368 • 19 THE REASSERTION OF ISLAMIC POWER"for an extended vacation," and the ayatollah came home to a tumultuous
welcome. Soldiers gave up their arms and joined the celebrating crowds.
Some upper- and middle-class Iranians fled the country. The Iranians who
stayed behind voted to set up an "Islamic republic." Islam, not Marxism,
now seemed to be the wave of the future.
The US and Iranian governments had for years been diplomatic, mili¬
tary, and economic allies, as Washington had long upheld the shah's repres¬
sive regime. The new regime, reacting against the old, vented its resentment
against the US. Militant students, abetted by their leaders, seized control of
the US Embassy in Tehran and took more than sixty Americans hostage,
demanding the return of the shah, his relatives, and his property to Iran.
As mobs filled the streets, shouting "Death to America," the American
people, knowing little about past US policy on Iran, wondered what had
gone wrong. Their country, the strongest nation on earth since World War
II, seemed to have become a helpless giant among the newly assertive peo¬
ples of the Middle East. Its ambassadors could be killed and its embassies
burned. The USSR could invade Afghanistan, and the US government
could not effectively strike back. Americans could, however, elect the as¬
sertive Ronald Reagan in place of the more circumspect Jimmy Carter. On
the day Reagan took office, the American hostages were released; but he
soon had problems of his own in dealing with Iran and other parts of the
Middle East.
Several regional conflicts intensified, as Middle Eastern leaders witness¬
ing these events thought that aggression could pay—in the short run, at
least. The Turks stayed in Cyprus and the Syrians in Lebanon, the Soviets
tightened their hold on Afghanistan, Iraq invaded Iran in 1980, and the
Israelis occupied the southern half of Lebanon in 1982. The cost proved
high to the aggressors, but this only slowly became clear. By the decade's
end, Afghan rebels backed by volunteers from throughout the Muslim
world drove out the Soviets. Iran had expelled the Iraqi invaders but could
not bring down the Iraqi regime. The Israelis had pulled back to a narrow
"security zone," leaving Lebanon more chaotic than ever. Aggression did
not pay after all.
Many officials labored to unravel these conflicts, only to entangle them¬
selves and their governments more than ever. Sadat, who the West thought
had done the most to promote Middle East peace, fell beneath a hail of
machine-gun bullets in 1981. The US sent a Marine contingent to join
troops from three European powers in a multinational force to effect the
withdrawal of Syrian and Israeli forces from Lebanon and to persuade
the country's warring factions to reform their government. Instead, the
Western powers had to leave, unable to defend even themselves against