wrong party and then continuosly paying for it over decades to come....