In Iran, emotion over embassy takeover has faded

Boston.com:

For Iranians, fervor over the 1979 US Embassy takeover -- a central event in their stormy Islamic Revolution -- has faded. If the country's new president participated, he would be one of many former hostage-takers who entered politics.

Many of the organizers of the embassy seizure are now leading advocates of democratic reform and closer ties with the United States. READ MORE

The election of hard-liner Mahmoud Ahmadinejad sealed the end of an era in which former hostage-takers held key positions in the government and parliament. Most of them have already lost their posts in the backlash by Iran's clerical regime or will leave with the outgoing pro-reform president.

The official Iranian media were silent yesterday about demands by President Bush on Thursday that the new president explain his role in the embassy seizure. After seeing Ahmadinejad in photos or on television, six former hostages said they believe he was among the hostage-takers. One American said Ahmadinejad helped interrogate him.

The state news agency, radio and television made no mention of Bush's comments. Iranian newspapers do not publish on Fridays, a weekend day in Iran. Ahmadinejad's aides have denied he had a role.

The students who carried out the embassy takeover said Ahmadinejad didn't participate in the taking or holding of 52 American hostages for 444 days.
If he had been involved, Ahmadinejad likely would have played it up in his presidential campaign to increase his appeal to hard-liners, said Abbas Abdi, one of the student leaders. ''If he had played any sort of role in any part of it, he would have used that 1,000 times in the past 25 years to take advantage of it," Abdi said.

While a traumatic event for Americans, the embassy seizure and the revolution that surrounded it were, for Iranians, similar to the 1960s in the United States and Europe: a turbulent period that forged today's leaders.

Many young Iranians have little interest in the incident.

''I was a little kid when the embassy seizure happened," said Reza Hosseinpour, a Tehran shopkeeper in his late 20s. ''I don't want to hear about it anymore. It's part of the past history. There has been enough hostility between Iran and America."

In past years, the annual celebrations to mark the Nov. 4, 1979 embassy seizure have attracted crowds only in the hundreds.

The students that carried out the takeover were supporters of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the Shi'ite theologian who became Iran's supreme leader and imposed an Islamic government. The students seized the embassy to protest the US refusal to hand over Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the Iranian leader who had been ousted from power that year.

Over the past decade, many of the students formed the core of the Iranian reform movement that sought the loosening of the theocracy's hold on power and contacts with the United States.

Many, like Abdi, are members of the Islamic Iran Participation Front, the largest reformist party, which helped bring outgoing pro-reform president Mohammad Khatami to power in 1997.