Thirty years ago, a major event in world history occurred with repercussions that continually hammer us today, every day; it should be remembered with the arrival of the Soviet Union, the dropping of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima, and the fall of the Berlin Wall.

Of course, the Czar refers to the Iranian embassy takeover. Youngsters should know that on November 4, 1979, the American Embassy in Tehran was seized by Iranian “students.” Mere students? The Farsi word دانشجویان was alien to us; in Pashto, years later, the word طالبان or ṭālibān, would be much more familiar as to what kind of students they were.

For 444 days, the students held 53 Americans hostage: parading them in humiliating fashion, warning them of eventual executions, beatings, and privation. America was outraged by the public displays on television, but the sole rescue attempt on April 24, 1980, was horrifically botched. Only the inauguration of Ronald Reagan frightened the Iranians enough to release the hostages unconditionally.

One would be hard pressed to look at any unpleasant aspect to that part of the world, in any country around, and not find some link to November 4, 1979.November 4, 1979, was a terrifying wakeup call that underscored the foreign policy incompetence of the Carter administration. Warning signs and threats appeared for months from the new Iranian regime, but were ignored or downplayed. The concept that a country like Iran would leap from 1979 to the year 1179 was inconceivable to them, despite numerous pleas and quite clear warnings from Iranians and their worried neighbors.

Today’s worldwide fear of Iranian nuclear weapons, the existence of the Taliban in Afghanistan and Pakistan, our continuing turmoil in Iraq, and the very existence of al-Qâ’ida, in all its hate, can be tied back to the arrival of Khomeini prior to the embassy takeover.

The takeover was merely the first official shot in Iran’s war on freedom and sanity. We bungled it then. The Soviets were so badly frightened by what happened to us, and our apparent inability to stop it, that they invaded Afghanistan to stunt the spread of Iranian thought. Pakistan has lived in a terrible struggle between development and imamism since. Israel awoke to a new enemy, deadlier and more determined than anything they faced before.

Indeed, one would be hard pressed to look at any unpleasant aspect to that part of the world, in any country around, and not find some link to November 4, 1979. Yes, it was another day in which America slept. And for 444 days we stared in impotent despair.

And we might be bungling another Iranian crisis today. Perhaps our leaders would be better suited to reading books instead of writing them. The reader can skim the history of the 20th Century and realize, with shock, how much we ignore.

The Czar of Muscovy

Божію Поспѣшествующею Милостію Мы, Дима Грозный Императоръ и Самодержецъ Всероссiйскiй, цѣсарь Московскiй. The Czar was born in the steppes of Russia in 1267, and was cheated out of total control of all Russia upon the death of Boris Mikhailovich, who replaced Alexander Yaroslav Nevsky in 1263. However, in 1283, our Czar was passed over due to a clerical error and the rule of all Russia went to his second cousin Daniil (Даниил Александрович), whom Czar still resents. As a half-hearted apology, the Czar was awarded control over Muscovy, inconveniently located 5,000 miles away just outside Chicago. He now spends his time seething about this and writing about other stuff that bothers him.