Legacy of a failed revolution
25 years after he helped U.S. diplomats flee Tehran, Ken Taylor reflects on echoes of that crisis
It betrayed Iranians, reshaped the Muslim world and transformed diplomacy, writes Olivia Ward
OLIVIA WARD
One bleak January morning in 1980, a sign was posted on Canada's embassy in Tehran: "temporarily closed."The obscure event marked a momentous day for six Americans in hiding from a hostage crisis that had devastated their government and thrown their country into turmoil. With the help of Canadian Ambassador Ken Taylor and his officials, they were issued false Canadian documents, disguised as TV journalists and smuggled out of Iran. Now, 25 years later, the Iranian hostage crisis is long over. But the events that it set in motion have had a deep impact on Iran, the West, and the way diplomacy is done in the 21st century. "The Iranian revolution, as Ayatollah Khomeini envisaged it, has failed," says Taylor, who now lives in New York. "It was revolution for export, and it didn't sell. Iran is in a serious internal struggle and unable to resolve its relationship with the U.S. The hostage crisis was a very bad moment in history." The siege began Nov. 4, 1979, when militant students stormed the U.S. embassy in Tehran and captured 70 Americans amid a time of turmoil. The government of Shah Reza Pahlavi had crumbled, the fatally ill ruler had fled, and Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini — who aimed to establish an Islamic state — was vying with liberals who hoped to democratize the country. Although the hostage-takers later admitted their dramatic action was meant only as a protest, they found themselves at the centre of a profound international crisis that was to last 444 days, bring about the defeat of President Jimmy Carter, and ensure the ascendancy of an extremist clerical regime that has never released its grip on power. "The hostage crisis legitimized anti-Americanism in Iran," says political science professor Saeed Rahnema of York University's Atkinson Faculty, an Iranian exile. "It consolidated power for the Khomeini regime and its Islamic republic. Instead of creating democracy and political freedom, it ensured that there would be repression." While the majority of the Americans taken prisoner were in the main embassy building, six diplomats remained in the next-door consulate. When militants tried to break in, they escaped. Although some were later captured, six got to the Canadian and Swedish embassies, among the few that were able to take the risk of admitting them. "I sent a message right away to (foreign minister) Flora MacDonald," Taylor says. "(Prime Minister) Joe Clark was very affirmative. We assumed there would be a prolonged crisis, and I didn't feel that it was the role of our embassy to say, `We can't take you in.'" Expecting that Washington would work with the Canadian diplomats to move the hidden Americans out quickly — two were in Taylor's residence — the ambassador waited for further word. But with the 52 captives in the embassy taking centre stage, the Carter administration showed little interest. Six weeks later, MacDonald met with U.S. Secretary of State Cyrus Vance, insisting that escape plans be launched. "She told Vance to turn his attention to this, or we'd do it ourselves," said Taylor. "Shortly afterwards, the CIA in Washington got involved. Working with Ottawa, they created total Canadian identities, including passports, driver's licences, every kind of paper imaginable." In advance of the escape, most of the Canadian embassy staff was gradually sent out of the country, along with Taylor's wife, Pat. The ambassador was among the last to leave, along with fugitive American consular staff Robert Anders, Mark and Cora Lijek, Joseph and Kathleen Stafford, and agricultural attaché Henry Schatz. The remaining 52 Americans held hostage would not be released until Jan. 20, 1981, one year later. It was their fate that preoccupied America and much of the world for months to come. At the scene of the siege, however, there was little indication of how dire its consequences would become. "They created a fence (around the embassy), and outside it were stalls set up to sell things," recalls former CBC reporter Carole Jerome, author of The Man in the Mirror, which documents the Iranian revolution. "People were bused in (to protest), but in spite of the tension it was like a party. One man was selling Arab-style kaffiyehs and John Wayne jeans. When the TV lights went on they'd chant `Death to America' in a rather jolly way. Then they'd go back to asking if you wanted to buy their stuff." Inside the embassy, where journalists were allowed to attend news conferences, things were far from lighthearted. "The students in charge were intense, earnest and slightly frightening. They meant business." The "Canadian caper" sparked a fast and furious response, said Jerome, one of a handful of Canadian journalists in Tehran at the time. "We came out of our hotel one morning and found a sign saying: `Death to the CBC.' So we pretended to work for Irish television." Canadian diplomats had lived in the shadow of danger for weeks before the escape. But when the embassy doors were closed, Taylor said, he underestimated the gravity of the siege. "We thought we'd go to Kuwait, then come back and open again. It didn't happen for eight years." For Western diplomats, the hostage-taking was a shrill wake-up call, Taylor added. It heralded a new and more difficult era in diplomacy.
`One thing the hostage crisis demonstrated was the vulnerability of the West'Ken Taylor, former Canadian ambassador to Iran
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"After that, embassies, especially American ones, became fortresses. The security considerations restrict the movement of diplomats, and also hinder their effectiveness. As a diplomat you have to move around the community, not just sit in an office mapping out grand strategies. The worst example is in Iraq, where the U.S. diplomats are completely surrounded by walls. Who can they see or talk to?"Taylor resigned from the foreign service in 1984, four years after the Tehran rescue made him an international celebrity. Since then he has served as chancellor of Victoria University and as a director on the boards of companies in Canada, the U.S. and Mexico. He believes the decision to aid American diplomats would be more difficult for a Canadian government today. "The political will hasn't changed fundamentally," he says. "But what would be a concern is the kind of retribution that Canada would receive. At the time, the Iranian foreign minister said Canada would pay. But that was largely a cover, because we knew he was really a sympathetic individual who wanted a rational relationship with the West. He was merely venting the frustration of some Iranian elements." Today, the rescue "would be more than an issue between Iran and Canada. It could mean that we would see anti-Canadianism in the Muslim world." Although the "basic instincts" of Canadian diplomacy haven't changed, Taylor says, "I could agree that Canada is more cautious and deliberate at the moment. It's prepared to work through the traditional multilateral agencies rather than taking an individual stand." Still, he says, "if something like that happened again, I think the government would back our crazy scheme." Ottawa's foreign policy agenda has become more tied to domestic politics, Taylor points out: "It affects a number of issues, such as Ukraine, Israel and Palestine, Sri Lanka and the Tamil Tigers. This is the heavy side of, `How is it going to play at home?'" For Canada, the hostage rescue raised relations with the U.S. to a zenith never equalled since: Across the U.S., Canadians were toasted as heroes, and Americans had no doubts about what nation was their closest friend. Now, says Taylor, "the U.S. is more border- and security-conscious. And there is a sense that people felt let down when Canada didn't join the invasion of Iraq. But our relations with the U.S. are always cyclical and coloured by the personalities and egos of the leaders. In Canada, we have fits of moral superiority to the U.S. That may be good for our own egos, but not for our national relations." For Iran, the hostage crisis wrecked relations with much of the West for decades. "It fuelled the fantasy life of Iran, the belief that the West was an enemy and all Westerners were spies," says Mark Bowden, the Philadelphia author of the forthcoming Guests of the Ayatollah, about the lives of the hostage-takers since the crisis. "Now the more educated people understand more about the West, but they're caught in a bind, and the country is badly divided." Bowden found the hostage-taking was a slapdash affair that lurched from one debacle to another as the students improvised ways of caring for dozens of captives while sitting at the centre of an international political crisis. "Their motives weren't really ideological; it was just a protest against the U.S. But very quickly the mullahs saw it as an opportunity to leverage power, and the students found themselves being used. They were excited and elated, but they found themselves not in control." Some of the hostage-takers now regret their actions. Some have become dissidents, beaten and jailed. But 25 years ago, events moved too fast for them to ponder the implications. Buoyed by worldwide publicity from holding a symbolic gun to the head of America, Khomeini used the hostage-taking to defeat the struggling moderates. He installed a theocracy that alienated the U.S. and other Western countries. That hostility to Iran emboldened Saddam Hussein to attack it, launching a disastrous eight-year war in which 1 million people perished. Crippled by the war and an economic embargo, the mullahs' regime grew increasingly isolated and radical. Over two decades it has failed to redistribute wealth, to rein in corruption, introduce democracy or rejoin the world community. Despite wide support for change, the democracy movement has been hobbled and repression continues. "It's a disaster in the eyes of most Iranians," Bowden says. "Iran is an example of what happens to a country that falls into the hands of fanatics." However, says Rahnema, the radical regime is unlikely to survive long. "Despite all their efforts, they're faced with a population where 60 per cent of people are under 20. Even though those young people were born under the regime, they oppose it. If there's a genuine election, they would vote against it." While Iranians cope with the results of the hostage crisis, its reverberations echo in new confrontations between the West and Islamic extremists, who learned from the drama of 25 years ago. "One thing the hostage crisis demonstrated was the vulnerability of the West," Taylor says. "The ayatollah might have failed in his aims, but his influence was far-reaching." |
Iran on Tuesday dismissed a report that US commandos were carrying out secret missions inside the country and lashed out at US policy in Iraq.
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Paris, France, Jan. 18 – Iranians are planning a massive rally in Paris on the twenty-sixth anniversary of the 1979 Iranian revolution to call for an end to theocratic rule in their country.
EHRAN, Jan. 18 - A number of Iranian officials declared Tuesday that Iran would not be intimidated by threats, a day after President Bush refused to rule out military action against Iran if it continued to pursue nuclear weapons.
