TEHRAN -- Iranian Parliament speaker Muhammad Baqer Qalibaf on Wednesday hailed the nation’s unwavering support for the Islamic Republic, saying arrogant powers have failed to attain their goals against Iran and the Islamic Revolution thanks to people’s vigilance and wisdom.
Since the victory of the Islamic Revolution, the Iranian people have always taken wise steps in support of national interests in the face of outside pressures, Qalibaf told an open session of parliament on the occasion of November 3 which marks the takeover of the former U.S. embassy in Tehran by Muslim students.
Qalibaf said resolving the economic and livelihood problems of the Iranian people is the best and most important strategy to confront the global arrogance.
“Confronting these oppressive powers and defending the interests of the country and national unity and security is the wisest and logical social movement of the people,” he said.
Qalibaf said the salient strategies outlined by the late father of the Islamic Revolution Imam Khomeini and Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei with a focus on confronting global arrogance is the wisest decision adopted to secure Iran’s national interests.
Providing national security is the most important component that should be taken into serious consideration, he added.
The speaker said the global arrogance has left no stone unturned since the glorious victory of the Islamic Revolution to tarnish the image of the Islamic Revolution of Iran but their plots orchestrated against the country have failed.
“Arrogant powers like the United States and Britain have jeopardized the interests of the Islamic Iran with their malicious plots and conspiracies whenever they could, the most important of which can be referred to is the 1953 coup,” he said.
Iranian university students took over the U.S. embassy building to thwart what they called Washington’s plots against the Islamic Revolution.
Inside the embassy, the students found shredded documents which proved their convictions.
The event turned into a major political standoff between Tehran and Washington and brought then-U.S. President Jimmy Carter under immense pressure to have the embassy staff released ahead of his re-election race in 1980.
Pushed for military action by National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brezinzski, Carter ordered Operation Eagle Claw, a clandestine military effort where U.S. special forces were supposed to fly into Iran on board eight helicopters and take the detained embassy staff back into the U.S.
The operation began in April 1980, when the helicopters successfully entered Iranian territory and landed in central deserts near the city of Tabas before a planned flight to Tehran. From that point, however, the operation turned into a massive failure as a sand storm disabled two of the helicopters and a third one crashed into a transport aircraft the next morning.
Carter was forced to call off the disastrous operation and take responsibility for it in a public speech, which also greatly damaged his chances of re-election.
The saga finally ended after Iran agreed to release the detainees under a deal mediated by Algeria, through which the U.S. undertook

not to take hostile action against the Islamic Republic.
Through years, however, Washington has flaunted the agreement and done everything it could to harm Iran and topple the Islamic Republic.
Imam Khomeini hailed the move by the students, describing the embassy takeover as the “second revolution”.