Iran marks 1979 embassy seizure
Despite nuclear deal, hostility toward United States remains
TEHRAN, Iran — Iran held rallies Wednesday to mark the 36th anniversary of the storming of the U.S. Embassy.
In downtown Tehran, around 2,000 people gathered on Taleghani Avenue, where the building that once housed the U.S. Embassy sits. University students, schoolchildren and government workers, some bused in from outside the capital, held placards that read “Down with U.S.A.” and chanted “Death to America.”
“Economically, if they want to invest here that’s a different matter,” said Reza Mohseni, a 43-year-old who said he attends the rallies every year. “But you cannot trust the Americans, ever, and we mustn’t allow them to try to influence us.”
That’s a message that Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has repeated in the months after the July 14 nuclear accord with world powers that curbs Iran’s nuclear program in return for the lifting of economic sanctions. Iran is set to return to global oil and financial markets next year and has for the first time joined international talks on finding a way to end Syria’s civil war, but it is ruling out a broader rapprochement.
The protests are held every Nov. 4 to mark the day in 1979 a group of Iranian students stormed the U.S. Embassy, demanding the extradition of the deposed Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi. They seized dozens of hostages, holding 52 for more than 14 months.
“There has been no change in the U.S. objectives about the Islamic Republic of Iran, and if the Americans were able to destroy the Islamic Republic, they would not hesitate for a moment,” Khamenei said in a speech on the eve of the rallies.
“The object of the slogan ‘Death to America’ isn’t the American people,” he said, according to Iran’s state broadcaster. “This slogan means death to arrogance and death to the policies of America. This slogan is firmly supportive of Iran.”
While Iran’s ruling clerics often rail against the U.S., each year thousands of Iranians leave to attend American universities. Most of the Iranian diplomats who negotiated the nuclear accord over nearly two years of talks are graduates of U.S. colleges. The deal was officially adopted Oct. 18, and Iranian officials say sanctions on Iran could be lifted by early January.
In a park a block away from the Tehran rally, architecture student Setareh, 21, said the rhetoric and slogans were irrelevant to her life.
“This isn’t important for me at all,” she said. The nuclear deal hasn’t “fundamentally changed anything in the relationship between Iran and the U.S. They’ll both go on like this.”
President Hassan Rouhani’s policy of engagement with the West has faced opposition from conservative factions from the beginning, and the tussle is intensifying ahead of parliamentary eleclate tions in February. Khamenei, who has sought to balance the interests of both sides, fully endorsed the nuclear pact last month while warning against backsliding on removing sanctions.
Ties with the U.S. also have been strained by this year’s trial of Washington Post journalist Jason Rezaian, a dual U.S.-Iranian citizen, on spying charges. State-run Iranian media reported Tuesday that a visiting Lebanese businessman, Nizar Zakka, was taken into custody in September, accusing him of having “deep links” with U.S. intelligence.
Ismael Asgari, a 79-yearold retired carpenter who has lived around the corner from the former embassy his entire life, said hostility toward America would remain for some. “Even with the nuclear deal, the Americans are very sly and cunning,” he said. “They’ll never stop being that way.”