Together, the two Western nations backed a coup that would topple Mossadegh in , replacing his government with an absolute monarchy ruled by the shah of Iran, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. The resulting standoff — which lasted days and included a disastrous failed helicopter rescue effort ordered by President Jimmy Carter — indelibly defined American perceptions of the young Islamic Republic as a hostile nation.
Its legacy is felt even today; President Trump recently threatened to attack 52 Iranian locations to mirror the 52 Americans taken hostage at the embassy. These two events, US meddling in Iranian politics and the hostage crisis, set the rhetorical tone for relations between the two governments for the next several decades. But it was the clashing policy aims of the new Iranian government and the United States that truly locked in their antagonism.
The young Islamic Republic was a revolutionary regime that aimed to export its brand of theocracy by fomenting revolution across the Middle East. This led to its cultivation of proxy militant forces in other countries, most notably Hezbollah in Lebanon, and conflict with Gulf Arab monarchies like Saudi Arabia that feared uprisings among their minority Shia populations.
The result was frequent conflict. Throughout the s, Iran, through its various proxy forces, carried out an extended campaign of terrorist bombings of Western embassies and other targets. One of the most dramatic and deadly attacks came in , when Hezbollah operatives bombed a US Marine barracks in Lebanon, killing US service members , and a nearby French barracks, killing 58 French military personnel and three civilians. In and , the US and Iran took a series of hostile actions in the Persian Gulf as part of what came to be known as the Tanker War.
In the midst of that, a US warship mistakenly identified an Iranian civilian airliner as an attacking fighter jet and shot it down, killing all passengers. This conflict cooled off somewhat as time went on.
Bush administration launched its own brand of revolutionary foreign policy in the Middle East. In the chaos of post-invasion Iraq, Iran built up a network of Shia militant groups in Iraq and let them loose on American troops.
These efforts, spearheaded by Qassem Soleimani , helped create some of the most vicious and effective organizations in the anti-American insurgency, directly contributing to the deaths of hundreds of American troops. Since then, the US and Iran have been locked in a deadly strategic competition in the region.
But as the US began to tire of seemingly never-ending military intervention around the world, successive administrations began trying often unsuccessfully to reduce the US military presence in the Middle East and Afghanistan. Iran capitalized on that, steadily expanding its regional influence nearly across the board, from Iraq to Syria to Yemen to Afghanistan and beyond. Under the in retrospect, deeply ironically named Atoms for Peace program , the US gave Iran nuclear research reactors, highly enriched uranium, and technical assistance and training to set up a peaceful civilian nuclear program.
But the program turned into an international crisis in when an anti-regime militant group revealed that Iran had clandestine nuclear facilities that could be used in a push for a bomb.
The Iranian regime has never actually said it seeks to develop a nuclear weapon, in fact maintaining that its nuclear program is entirely peaceful. But the program has been far more ambitious than would be strictly necessary for energy reasons. Many analysts believe Tehran has been gradually working toward achieving the level of technological development that would allow Iran to build a bomb in very short order if it chose to. The US — along with Israel and a good chunk of the international community — does not want Iran to acquire a nuclear weapon, fearing it would give Iran the ability to engage in even more aggressive regional mischief without fear of punishment, and could potentially set off a regional nuclear arms race.
But at the same time, no US administration really wants to go to war with Iran over it, as the results would almost certainly be catastrophic for everyone involved. And it was a game changer. The agreement gave Iran relief from the Bush-Obama sanctions, including relaxing the restrictions on its vital oil sector. In exchange, Iran agreed to an extremely tight set of limits on its nuclear activities.
They included:. Those other things, the administration argued, could be dealt with down the line, once some trust had been built up on both sides as a result of the nuclear deal. But on its own terms, the deal seemed to be doing what it was supposed to do. The IAEA repeatedly confirmed that Iran was complying with all of its obligations, meaning there was no serious risk for the time being of Iran moving toward a bomb.
And the US and the international community began lifting some of their sanctions on Iran and — very slowly — looking to do business with Iran once again. But just one year after the deal was struck, the election happened. And the winner had pledged to tear up the deal if elected. Second, we will place additional sanctions on the regime to block their financing of terror. The impact seems to be significant: A year and a half ago, Iran was exporting 2.
That number is now down to half a million. But so far there are no signs that Iran will cave to American pressure. Instead, it has responded with its own pressure campaign to force Trump to lift the sanctions, including bombing oil tankers in international waters and oil fields in Saudi Arabia, downing a US military drone, and attacking two US military sites in Iraq after the Soleimani killing.
Which means that since Trump became president, his policies designed to back Iran into a corner have led to a massive backlash. The militia denies having any involvement in the rocket attack. It was a significant escalation in the US-Iran standoff, which so far had seen damage done to ships, oil fields, and military equipment, but not people. Iran killed an American contractor, wounding many.
We strongly responded, and always will. Now Iran is orchestrating an attack on the U. Embassy in Iraq. They will be held fully responsible. In addition, we expect Iraq to use its forces to protect the Embassy, and so notified!
By January 2, Trump had decided it was time to send a message and chose the option to kill Soleimani to send a strong signal to Iran. Striking the Iranian general dead was something the president considered doing as early as , and he actually authorized an operation on him in June should Tehran ever be responsible for killing an American.
Iran's economy falls into a deep recession. In response, Iran begins a counter-pressure campaign. The US says it was over international waters, but Iran says it is over their territory. Iran begins rolling back key commitments under the nuclear deal in July. Iran vows "severe revenge" for his death and pulls back from the nuclear accord. This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.
US-Iran relations: A guide to 60 years of tricky relations. Image source, Getty Images. Image source, Reuters. Clearly, there remained a lot of goodwill as well as misunderstanding between Iranians and Americans. Situated on the northern route from Tehran to Europe, Tabriz has long been an incubator for new ideas. Iran was a vital piece in the geopolitical struggle between Russia and Britain to gain influence in Asia, and the two powers carved the country into spheres of influence in a agreement.
The affection that many liberal Iranians have for America has roots in Tabriz, where a Nebraskan missionary named Howard Baskerville was martyred. He arrived in , fresh out of Princeton and, swept up in the revolutionary mood, fought a royalist blockade that was starving the city. On April 19, , he led a contingent of nationalist fighters into battle against the royalist forces. Asingle bullet tore through his heart, killing him instantly nine days after his 24th birthday.
Blocking my way was a beefy woman with blue eyes and a red head scarf. She told me I needed a permit. I went to Ahmad Abad, a farming town 60 miles west of Tehran, to meet the grandson of Mohammad Mossadegh, whose legacy still towers over U. Mossadegh, a Swiss-educated descendant of the Qajar dynasty, was elected prime minister in on a nationalist platform, and he soon became a hero for defying the British, whose influence in Iran had aroused resentment and anger for more than half a century.
Overnight he emerged as a paragon of resistance to imperialism. Mohammad Reza Shah, only the second shah in the Pahlavi dynasty, had fled to Rome when the fighting began.
When it stopped, he returned to Tehran and reclaimed his power from Parliament. The coup, which Iranians later learned had been engineered by the United States, turned many Iranians against America.
It was no longer viewed as a bulwark against British and Russian encroachment but the newest foreign meddler. Mossadegh was tried for treason in a military court, and in was sentenced to three years in jail. He remained under house arrest in Ahmad Abad, quietly tending his garden, until his death in In the s, the Shah began an aggressive, U. As Britain pulled out of the region in the s, Iran became the guardian of the Persian Gulf. The Shah stifled all political opposition, dismissing or repressing opponents as enemies of the state.
The revolution, led by religious fundamentalists, took him by surprise. Mossadegh, in contrast, was more of a democrat at heart. Even though his reforms were modest, he is respected today for his nationalism and tough stance against foreign interlopers. Today, his admirers regularly make the trek some call it a pilgrimage to his tomb. The walls were covered with photographs of the prime minister: making fiery speeches in Parliament; defending himself in a military court after the coup; gardening in Ahmad Abad.
The high wall surrounding the former U. Embassy, which occupies two Tehran blocks, bears numerous slogans. After a six-month standoff, President Jimmy Carter authorized a rescue mission that ended disastrously after a helicopter collided with a transport plane in the Dasht-e-Kavir desert in north-central Iran, killing eight Americans.
Secretary of State Cyrus Vance, who had opposed the operation, resigned. Carter, shaken by the failure, was defeated in the election by Ronald Reagan. Still, Iran was regarded by the United States and others as an outlaw state.
Adjacent to the compound, a bookstore sells religious literature, anti-American screeds and bound copies of American diplomatic files painstakingly rebuilt from shredded documents.
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