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Guests of the Ayatollah: The Iran Hostage Crisis: The First Battle in America's War with Militant Islam By Mark Bowden ( Grove Press )
Release Date: 2007-03-13
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Product Description
From the best-selling author of Black Hawk Down comes a riveting, definitive chronicle of the Iran hostage crisis, America’s first battle with militant Islam. On November 4, 1979, a group of radical Islamist students, inspired by the revolutionary Iranian leader Ayatollah Khomeini, stormed the U.S. embassy in Tehran. They took fifty-two Americans hostage, and kept nearly all of them hostage for 444 days. In Guests of the Ayatollah, Mark Bowden tells this sweeping story through the eyes of the hostages, the soldiers in a new special forces unit sent to free them, their radical, naïve captors, and the diplomats working to end the crisis. Bowden takes us inside the hostages’ cells and inside the Oval Office for meetings with President Carter and his exhausted team. We travel to international capitals where shadowy figures held clandestine negotiations, and to the deserts of Iran, where a courageous, desperate attempt to rescue the hostages exploded into tragic failure. Bowden dedicated five years to this research, including numerous trips to Iran and countless interviews with those involved on both sides. Guests of the Ayatollah is a detailed, brilliantly re-created, and suspenseful account of a crisis that gripped and ultimately changed the world.
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 The Final Word on the Iranian Hostage Crisis
Four hundred forty-four days. Think back to what you were doing 444 days ago. Think about everything you've seen and done, the people you've met, fallen in love with, fallen out of favor with during this time. Now imagine being held against your will for that long. Imagine being locked away, forced to not speak to anyone, the fear of brutality and execution hanging over your head for those 444 days. Can't do it? I bet neither could the 50+ US diplomats held hostage by radical Iranian students over the entire year of 1980 (plus a little on either side). Mark Bowden's "Guests of the Ayatollah" does an outstanding job of conveying just what such an experience would be like.
While Bowden's tone is journalistic and fairly neutral, he pulls no punches. The good, the bad, and the ugly on all sides are on full display throughout the book. The ignorance of the Iranian students, fueled by dogma and naivety, feeds their brutality and kindness alike. The stoic individualism of the American hostages feeds their capitulation, as well as their defiance. The utter insanity of the situation as a whole hamstrings the US administration and greatly contributes to the failure of the inevitable rescue mission. In the end, though, the book illustrates that there were no winners and nothing but losers from this dark time.
On November 4, 1979, Islamic students overtook the US embassy in Tehran, taking most of the diplomats and staff hostage. What should have been a brief outburst of violence quickly devolved into a standoff between the West and a new breed of government that placed God ahead of all else. Bowden makes it abundantly clear that both sides could have ended the siege with simple actions: On the Iranian side, all it would have taken was for the Ayatollah Khomeini to proclaim the freedom of the hostages, while on the American side, extradition of the less-than-squeaky-clean shah back to Iran would have sealed the deal. Unfortunately, as Bowden also clearly explains, neither action was feasible given the intricacies of both domestic and international politics at the time. The entire situation was a fiasco from the start, and only ever got resolved by the outside factors of the Iraq-Iran War and the election of Ronald Reagan.
"Guests of the Ayatollah" is told from three interweaving perspectives. The hostages are a blob of characters, difficult to keep track of with only a handful being instantly recognizable upon their mention. But this is a good thing, for it really hits home the dehumanization that occurred to them during their captivity. The range of actions and emotions by this blob assists the reader in empathizing with the plight of the captives. One can alternately understand both the defiance of Michael Metrinko and the outright capitulation of Joe Subic. On the other side, the most striking aspect of the hostage takers is their naive ignorance. Whether this was due to youth, religious brainwashing, or some other factor isn't 100% clear; Bowden only manages to track down a handful of them to get their stories in the book's epilogue. Paranoia, however, clearly played a part; the repeated references to the embassy as a "den of spies" shows this. In the end, one can't help but come away with the impression that the hostage takers were nothing more than children being strung along and played by the puppet masters of the Iranian regime. On that front, as well as the parallel one of the Carter administration, the overwhelming impression is one of futility. Both sides essentially had their hands tied by the events of the day. The purges taking place in Iran kept the moderates there from speaking out, leaving the handful of individuals willing to negotiate having to do so in secret. Also, their novice diplomatic skills kept them shifting the conditions of release, even right up until the end. Khomeini, on the other hand, is strangely absent from all negotiations; but, as stated earlier, Bowden clearly shows that the cleric was the true puppet master with the ability to end the incident with but a wave of his hand. Why he never did this is sadly unexplored. In America, Carter was fighting challengers from both parties, causing him to tread lightly. But, more importantly, it was ultimately the sheer lack of options available to the president that caused the situation to go on for as long as it did. The communication breakdown between the two states combined with the infancy of the uber-military team, Delta Force, left Carter holding the bag in what turned out to be a deciding factor in his downfall.
All in all, "Guests of the Ayatollah" does an excellent job of conveying the intricate horrors involved in the Iranian hostage crisis. From the president down through the military men involved in the rescue mission to the hostages themselves, Bowden paints a vivid picture of life during these 444 days. He's got another winner on his hand.
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Masterpiece
Reads like a thriller novel, but is 100% true. If you are completely unfamiliar with the history of Iran from about 1945-1979 you should probably spend at least a few minutes learning about that before reading this book. The book jumps right into the drama of the hostage crisis without providing much background.
I listened to the audiobook. The pros of the audiobook version are that it is skillfully read by the author of the book. The con is that the audiobook is abridged.
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Bowden at his best ( hnewburn )
Mark Bowden is a genius at bringing intensive historical events to life and Guests of the Ayatollah doesn't disappoint. While easy enough to step back and look at the boiling pot of the clash of cultures and paranoia that led to the takeover. However, his ability to bring to light the individual stories, including tracking down the hostage takers gave an incredible insight into the mindset of the key players. I was particularly fascinated by his ability to not just focus on the takeover and Desert One pieces, but also highlight the more interesting vignettes from the 444 days.
Bowden is a great reader for his own material, which only makes the audio book more interesting. If you're a fan of Bowden or want to understand more about militant Isalam, this is a can't-miss.
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***You will Think you Were There While it Happened!**** ( stevahng )
When the American Embassy in Iran was overrun by radical students, I like most Americans followed the story very closely. This book was an eye opening experience as to what happened on the inside. How the hostages were mistreated, starved, and beaten by radicals. But, they were also treated with kindness by some of the radicals, which I had never heard before. The only fault that I have with the book is that it seemed to finish up much more quickly than it started and you feel a little cheated. Overall a good book. I admire how the hostages handled themselves and how they were able to continue on with their lives when they got released.
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Bowden Delivers a Masterpiece
Guests of the Ayatollah presents the extensively researched, impelling non-fiction style for which Bowden has become widely acclaimed through his other best sellers. As someone who has read other Bowden books, I felt Guests of the Ayatollah is his best book to date.
In this book, Bowden provides the intense, all-inclusive details from start to finish of the 444 day Iranian Hostage Crisis. The reader is taken inside the holding cell of each hostage and witnesses in vivid detail the daily routines, abuse, and emotions each hostage endured during their stay. I quickly became a fan of certain hostages such as diplomat Michael Metrinko, who so adamantly despised his captivity and insulted his captors for which he suffered solitary confinement and severe beatings up to the 444th day. While Bowden shares the heroic stories of the hostages, he doesn't disregard certain hostages who fellow captives felt were cowards and swine.
Bowden has become widely acclaimed for his ability to investigate the subject of each book and then transpose his research into dramatic details for readers, and Guests of the Ayatollah is no exception to his method. Where Guests of the Ayatollah differs from other Bowden books is in its significant focus on the Iranian and American political environments during the hostage crisis. Bowden provides an in depth summary of the Carter administrations options and its secretive negotiations with what still existed of the volatile Iranian government. Rather than provide his opinion on the performance of the Carter administration, Bowden does a fine job of avoiding personal bias, and allows the reader to reach an informed conclusion in regard to the politics surrounding the Hostage Crisis.
Some reviewers seem to feel that Bowden provides justification for the actions of the hostage takers. I don't believe this is accurate given that Bowden spends very little time examining the Shah's government other then to acknowledge America's continued support for the Pahlavi government up to the revolution. I found that on the controversial issues Bowden provides the facts and allows the reader draw his/her own conclusions. However, Bowden offers one prevailing conclusion that the Iranian Hostage Crisis established the power of the mullahocrasy in Iran, which runs the government to this day. The epilogue goes on to examine whether or not the hostage crisis benefited Iran, and concludes the establishment of the mullahocracy has done more harm to the country.
If you enjoyed Killing Pablo, you will definitely enjoy Guests of the Ayatollah. If you liked Black Hawk Down you will also enjoy this book, though it doesn't assert the amount of focus to military operations given in Black Hawk Down. If you have not read anything by Bowden, you should, and Guests of the Ayatollah is a wonderful starting point.
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