Sanctions fuel defiance, rage at annual rally
TEHRAN — Thousands of Iranians rallied Sunday in commemoration of the 39th anniversary of the takeover and hostage crisis at the U.S. Embassy in Tehran, just hours before the re-imposition of American sanctions lifted by a nuclear deal.
The 444-day crisis after the fall of the U.S. allied shah transfixed America, as nightly images of blindfolded hostages played on television sets across the nation. Ultimately, it would when President Jimmy Carter left office that all 52 captive American diplomats were freed.
Sunday, hard-liners vented their rage at a new American president, Donald Trump, who pulled America out of the nuclear deal struck by his predecessor that the United Nations says Tehran still honors. With crippling sanctions on Iran’s vital oil industry set to take effect Monday, Iran’s anemic economy likely will suffer more, though politicians and protesters struck a defiant tone.
“Today the Iranian nation will show that Mr. Trump is too small to be able to bring Iran to its knees,” said Ali Larijani, Iran’s parliament speaker.
The annual commemoration marks when student demonstrators climbed over the fence at the embassy on Nov. 4, 1979, angered about Carter allowing the fatally ill Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi to receive cancer treatment in the United States. The students soon took over the entire compound. A few staffers fled and hid in the home of the Canadian ambassador to Iran before escaping the country with the help of the CIA, a story recounted in the 2012 film “Argo.”
While the commemoration annually sees American flags burned and cries of “Death to America” rise up, it also has a carnival-like atmosphere for the students and others taking part. Some waved massive inflatable ballistic missiles. Others held signs lampooning Trump, including images of him contorted into a Nazi swastika or as a missile chasing after a dove.
Gen. Mohammad Ali Jafari, the commanderin-chief of Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard, gave a speech vowing that Iran “can overcome this economic war and failure of the sanctions project is imminent.”
On Friday, the Trump administration announced the restoration of sanctions on Iran’s shipping, financial and energy sectors, the second batch of penalties to be restored.