7. Ayatollah Khomeini Assumed Control of the Hostages
The students who had organized the seizure of the embassy had taken a gamble by not informing Khomeini of their plans but rather hoping that he would side with them. Initially, the provisional government initially set up by the revolution was aghast at their actions; seizing a foreign embassy and taking hostages was a humiliation for the fledgling Islamic state. However, on November 5, the day after the hostages were taken, the provisional government collapsed, and Khomeini assumed complete control over the Islamic Republic of Iran. As the undisputed leader of Iran, Khomeini soon announced his undisputed support of the students’ action at the embassy and even dubbed it the “second Iranian Revolution.”
He took over the situation with the hostages, possibly because they were his bargaining chip to ensuring that the rest of the world recognized that he was now in control of Iran and that it would no longer be a puppet state of the West. The students were no longer the ones who held the future of the hostage situation in their hands, which was probably a relief for them because they had no idea how to be hostage-takers and were terrified of the possible repercussions of what they had done. They no longer had to carry the burden of the revolution on their shoulders.