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Thirty years ago last week, a group of Iranian "students" shouting "death to America" stormed the U.S. Embassy in Tehran, taking nearly 100 hostages - among them 65 Americans.

Though foreign national employees and some Americans were released within a few weeks, the remaining 52 were held for 444 days. For the American people, it was an introduction to militant Islam. For President Carter, intent on "engaging" the radical regime that had replaced Shah Reza Pahlavi, it was a disaster. The Obama administration appears to have missed the lessons of that debacle.