History 137
Abilities Based Assignment: Think Piece
Taken Hostage On David Farber's book Taken Hostage, Farber informs us about the Iran Hostage Crisis and America's First Encounter with Radical Islam. This book tells us how the United States and Iran got into conflict, leading to the Iranians holding American Embassy members hostage as revenge for them feeling betrayed by the United States. It also informs us about other events that occurred in a decade that caused the United States many problems. Reading this book taught me a lot more than what I was expecting. I was expecting it to be a boring hard to read book, but it honesty grasped my attention. I like the fact that Farber talked about all the events that lead to the …show more content…

Why take American Embassy members Hostage? Etc. Many questions that didn't quite help me understand the crisis so well until I read this book. I was able to learn that the Shah wanted to modernize Iran, a thought Iranians weren't too happy about. This modernization were rejecting the sovereignty of Islamic law. Something the Shah didn't really put much into consideration since he wanted to make Iran into a successful nation. Leading the Iranians to start to disrespect him and hate him. Even though there were many problems, crisis occurring in Iran, the Shah didn't do anything to stop it or make things better. He simply continued his modernization and secularization campaigns. He eventually started losing control of Iran leading him to leave Iran. I also learned that President Carter didn't want the Shah back into the United States because he wanted to once again have Iran as an alliance. President Carter didn't want the Shah to be in the United States doing nothing while Americans are being kidnapped or killed in Tehran. Nothing could change Carters opinion in letting the Shah into the United States, until the Shah's sister sent him a letter demanding that he be in the United States because he was dangerously ill and the only place he could be treated was in the state-of-the-art U.S hospital. Shah's allowance into the United States furies the Iranians and thought of it as a backstabbing plan to help the Shah return to Tehran. This surely lead to a