between the United States and Iran. The administration of President Bill Clinton took
tentative steps in that direction between 1998 and 2000, only to be rebuffed by Kho-
meini’s successor, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei (U.S.-Iranian Relations, p. 395).
Following are three documents relating to the Iranian hostage crisis: excerpts from
a speech by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, supreme leader of Iran, carried on
Tehran Radio on November 20, 1979; excerpts of remarks by President Jimmy
Carter at a White House news conference on November 28, 1979; and the text of
the agreement between the governments of Iran and the United States, dated Jan-
uary 19, 1981, providing for the release of U.S. hostages held in Iran.DOCUMENT
Khomeini Denounces Carter
NOVEMBER20, 1979Mr. Carter himself, and other people like him around the world who number less than
50,000 out of the three billion inhabitants of the world—it is these leaders of coun-
tries who encourage others to indulge in oppression and mischief. The outlook of
people like him is that all the nations are worth nothing. Those people are part of the
world and make up a small number of people like Carter and his clique, and some
people in other places have, unfortunately, joined his clique, too.
This is what they think the whole world consists of. This is the outlook of the
oppressors. They do not see the other great strata of various societies which are an
ocean, compared to which Carter and the people like him are only drops. It means
that this disease of self-glorification has caused them not to see the people.
This is why, when on the throne of his Presidency and looking through his sick
outlook and seeing few ministers and others who belong to assemblies or are his lack-
eys in other places, and seeing that they get angry, he regards them as the whole world
and says that if you do anything to these diplomats—he regards them as diplomats,
those who acts of espionage have been proved on the basis of evidence, he regards
them as diplomats, and he regards the world in terms of himself and these people.
Mohammed Reza [the deposed Iranian shah] also had this illness to some extent,
and the same illness led to his destruction—the illness only to see himself and a few flat-
terers and a number of clowns around him, to see only these people and not to have
any consideration for the nation, to understand that in every country the nation counts.
No matter how much Mr. Carter tried to keep Mohammed Reza in power—he
repeatedly sent people to us saying that the shah should stay; then he wanted to keep
Bakhtiar—he was not able to, and was defeated. Although it was a defeat, a major
defeat, compared to the second defeat that he shall face, it was small.
The second defeat was to give asylum to a person who is guilty and who has been
guilty for 30-odd years, and the 35 million people of our country can testify to his guilt.
It is possible that a number of people may know of his guilt and not testify. But 35 mil-
386 IRAN