人质危机发生后,伊朗从美国的昔日盟友变成了一个“对美国的国家安全、经济和外交产生非同寻常的威胁”的国家。这一认识成为人质危机期间美国制裁伊朗的首要法律依据。在冷战背景下,为向伊朗施压使其释放人质,冻结资产和贸易禁运成为美国对伊朗单边制裁的主要手段。为加强对伊朗制裁的效果,美国要求其欧洲盟友遵守冻结伊朗资产的法令,按照未获通过的联合国法案制裁伊朗。人质危机期间的制裁措施后来虽然被取消,但伊朗对美国构成威胁的认知并没有随着人质危机的化解而结束,这一理念成为后来美国对伊朗制裁政策的重要理论基础。人质危机不仅开启了美国对伊朗制裁的进程,而且在某种程度上塑造了未来的美伊关系,制裁与反制裁的斗争成为四十年来美国和伊朗关系的重要特征。
After the Iran hostage crisis, Iran has changed from an ally of the United States to a country that "poses an extraordinary threat to the national security, economy and diplomacy of the United States". This threat concept became the primary legal basis for the hostage crisis sanctions against Iran, and it was also an important theoretical basis for the systematic sanctions against Iran by the United States. Under the background of the Cold War, in order to put pressure on Iran to release hostages, freezing assets and trade embargo became the main policy of unilateral sanctions against Iran. In order to strengthen the effect of sanctions, the United States asked its European allies to implement the freeze order and after the rejection of the United Nations proposal, the U.S. still called for the implementation of international multilateral sanctions, which reflected the hegemonic logic of American foreign policy during the Cold War to a certain extent. Although the sanctions during the hostage crisis were canceled, Iran's threat to the United States did not end with the resolution of the hostage crisis. The incident not only started the process of U.S. sanctions against Iran, but also shaped the future U.S. -Iran relations to some extent. The struggle between sanctions and anti-sanctions has become an important feature of U.S. -Iran relations in the past 40 years.