Its very easy to pick the embassy-hostage event out of the whole context for an example how barbaric and terroristic all iranians are.
But you have to see the whole history which led to this event.
During WW2 the neutral Iran has been invaded and occupied by soviets and british forces, because the Shah of Iran Reza Khan refused to join the allies and declare war to the German Reich.
The relationship between the German Reich and Iran were good - and was no reason to declare a war to this country.
After the allies invaded Iran, they deposed the Shah and replaced him with his weak son, Reza II, who became a puppet of the Allies.
Promptly Iran became a member of the Allies and declared war to Germany. Iran was used as a supply base for the Soviets.
After WW2 Iran became a friend of the USA - and in these first decade it was a real friendship.
The USA were a "new" nation in this area. Unlike nations like England, France or Russia there were no diplomatic damage done to Iran by the USA.
The USA helped Iran by forcing the USSR-occupation forces to leave iranian territory after WW2 and also they supported Iran when they attacked and destroyed the first Kurdish nation, which was built in the soviet occupation area - the Kurdish Republik of Mahabad.
The soviets didnt acted when imperial iranian troops marched to the capital of this kurdish country, arresting the whole kurdish government and executed them in public after a short military trial.
The USA and the americans who worked in Iran impressed the iranians with their way of life and their democracy.
And so many young intellectual iranians, who had visited european and american universities and adopted the US way of life were more than happy, when the Prime Minister of Iran, Mr. Mossadegh, managed to depose the Shah in an unbloody revolution and sent him to italian exile.
That was the time when Iran could have become the most important stabilizing factor in the region.
It was a chance to create a democratic Iran - and this democracy would have built not by foreigners, but the Iranians themself.
But this chance failed.
The british and the US intelligence service deposed Mossadegh and put again the Shah on "power".
The US command centre of this operation was the embassy of the USA in Teheran. (And also in 1979 the CIA command centre was in this embassy).
With US help the SAVAK became a monster. This secret police of the Shah killed in the years that followed the deposal of Mossadeh tenhousands of Iranians - year by year.
Many of them just dissappeared.
The lucky one, who had relatives in powerful positions, were able to flee from Iran.
But most of them became victims of the terror regime of the Shah.
The Shah himself was considered a puppet of the USA.
And so the hate started to grow. Also the democratic forces in Iran had severe losses, because their prominent people were killed by the SAVAK.
So the radical elements - those who always fought in terroristic ways - like the communist Tudeh-partymembers and the radical islamists survived, because they were "trained" in acting with the SAVAK.
This terror lasted decades. And finally in 1979 there came the bloody revolution in Iran.
It was a time of total madness, where most of the Iranians only had the wish to end the terror regime of the Shah.
They forced the Shah to leave Iran and Ajatollah Khomeini came back to Iran to build a new iran - the Islamic Republic.
And all the time the people feared that the same could happen what happened after Mossadegh deposed the Shah in the 50ties: That the USA could start an operation to depose Khomeini and bring the Shah back to power.
The US embassy was defined as the CIA-command centre - especially by the students of the Teheran universities, who finally attacked it and took the hostages.
Most of the people didnt knew that one terror regime - the one of the Shah - was finally replaced by another one - the one of the Mullahs.
Ayatollah Khomeini - although very charismatic - was in the middle of an innerpolitical fighting for the power of Iran.
And many people didnt see what a dangerous man he was. Not only the iranians, who were so glad that the terror-regime of the Shah had ended and wished that he could continue the work of Mossadeh.
Also President Carters advisors called Khomeini "a second Ghandi who shouldnt be stopped".
That this "Ghandi" would build the next terror regime, which was responsible for the death of a million iranians wasnt seen in these days.
In these days the Iranians wanted to create their own democratic country. Many political factions were struggling bitterly how the new Iran should look like.
The one with the most power was the group of the Khomeini followers, but there were also many other factions.
And then something happened which ended any discussions: The Arabs attacked and tried to invade iran.
Saddam - in these days a nice friend of the civilized western nations - started the Iran-Iraq-War which lasted 8 long years.
Many of you think that the iranians consider Israel as the biggest enemy of Iran, but its not Isral but the arabs.
The innerpolitical fightings stopped immedeately.
And so - ironicly it was Saddam who gave with his attack against Iran Ayatollah Khomeini the whole solidarity of all iranian factions. He united all Iranians who had only the goal to kick the arabs out of Iran as their ancestors did centuries ago.
And so Khomeini could stabilize his terror-regime in Iran.
But today many thing in Iran have chanced. The mullahs were already loosing their power and democracy was growing again in Iran.
Then 9/11 happened and the stupid Axis-of-Evil Speach of Bush helped again the Mullahs to stabilize their power.
The mullahs know that they are loosing the inner political fightings against the iranian democratic powers - so they indeed need something or someone to help them.
I am totally convinced that the iranians will replace the mullahregime with a democratic system made by iranians within the next 5 years.
But if there is an attack against Iran by foreigners then we would have the same setback we had when England and the USA destroyed the democracy in Iran in the 50ties and replaced it by a terroristic regime.
