Mohsen Mirdamadi is an Iranian academic and politician. He is the Deputy Secretary General of "Ettehad-e Mellat", the largest pro-reform political party in Iran. After the 2009 Iranian Presidential Elections, he was sentenced to and put to 6 years of prison, among other leaders of reformist party. Previously, he was elected as a member of the Parliament of Iran from 2000 until 2004, during which time he chaired the parliament's Commission of National Security and Foreign Policy. He received his PhD from Cambridge University in 1997 in Foreign Relations. He has served in various political roles since the 1979 Iranian Revolution, including serving as the governor of Khuzestan Province in the last years of the Iran-Iraq war. He was among the organizers of the 1979 Iran hostage crisis.

The Iran hostage crisis was a diplomatic standoff between Iran and the United States. Fifty-three American diplomats and citizens were held hostage after a group of militarized Iranian college students belonging to the Muslim Student Followers of the Imam's Line, who supported the Iranian Revolution, including Hossein Dehghan, Mohammad Ali Jafari and Mohammad Bagheri, took over the U.S. Embassy in Tehran and took them as hostages. The hostages were held for 444 days, from November 4, 1979 to their release on January 20, 1981. The crisis is considered a pivotal episode in the history of Iran–United States relations.