Name: War with Iran - Day 7: Nightline Special Coverage
Uploaded: 2026-03-08T23:02:12.000Z
Duration: 11 min 28 s
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

These two photos are photos of me and my first days in Iran at the police academy when I was a Peace Corps volunteer.

It can be said that in our lives we'll have two homes, the one we're born into and the one we make ourselves.

That was the time where I started to fall in love with Iran.

Barry Rosen spent his career making a home far away from his Brooklyn roots.

That home, Iran, who served as the press attach?

But in 1979, a harrowing moment in the country he loved would forever change his life in the course of history.

My name is Barry Rosen, and it's 47 years since I was a hostage in Iran.

For 444 days, Barry and 51 other Americans lived in captivity, taken hostage by Iranian revolutionaries, many of them college students, who broke into and seized the embassy.

Barry is one of few Americans who saw the birth of the Iranian regime from the inside, a regime that America and Israel are now trying to topple.

What say you about where Iran is now, days into this war?

I do think that the decision by the Trump administration or the, or the thought that this was going to be easy is absolutely ridiculous.

The United States can decapitate as many people as they want, but

the infrastructure, the deep state, Iran will continue.

John Lambert, a former US Diplomat who spent his early career in Iran, was also One of the 52American hostages.

News of war breaking out in Iran hitting close to home.

I was been so discouraged and still, still am because.

Because for decades, really, not just me, but

myself, many good colleagues, many friends, many Iranian friends have worked very hard to avert just such an event.

What sentence would you use to describe your captivity?

It's a festering sore that really started 47 years of enmity, hostility between our two countries, which has been a tragedy.

And it's led to what has happened, the tragedy that has happened recently.

On day seven of the war with Iran, people from inside the country describing the most intense bombing of the campaign so far.

Israel saying it struck more than 400 targets in one day.

President Trump demanding Iran's unconditional surrender.

The conflict widening even over into Lebanon.

A mass evacuation order in the nation's capital.

The IDF confirming that the wave of strikes are targeting Hezbollah and Iran is continuing to retaliate.

Iranian missile debris igniting this fire at a military base in Kuwait where US troops are stationed.

No injuries reported, but an alarming development.

Sources telling ABC News the US believes Russia has been providing Iran with the locations of American troops in the region, including aircraft and ships.

The White House downplaying the impact of Russia assisting Iran.

It clearly is not making a difference with respect to the military operations in Iran because we are completely decimating them.

And while the US says at least 27,000Americans have safely returned home from the Middle east, concern remains for all those who have to endure this war from the inside.

I think that the Iranian people are going through hell and Iran, I'm thinking mostly about those Iranians who really believe that or want to believe that there is a better life for themselves because they've been living so badly in the last 47 years.

In the late 70s, people watched around the world as the Iranian revolution erupted.

As I was riding into Tehran and taxicab driver was very nervous, I could see banks were burned.

I could see centurion tanks in the streets.

Revolutionaries ousted the Shah, an American backed monarch from power, forcing him into exile.

In 1979, the head of the rebel faction, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini took control.

You have said the date November 4, 1979 will be forever etched in your memory.

Well, it was an existential moment in my life.

They came over the walls, broke open the doors, was telling all my people in my office, translators and others stay back and came in with clubs.

I was punched in the stomach, beaten up, knocked down and then tied up.

These images of American hostages paraded in front of the cameras for the world to see was the beginning of what would become known as the Iran Hostage Crisis.

The President's advisors feel that military intervention would be the surest way of getting the hostages killed.

As days dragged on, the world watching in waiting.

It is day 200, day 333 for the American hostages.

The crisis dragged on for nearly a year and a half, many criticizing President Jimmy Carter for his failure to rescue the hostages.

John Limbert was a foreign service officer at the US Embassy when he was taken hostage.

Did you fear for your life at some point during this?

His wife Parvaneh is Araniyan and watched from afar as her husband endured those 15 months in prison.

You described what it was like for you being in captivity.

For me, it was very difficult because I was in Saudi Arabia.

I had two kids with me and I tried to keep them away from the news.

444 days for me was the worst part of my life.

John meeting Iran's most recent supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, whose killing marked the beginning of this latest conflict.

At the time, he was not a very senior figure.

I mean, he was relatively young for a clergyman.

He was in his 40s, a little older than me.

I said, well, look, he's a political leader of an authoritarian state.

He'll do what he needs to do to stay in power.

And if it means slaughtering his own citizens, he'll do that.

After weeks of negotiations, today I'm looking at a lot to smile about and much gratitude.

America finally secured the release of all the hostages in 1981.

The planes took off January 20th on Tehran time, and

it was half an hour after Ronald Reagan had been sworn in.

One suite past Iranian airspace or over Turkey.

Champagne broke out and we started to laugh.