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 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.
The iconic term used by Iranian leaders to describe the United States was coined by Ayatollah Khomeini the day after the embassy seizure. It is not a traditional Quranic term but a modern political slogan crafted to cast the conflict in Manichaean terms of good versus evil.
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."
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 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.