Three Central Pennsylvanians hold the key to understanding America’s Iran problem

Few could have predicted another chapter in world history would unfold at the Midtown Scholar last week. But it did.

Michael Metrinko, whom Iranian students took hostage in their takeover of the American embassy in 1979, shared the stage with Scott Anderson, author of “King of Kings -- The Iranian Revolution: A Story of Hubris, Delusion and Catastrophic Miscalculation.”

Metrinko’s story has a prominent part in Anderson’s new book on the downfall of the Shah of Iran and the emergence of its Islamic Republic.

But when he shared the stage at the Harrisburg bookstore with Anderson and acclaimed “Black Hawk Down” author Mark Bowden, none of them expected to see the daughter and son-in-law of the regime’s then foreign minister sitting in the front row.

Turns out Dr. Sarah Noorbaksh and her h