A Former Hostage-Taker’s View on US-Iran Relations Under Trump

More than 37 years on, reverberations from the United States embassy siege — when a group of students took 52 American diplomats hostage for 444 days — continues to dominate Iran-US relations. Despite recent improvements in relations spurred on by the nuclear deal and a push for dialogue from both countries’ governments, the fallout continues. 

This week, following on from the election of Donald Trump, the leader of those students, Ebrahim Asgharzadeh, tells IranWire that relations between the United States and Iran will deteriorate under Donald Trump, and the war of words will intensify. 

Now a reformist politician, over the last four decades, Asgharzadeh has been a Revolutionary Guards commander and a member of Iran’s parliament. He also has close ties to many of Iran’s intelligence and foreign policy officials. 

In 1998, he advocated better relations between Iran and the US and famously asked the two countries to bring down the wall of mistrust. He also said he would be willing to apologize for his role as a hostage-taker if it could help bolster those relations.

Two decades later the wall of mistrust is stronger than ever. Yet, speaking exclusively to IranWire, Asgharzadeh predicts worse days ahead. He believes Trump’s “negative propaganda” against the nuclear deal — or the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) as it is officially known —  could damage Iranian president Hassan Rouhani’s reformist government. “Iranians will have a negative perception of the deal because of Trump’s propaganda,” Asgharazdeh says. “Considering the hardliners close to Trump who are known for their anti-Iranian sentiments — people like Rudy Giuliani, John Bolton, Newt Gingrich and Bob Corker — there is a threat that they will deny Iran the benefits of the JCPOA.” 

Like most Iranian supporters of President Hassan Rouhani, Asgharzadeh views the upcoming Trump presidency as a harmful interruption. He would have preferred a Clinton presidency, which would have meant the continuation of President Obama’s policies. “Obama, [former secretary of state] Madeleine Albright, Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Clinton, at least have read some books about law and politics and have been to the best American universities,” he says. “But now we have to wait to see what disaster Trump, who has never opened a book, has in store for the Middle East.”

Yet many Americans, not necessarily all Trump supporters, see people like Asgharzadeh as part of the problem. Barry Rosen, a former US hostage, described how difficult it was for him to take Asgharzadeh's statements seriously. “I don't give him the credibility that possibly others may want to give him,” Rosen told IranWire. “Asgharzdeh has not at all apologized for taking Americans hostage. To me, that says a lot about him. He certainly is coming from a skewed point of view — there's no doubt about that – in terms of his interpretation of what the future will hold for US-Iran relations.”

Rosen, who first went to Iran as a Peace Corps volunteer in 1967, was the press attache at the embassy when the siege began. For years, he and other former hostages sought compensation for their ordeal. In late 2015, the US government passed legislation that reversed previous blocks on legal action in the case, and agreed to award up to $4.4 million – although they have not as yet received this payout. Today he sits on the United Against Nuclear Iran, a non-profit organization that advocates to stop Iran from fulfilling its nuclear ambitions. Critics describe the organization as being pro-Israel. 

Rosen does not recognize Asgharzadeh’s stated willingness to help heal tensions between the United States and Iran. “If he is indeed a reformer, he could certainly say sorry — coming from respect for the human condition, not in terms of where I was or politically where he was politically at that time. He was part of the group who planned the entire operation. Why is it so difficult for him to say: ‘I was wrong. I apologize?’” 

Today, the majority of those who played a role in the 1979 siege and hostage-taking support the “reformist” camp in Iran. They want less power in the hands of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and the Revolutionary Guards, and they advocate more respect for human rights in Iran and better relations with the rest of the world. In fact, two former student leaders, Abbas Abdi and Mohsen Mirdamadi, have been thrown in jail at various times over the last two decades.

Even though Iran’s Supreme Leader has said that he would never applaud or denounce Trump’s election, some conservative Iranians have expressed relief following Trump’s triumph. In an interview with IranWire, prominent conservative politician Hamid Reza Taraghi referred to Trump as an honest politician. He said Trump would focus on domestic issues in the US, and that would be a good thing for Iran. “He does not want to get too entangled in foreign problems. People have welcomed this attitude. Probably this will lead to less US intervention in other countries and a measure of calm will return, especially to western Asia.”

Asgharzadeh believes Trump’s triumph could mean a domestic loss for Iranian reformists, who are getting ready for the presidential election in late May 2017. He predicts further escalation in tensions between the Rouhani administration and Iran’s ideological hardliners. “In the coming months, hardliners are going to make the most of Trump’s campaign slogans and provocations by the Republicans,” he says. Asgharzadeh is concerned about the “new lease of life” hardliners will benefit as a result of a Trump presidency, and acknowledges that they will give Rouhani a “serious challenge” in the upcoming presidential election. And this means there is not much hope for Iranian foreign policy, whatever version of it is being projected. “When the radical right in Iran took power, it not only failed to create divisions among international critics of the Iranian nuclear program but, on the contrary, it led to an international consensus against Iran and sent the nuclear case to the UN Security Council.” 

Former hostage Barry Rosen is also frustrated by the momentum the hardliners seem to be building, and their ideology’s stronghold on the country. “There's nothing that I can see in the future that would say that the dual citizens and American prisoners held at the moment will be released. They'll be held for a longer time — it could be because of the JCPOA, I have no idea. They've done nothing wrong. In fact, all of them went Iran to improve US-Iran relations. These people are hostages, hostages of this regime, this terrible regime.” Rosen views Iran under the Islamic Republic as a hopeless case. He doesn't believe President Rouhani or his successor will offer much hope either. “I don't think there will be any change. The regime will not change. In fact, it will get more hardline as time moves on. Let's see what the new election looks like.”