The Carter administration was explicitly warned by its own diplomats that allowing the deposed Shah into the US would provoke an attack on the Tehran embassy. Carter, aware of the risk, ultimately relented due to humanitarian pressure and political concerns about appearing disloyal.

Instead of viewing the crisis as an immediate disaster, some in Carter's re-election team saw it as an opportunity. They believed it would allow Carter to "wrap himself in the flag" and appear presidential, a strategy that catastrophically backfired as the crisis dragged on.

Unlike the US, both Labour Prime Minister Jim Callaghan and his Conservative successor Margaret Thatcher refused to allow the deposed Shah into Britain. They correctly assessed that doing so would endanger their own embassy staff in Tehran, a decision that likely prevented a parallel hostage crisis.

The U.S. ambassador in 1977 was shocked that few staff spoke Farsi or had ever left Tehran. This linguistic and cultural isolation meant they lacked links to opposition groups, and their intelligence was based almost solely on the Shah's insulated royal court.

While 66 Americans were held hostage, six diplomats who escaped the initial takeover were successfully exfiltrated from Iran by the CIA and Canadian government. Their cover story was that they were a Hollywood film crew scouting locations for a fake science fiction movie named "Argo."

The U.S. Embassy and CIA were unaware that the Shah was dying of leukemia, dismissing rumors as Russian propaganda. This critical intelligence gap meant they couldn't understand his indecisiveness and erratic behavior as the crisis escalated, misreading the entire situation.

Iran's leader was surprised by the student takeover and first ordered them out. He quickly changed his mind upon realizing the event's immense popularity and its utility in consolidating hardline control, demonstrating his political opportunism over ideological consistency.

The Shah was seen as a repressive autocrat, yet he was indecisive when confronted with mass protests, partly due to his illness. This politically toxic combination alienated the people through repression while emboldening them through weakness, creating the perfect conditions for his downfall.

The White House assumed the hostage crisis was a negotiation over specific demands, such as returning the Shah. In reality, Khomeini used the prolonged crisis to eliminate moderate rivals and consolidate the Islamic Republic, making the stated demands largely irrelevant.