The students who seized the US Embassy did not plan a 444-day ordeal. Their original plan was a brief, symbolic occupation to protest US policy, inspired by Western student sit-ins. They brought only enough food for three days, showing their lack of foresight for the crisis's escalation.

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.

Days before Iran's 1978 revolution, President Jimmy Carter lauded the Shah's leadership and Iran's "stability." This highlights a catastrophic failure of intelligence and a reliance on superficial state-level relationships over understanding ground-level dissent.

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.

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.

The Shah believed the US was masterminding events in Iran, a comforting illusion that someone was in control. The reality—that the US government was paralyzed by indecision and had no plan—was far more terrifying. This realization shattered his confidence and sealed his fate.