Word: tehran
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Even as President Carter struggled to resolve the Iranian crisis, his defenders and critics last week began what almost surely will become a protracted controversy over the events that led to the takeover of the embassy in Tehran-and what the U.S. might have done, if anything, to prevent it. Some experts on Iran in the academic world believe the first mistake of the Carter Administration was failing to understand the basic nature of the movement that swept the Ayatullah Khomeini into power. Following the policies of preceding administrations, Carter originally supported the Shah, seeing him as a stabilizing ally...
...resounding yes. A good deal can be said in Carter's defense, however. Three times the Bazargan government assured the Administration that it could protect the embassy against attack. One of the assurances came after the Shah was admitted to the U.S. and the demonstrators started shouting in Tehran's streets. There was an encouraging precedent. Last February when anti-American protesters seized the embassy, Iran's government moved quickly and efficiently to bring them under control. But the U.S. should have been more aware of how frail the Bazargan government was. The Administration was simply...
...trouble had been correctly anticipated, the U.S. might have closed its embassy. But the Administration reasoned that the risk of maintaining its embassy was worth it. The situation seemed to be in flux, and the Administration felt a U.S. presence in Tehran would act as a moderating force. Besides, the U.S. cannot simply close down its embassies whenever it anticipates trouble...
There is also ample historical precedent, sadly enough, for the Iranian students' assault on the U.S. embassy in Tehran. Though the inviolability of the diplomatic envoy has been a principle practiced since the Middle Ages, embassies and representatives of governments have frequently been targets for protest. In 1829 a Persian mob-egged on by nationalistic mullahs in the court of the Shah-stormed the Russian embassy in Tehran and massacred almost the entire staff. Xenophobia figured large in the 1900 Boxer Rebellion (so called because it was led by a group named the Righteous and Harmonious Fists), when rebels...
...precedent. "Under the tenets of diplomatic immunity," explains Robert Beers, executive director of the American Foreign Service Association, "anyone accredited to another country as a diplomat is entitled to the protection of the host government. This protection is exactly what has been violated in this instance." The outrage in Tehran suggests that this vital principle of discourse between nations may be violated again in this age when terrorism is becoming commonplace. Says Beers sadly, "The old rules simply don't apply any more. In fact they appear to no longer exist...