Changes in Iran, through the eyes of a hostage
taker
By Scott Peterson
Christian Science Monitor
February 10, 1999
Taking American diplomats hostage in Iran during the Islamic revolution
20 years ago was all part of the zealotry of the time for Abbas Abdi: After
decades of American ``meddling,'' humiliation of the United States was
a top priority.
As one of three leaders of the ``Students Following the Line of Imam,''
Mr. Abdi had his dream realized when his cabal of hard-liners organized
the takeover of the American Embassy in Tehran, known then as the ``den
of spies.''
To chants of ``Death to America'' on Nov. 4, 1979, US Marine guards
were overwhelmed, diplomats were taken into custody, and the American
flag was burned on the rooftop.
``We have control,'' Abdi recalls announcing to the world. The echo
of that statement traumatized a superpower - as 52 American diplomats
were held hostage for 444 days - and poisoned Iran-US ties for two decades.
But this week, as Iranians celebrate the 20-year anniversary of the
overthrow of the American-backed Shah Muhammad Reza Pahlavi, Abdi says
he is ``older and wiser.'' The sea change in his own political thinking
- from extremist revolutionary to moderate with tolerant views - mirrors
those throughout Iran.
``Everything has changed,'' says Abdi, who is now an editor of the
moderate Salam newspaper. ``The world has changed, our regime has changed,
our social environment has changed.... For sure I changed too.''
Tension with the US is often traced back to a 1953 coup orchestrated
by the US Central Intelligence Agency, which helped overthrow a short-lived
elected government and snuffed out budding democracy in Iran.
Though almost no CIA documents about this operation are known to still
exist, it is commonly accepted that the US then installed the shah and
trained his notoriously brutal SAVAK internal security forces. Press
freedom and dissent were unheard of, and - in an effort to ``Westernize''
- religious expression was restricted.
The coup ``created a deep hatred among Iranians for the US,'' says
Ibrahim Yazdi, the first foreign minister of the revolution.
Ideological fervor
Iranians overthrew the shah in February 1979, and in those heady days,
street violence mixed with ideological fervor. Freedom from the shah's
repressive rule, independence from Western domination, and an Islamic regime
served as the three pillars of the revolution.
Then, when the US accepted the exiled shah for medical treatment in
the US in October 1979, the die was cast for the embassy takeover.
But today, a new strategic dynamic is bringing the two enemies closer
together. Can Iran afford to remain isolated from the world's one remaining
superpower? And can the US continue to ignore Iran's strategic role as
an emerging regional power that sits at the energy and geographic crossroads
of Central Asia?
As a result, Iran's reformist President Mohammad Khatami and American
officials have dabbled with dtente, and enthusiasm for flag-burning is
at an all-time low.
Mr. Khatami first offered the olive branch a year ago. He stopped short
of making an apology for the embassy takeover but expressed ``regret''
for the pain that the hostage saga caused Americans.
For Abdi, these moves reflect a mellowing change that has taken the
edge off the uncompromising events of 1979. ``That hard feeling and very
hard position is now disappeared,'' he says. ``We [students] were not thinking
of the aftermath.... Although it's a lesson we will always remember, it
is as a lesson only, without the hard feelings.''
Views began to harden with the embassy takeover, when hard-liners hijacked
the revolution, says Mr. Yazdi, a relative liberal who resigned over the
affair and now heads the opposition Freedom Movement of Iran. Taking the
hostages ``pushed aside moderate elements and concentrated power in [extremist]
hands,'' he says.
Other issues furthered hardened attitudes: internal upheaval, violent
threats to the new regime from its opponents, and strictly enforced Islamic
social demands.
And despite hopes of total freedom kindled by the revolution, a new
type of repression and control emerged that reminded some of the shah's
era.
``People ask: 'In some sense, isn't that [shah's repression] what we're
having now?' `` says Sadiq Sibaqalam, a political historian at the University
of Tehran. ``So we explain that Rome wasn't built in a day.''
Iranians were further disillusioned by the Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s,
which exacerbated divisions between believers in the revolution and nonbelievers.
By 1997, Iranians had sent a powerful message to the conservative
clerical establishment that most wanted faster social and political changes:
They overwhelmingly elected reform-minded Khatami - a sign that shows to
many how the revolution has matured politically.
Hostage captor meets captive
In yet another sign of changing attitudes, hostage captor met captive
last July at the UNESCO headquarters in Paris. Abdi took part in the public
meeting with former US hostage and embassy press attach Barry Rosen, at
a gathering organized by the Center for World Dialogue based in Nicosia,
Cyprus.
Abdi apologized to Mr. Rosen's family for their suffering but said
- as he told the Monitor - that he did not regret his actions.
The takeover was meant to last 10 days at most, he says, and its initial
purpose was to force the US to deport the shah back to Iran. ``We thought
we were doing something good,'' he says.
Such revolutionary beliefs had surprised foreigners at the time, whose
close ties with the Western-oriented elite overlooked the conservative
majority. ``It's dangerous for Western people to see Iran through the people
who are close to us,'' says a Western diplomat. ``They are the minority.''
Before there can be dtente, Abdi says, the US must apologize for imposing
a quarter century of the shah's rule on Iran. How can the former hostage-taker
imagine a similar turnaround in his thinking - to accepting dtente?
Part of the reason may be that in two decades, ``you don't see so many
changes in your country, but I have seen many, many changes in 20 years
in my country,'' Abdi says. ``I don't think we should reach the conclusion
that what we do today is right, or what we did in the past was wrong.''
Also see:
* AFP: Hardliners
break up rally by reformed US hostage-taker
* Reuters: U.S.
embassy occupiers are Iran's new ``liberals''
* Reuters: Montazeri
calls for studying re-establishing U.S. ties
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