by Geoff Vasil
Monday will be day 365 of the Iranian hostage crisis. On October 7, 2023, Iranian forces took over 250 Americans, Israelis, French and Thais hostage in Gaza, brutally raping, burning, shooting and murdering another 1,200 people. Around 50 were released on humanitarian grounds and it is believed that of the 101 remaining at least half are now dead.
Day 365 is approaching the 444 days of captivity of the 53 American hostages Islamic Republic revolutionaries in Iran held at the former American embassy complex in Teheran which began in November of 1979.
On April 24, 1980, then president Jimmy Carter sent a hostage-rescue team to Iran to bring them home. The operation during that election year in the United States was a failure, but proponents of the Carter campaign for a second term later made allegations it was sabotaged from within, namely by colonel Oliver North and then-pilot Bob Gates, who later became the head of the CIA. Those allegations were never proven sufficiently.
What did happen, though, is that the leaders of the Iranian Islamic revolution upended talks with the Carter administration and announced in October of 1980 they would not release the hostages until after the November election for president in the United States. Carter’s team had hoped to strike a deal with the Ayatollah Khomeini in order to gain American votes for a second term.
