a. the Persian Gulf region
Despite the new direction of Carter's foreign policy, the United States retained certain strategic allies irrespective of their commitment to human rights. Among these allies was the oil-rich nation of Iran. U.S. support for Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, Iran's long-reigning monarch with a long record of human rights violations, went back decades. In 1979, however, when an Islamic revolution overthrew the shah's government, that support became costly. Carter allowed the shah into the United States to seek medical treatment, effectively providing asylum from the punishment intended for him in Iran. In response, followers of the Ayatollah Khomeini-the Shia Islamic cleric who had led the revolt against the shah and succeeded him as Iran's political leader-stormed the U.S. embassy in Teheran on November 4 and took fifty-three Americans hostage in an effort to force the United States to extradite the shah. The Iran hostage crisis dragged on more than a year, through the rest of Carter's term.