Explainer: What's behind Iran's long tussle with the United States?
Its long-running rivalry with Iran may be part of the heightened tensions. This article shows what's behind the rivalry, how it has played out and why tensions are flaring again.
Iran and the United States were friends for most of the 20th century.
As the Cold War took hold in the 1950s, Washington relied on Iran's reigning Shah to help stem Soviet influence spreading in the oil-producing Middle East.
The Shah was growing unpopular at home and in 1953 the CIA helped topple a populist Iranian prime minister, Mohammed Mossadegh, who had nationalised Iran's British-owned oil company and wanted a more neutral Cold War stance.
When Iranians overthrew the Shah in 1979, the Islamic revolutionaries who took over accused the CIA of having trained the Shah's secret police and vowed to battle Western imperialism in the region, branding America "the Great Satan".
Revolutionary students seized the American embassy and took dozens of diplomats and other staff hostage for more than a year, ending a strategic alliance that had shaped the region for decades.
The new Iranian government wanted to export its Islamic Revolution to fellow Shi'ite Muslims and groups opposing Israel, which it saw as the chief avatar of a Western imperialist project oppressing Muslims in the Middle East.
Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps set up Hezbollah in Lebanon in the early 1980s and the United States accuses the group of bombing its embassy and marine barracks in Beirut in 1983, killing around 300 people, mostly Americans.
Hezbollah, which went on to fight repeated wars with the main U.S. regional ally Israel, has said other groups were responsible.
Iran had complaints too. Iraq invaded Iran in 1980 and started using chemical weapons against Iranian soldiers and border villages from 1982 but Washington lent diplomatic backing in the war to Baghdad. A U.S. warship also mistakenly shot down an Iranian passenger plane in 1988, killing 290 people.
Tensions eased after 1990, as the U.S. focused on Iraq after Baghdad's invasion of Kuwait and as Iran in 1997 elected reformist President Mohammed Khatami, who sought better relations with the West.
The rivalry heated up again in the early 2000s with U.S. President George W. Bush labelling Iran part of an "Axis of Evil" along with Iraq and North Korea, a tag that caused anger in Iran.
Iran's secret nuclear programme was revealed in 2002, while the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 put the two countries on opposite sides of a struggle for control in the Shi'ite majority country.
The U.S.-Iranian rivalry has often played out at arm's length in conflicts and political struggles between each side's proxies and allies around the Middle East.
Besides Hezbollah, Iran backs armed Shi'ite factions in Iraq that have attacked U.S. forces there, the Houthi group in Yemen that has attacked international shipping in the Red Sea and the Palestinian militant group Hamas.
The United States is the main international backer of Israel, Iran's biggest regional foe. It is also a close ally of Sunni Gulf monarchies which for years pursued their own rivalry with the Islamic Republic, seeing it as their main regional threat.
Although Saudi Arabia and other Sunni kingdoms have buried the hatchet with Tehran, they remain wary and fear that any U.S. strikes on Iran could prompt retaliation against them.
The revelation that Iran was secretly enriching uranium - a process to generate fuel for an atomic power plant but that can also make more concentrated material needed for a bomb - put its nuclear programme in the U.S. crosshairs.
Western countries ramped up pressure on Iran with sanctions as negotiations over its nuclear programme meandered for years.
Iran says its programme is entirely civilian and that it has the right to enrich uranium. Washington and its allies say Iran has consistently hidden important elements of its programme and believe it wants to build a nuclear bomb.
In 2015 Iran and six major powers including the United States agreed to curb Tehran's nuclear work in return for limited sanctions relief, but U.S. President Donald Trump ripped up the deal in 2018.
The two sides are negotiating again but seem far apart and Trump has threatened to bomb if there is no new deal.
Israel has often described Iran as its most dangerous enemy and has indicated it may strike the country's nuclear sites.
Any such attack would likely need U.S. acquiescence, potentially dragging Washington into a conflict with Tehran.
Israel is already widely seen as behind covert attacks on Iran's nuclear programme including the Stuxnet computer virus and assassinations of scientists. Israel has neither confirmed nor denied this.
Tensions have increased since the Hamas attack on Israel on October 7, 2023 and as war raged in Gaza.
Last year Israel defeated Tehran's main regional ally Hezbollah and struck Iranian military targets in Syria and Iraq. Iran's Houthi allies in Yemen targeted Israel with strikes.
Iran and Israel twice exchanged direct fire with missiles and drones, underscoring the possibility of a full-blown war.
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The Guardian
6 minutes ago
- The Guardian
Europe is scrambling to form a united front and regain relevance in the Iran crisis
Exposed as divided and marginalised during the Iran crisis, European nations are scrambling to retrieve a place at the Middle East negotiating table, fearing an impulsive Donald Trump has diminishing interest in stabilising Iran or the wider region now he believes he has achieved his key objective of wiping out Tehran's nuclear programme. On Tuesday the EU's top diplomat, Kaja Kallas, was the latest senior European figure to phone the Iranian foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, offering to be a facilitator and urging Tehran not to leave the crisis in a dangerous limbo by keeping UN weapons inspectors out of Iran. The French president, Emmanuel Macron, has even broken a three-year silence to speak to Vladimir Putin about the risk of nuclear proliferation in the Middle East, including how a deal could be struck between Iran and the US on a restricted civil nuclear programme. Macron has been involved in Iranian diplomacy for a decade and came close to engineering a rapprochement between Trump and the then Iranian president, Hassan Rouhani, at the UN general assembly in 2018. But Iran, faced with what it regards as craven European support for Israeli and American airstrikes that killed more than 930 people and injured as many as 5,000, is not placing much faith in the continent's ability to influence the White House. For Europe, this signals a slow slide into irrelevance. The three major European powers known as the E3 – France, Germany and the UK – were once key fixtures in Iran's diplomacy and played a central role in brokering the Iran nuclear deal, which they signed alongside the EU, the US, China, Russia and Iran in 2015. Europe had little input in the US's recent negotiating strategy with Iran, led by Trump's special envoy to the Middle East, Steve Witkoff, and was given just over an hour's official warning before the Israeli and US attacks. The one meeting that the E3 foreign minsters held during the crisis with Iranian diplomats in Geneva on 20 June proved a failure and was followed by the US strikes on Iran's nuclear facilities. France claimed it helped Israel repel Iranian drones. Trump crowed afterwards that 'Iran doesn't want to speak to Europe. They want to speak to us. Europe is not going to be able to help in this one.' From the Iranian perspective, Europe has long been a disappointing negotiating partner, repeatedly failing to show any independence from the US. When Trump withdrew the US from the nuclear deal in 2018, the E3 condemned the move in a joint statement issued by its then-leaders, Angela Merkel, Theresa May and Macron. But it did nothing effective to pursue an independent strategy to lift European sanctions on Iran as it had promised. The fear that European firms trading with Iran would be put under US sanctions was too great. The view from Tehran, it was felt, was that Europe's timidity left it with no choice but to follow the policy of nuclear brinkmanship, including gradually increasing its stockpile of enriched uranium. At the start of Trump's second term, the E3 plus Kallas tried again to insert themselves into the process by holding three low-key meetings with Iranian negotiators. But Araghchi was always angling to speak to Washington, telling the Guardian of his discussions with the Europeans: 'Perhaps we are talking to the wrong people.' After Trump indicated he was willing to speak to Iran bilaterally and showed some flexibility about Tehran's right to enrich uranium, Iran cast Europe aside. Iran believes Europe played a role either through naivety or complicity in opening the door for the Israeli attack by tabling a motion of censure at the board of the UN nuclear inspectorate, the International Atomic Energy Agency. Such motions have been passed before at the IAEA and usually led to Iran retaliating by increasing its stocks of enriched uranium. But the 12 June motion was different – for the first time in 20 years the board found Iran in breach of its obligations under the nuclear non-proliferation treaty. Europe had to take that step to use its right as a signatory to the 2015 deal to reimpose sanctions on Iran before expiry of the deal on 15 October. Because of the way the deal was negotiated, neither Russia nor China can veto Europe reimposing sanctions. America is no longer party to the deal so this power to reintroduce UN sanctions is Europe's diplomatic re-entry point into the Iranian file. European diplomats insist that the IAEA censure motion was necessary, and that they had no option owing to Iran's mounting stocks of highly enriched uranium that had no possible purpose in a civilian nuclear programme. Europe also still hoped the talks between the US and Iran, mediated by Oman, would bear fruit, and had not foreseen the US giving Israel the green light to attack. Since the Israeli strikes, European unity has frayed further. Britain has largely opted for opacity, but it was obvious from what ministers did not say that the government's legal advice was that the Israeli attack could not be justified as an act of self-defence under the UN charter. France openly asserted that the attack was unlawful. By contrast, Germany endorsed all that Israel has done. At the G7 summit in mid-June, the chancellor, Friedrich Merz, said: 'This is the dirty work that Israel is doing, for all of us.' Germany's foreign minister, Johann Wadephul, told parliament that 'Israel has the right to defend itself and protect its people. Let me say clearly that, if Israel and the US have now managed to set back the Iranian nuclear programme, it will make Israel and its neighbourhood more secure.' Asked by the newspaper Die Zeit if he believed Israel's actions were lawful, he said Germany did not have the same quality intelligence sources as the US and Israel, but he had to trust their belief that Iran was close to acquiring a nuclear weapon. 'They told us that, from their perspective, this is necessary – and we must accept that.' Such remarks have left Iranian diplomats spitting about European double standards over the sanctity of international law. By contrast, Enrique Mora, the EU's point person on Iran from 2015 to early 2025, has written a scathing piece in which he says Israel has killed nuclear diplomacy and Iran's nuclear knowledge cannot be destroyed. He wrote: 'If Iran now chooses the militarisation of its nuclear capabilities, if it now decides to move toward a bomb, it will do so following a clear strategic logic: no one bombs the capital of a nuclear-armed country. June 21, 2025, may go down in history not as the day the Iranian nuclear programme was destroyed, but as the day a nuclear Iran was irreversibly born.' There are different strategies Europe can pursue. It can, like Germany, show Iran there is no daylight between the E3 and Israel and assert that Iran can only have a civil nuclear programme that excludes domestic enrichment of uranium. It can press ahead with the reimposition of sanctions and hope that Iran buckles. Alternatively, it can champion a compromise that Tehran can wear. In a recent statement, the European Council on Foreign Relations said 'maximalist demands on Iran – including negotiating over missiles now viewed by Tehran as its main deterrence umbrella – will likely push the country to use every means still available to reach nuclear breakout. A more viable endgame would involve a return of wide-scale inspections by international monitors and an immediate, substantial roll-back of Iranian uranium enrichment. The goal should be Iran pursuing this enrichment through a regional consortium backed by the United States.' That is broadly closer to the French position. Europe will never hold sway like Israel or the US, but it has one last chance to help create something durable, and prevent the Iranian crisis becoming a nuclear proliferation crisis for the whole region.
The National
2 hours ago
- The National
Kneecap, Sir David Murray, Scotland's politicians and sectarianism
Everett held aloft the pair of giant foam hands which had been made famous by his mock evangelical preacher character Brother Lee Love on his eponymous television show and declared, 'Let's bomb Russia!'. His gag went down a storm with the Tories in the packed arena. There was riotous laughter, a huge cheer and thunderous applause. Even Margaret Thatcher, who was seeking re-election as prime minister at the time and who was in attendance at the gathering, appeared tickled. It was, though, the height of the Cold War and the fallout was considerable. The media had an absolute field day. 'Not funny, Kenny,' screamed the front page of the tabloid News of the World. Read more: Representations ultimately had to be made to the Russian Embassy to explain that Everett had no control over the United Kingdom's nuclear arsenal and stress that his comment did not reflect their foreign policy. Thatcher also found it necessary to issue a statement in the aftermath. 'No one is talking politically about bombing the Russians,' she said. 'Every single thing I do is to deter any hostilities of any kind of breaking out. No one was seriously suggesting anything to the contrary at the time.' Armageddon was averted. At no stage during the whole row, however, was Everett ever cautioned by the police, never mind arrested. Would that be the case if a similar incident happened today? It is improbable. The treatment of Mo Chara from the Irish hip hop trio Kneecap suggests that artists face far more serious consequences for their words and actions than they did 40 years ago and much less likely to gain the approval of those who occupy the corridors of power if they court controversy. (Image: Yui Mok) Chara, in case you have been residing on Pluto in recent months and are unaware, has been charged with a terrorism-related offence for allegedly chanting 'up Hamas, up Hezbollah' and purportedly displaying a Hezbollah flag during a concert in London last year. Expressing support for those proscribed organisations in the United Kingdom is illegal under the Terrorism Act 2000. The group have since denied backing those bodies and also offered apologies to the families of murdered MPs Jo Cox and David Amess for stating, 'The only good Tory is a dead Tory. Kill your local MP.' Those pronouncements didn't prevent the police from prosecuting the Belfast-born rapper. Our elected representatives, too, have not been slow to condemn the activities of the pro-Palestinian triumvirate or offer their opinions on the controversy. Kier Starmer, the prime minister, and Lisa Nandy, his culture secretary, both expressed their misgivings about Kneecap playing Glastonbury last weekend. Their appearance at the music festival was, the former opined, 'not appropriate' due to the ongoing legal proceedings. Starmer and Nandy's motivations for pitching in to the affair are moot. It has been widely suggested that a desire to deflect attention away from the United Kingdom's involvement in Israel's attacks on Gaza, warfare which the United Nations special committee has found is 'consistent with the characteristics of genocide', are behind their interventions. But John Swinney, the first minister, has also got in on the act. He argued it would be 'unacceptable' for Kneecap to play at TRNSMT in Glasgow. They were subsequently removed from the line-up due to safety concerns. Read more: There would seem to be far weightier matters for our leaders to concern themselves with at this present moment in time than a popular beat combo whose material is steeped in humour and whose output has been described by cultural commentators in the past as 'satire not sectarianism'. Whatever the reason, the whole episode has shown that politicians can and do speak out on matters they deem to be offensive and unacceptable when the mood takes them. Or perhaps when they feel there is a significant gain in their public popularity ratings to be had. If only they were consistent with their approach. Where was the outrage in Westminster or Holyrood when the Green Brigade displayed a 'Victory to the Resistance' banner in the safe-standing section at Parkhead just hours after Hamas militants had launched attacks on western Israel and murdered over 1,000 people back in 2023? Or when the same group flew the red flag of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine at a game in the East End of Glasgow soon after? Where are the promises of action when sectarian songs like The Billy Boys or No Pope of Rome are belted out at football matches every week? Why aren't debates held in parliament when chants of 'up the 'RA' and 'soon they'll be no Protestants at all' pollute the atmosphere at grounds around the country? (Image: SNS Group Bill Murray) Airings of The Famine Song are now non-existent in our national game. The consul general for the Republic of Ireland approached the Scottish government about this odious ditty when it entered the Rangers fans' repertoire in 2008. It was deemed racist by High Court judge Lord Carloway and supporters were warned they faced arrest if they were caught singing it. So MSPs are far from toothless. It is nothing short of incredible that sectarianism is allowed to persist in Scottish football in these politically correct times we live in. Will anything change in the season ahead? Don't hold your breath. Read more: Sir David Murray - who sanctioned the signing of Rangers' first high-profile Catholic player and who took Bears to task for their love of The Billy Boys during his lengthy tenure as owner of the Ibrox club – was bang on the money about the topic of bigotry earlier this week. Speaking to promote his autobiography Mettle: Tragedy, Courage and Titles, Sir David said, 'They don't address it, they won't take it chin on. We're stuck in a time warp. It's like a hot potato for the government, for the Scottish parliament. But when it's on the streets it's their responsibility.' Our politicians should spend less time trying to pander to the least informed and most prejudiced members of the electorate by scapegoating hip hop trio Kneecap and more of their working days tackling a problem which should have been consigned to the dustbin of history decades ago. Sectarianism in Scottish football remains no laughing matter.
The Herald Scotland
2 hours ago
- The Herald Scotland
Kneecap, Sir David Murray, Scotland's politicians and sectarianism
His gag went down a storm with the Tories in the packed arena. There was riotous laughter, a huge cheer and thunderous applause. Even Margaret Thatcher, who was seeking re-election as prime minister at the time and who was in attendance at the gathering, appeared tickled. It was, though, the height of the Cold War and the fallout was considerable. The media had an absolute field day. 'Not funny, Kenny,' screamed the front page of the tabloid News of the World. Read more: Representations ultimately had to be made to the Russian Embassy to explain that Everett had no control over the United Kingdom's nuclear arsenal and stress that his comment did not reflect their foreign policy. Thatcher also found it necessary to issue a statement in the aftermath. 'No one is talking politically about bombing the Russians,' she said. 'Every single thing I do is to deter any hostilities of any kind of breaking out. No one was seriously suggesting anything to the contrary at the time.' Armageddon was averted. At no stage during the whole row, however, was Everett ever cautioned by the police, never mind arrested. Would that be the case if a similar incident happened today? It is improbable. The treatment of Mo Chara from the Irish hip hop trio Kneecap suggests that artists face far more serious consequences for their words and actions than they did 40 years ago and much less likely to gain the approval of those who occupy the corridors of power if they court controversy. (Image: Yui Mok) Chara, in case you have been residing on Pluto in recent months and are unaware, has been charged with a terrorism-related offence for allegedly chanting 'up Hamas, up Hezbollah' and purportedly displaying a Hezbollah flag during a concert in London last year. Expressing support for those proscribed organisations in the United Kingdom is illegal under the Terrorism Act 2000. The group have since denied backing those bodies and also offered apologies to the families of murdered MPs Jo Cox and David Amess for stating, 'The only good Tory is a dead Tory. Kill your local MP.' Those pronouncements didn't prevent the police from prosecuting the Belfast-born rapper. Our elected representatives, too, have not been slow to condemn the activities of the pro-Palestinian triumvirate or offer their opinions on the controversy. Kier Starmer, the prime minister, and Lisa Nandy, his culture secretary, both expressed their misgivings about Kneecap playing Glastonbury last weekend. Their appearance at the music festival was, the former opined, 'not appropriate' due to the ongoing legal proceedings. Starmer and Nandy's motivations for pitching in to the affair are moot. It has been widely suggested that a desire to deflect attention away from the United Kingdom's involvement in Israel's attacks on Gaza, warfare which the United Nations special committee has found is 'consistent with the characteristics of genocide', are behind their interventions. But John Swinney, the first minister, has also got in on the act. He argued it would be 'unacceptable' for Kneecap to play at TRNSMT in Glasgow. They were subsequently removed from the line-up due to safety concerns. Read more: There would seem to be far weightier matters for our leaders to concern themselves with at this present moment in time than a popular beat combo whose material is steeped in humour and whose output has been described by cultural commentators in the past as 'satire not sectarianism'. Whatever the reason, the whole episode has shown that politicians can and do speak out on matters they deem to be offensive and unacceptable when the mood takes them. Or perhaps when they feel there is a significant gain in their public popularity ratings to be had. If only they were consistent with their approach. Where was the outrage in Westminster or Holyrood when the Green Brigade displayed a 'Victory to the Resistance' banner in the safe-standing section at Parkhead just hours after Hamas militants had launched attacks on western Israel and murdered over 1,000 people back in 2023? Or when the same group flew the red flag of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine at a game in the East End of Glasgow soon after? Where are the promises of action when sectarian songs like The Billy Boys or No Pope of Rome are belted out at football matches every week? Why aren't debates held in parliament when chants of 'up the 'RA' and 'soon they'll be no Protestants at all' pollute the atmosphere at grounds around the country? (Image: SNS Group Bill Murray) Airings of The Famine Song are now non-existent in our national game. The consul general for the Republic of Ireland approached the Scottish government about this odious ditty when it entered the Rangers fans' repertoire in 2008. It was deemed racist by High Court judge Lord Carloway and supporters were warned they faced arrest if they were caught singing it. So MSPs are far from toothless. It is nothing short of incredible that sectarianism is allowed to persist in Scottish football in these politically correct times we live in. Will anything change in the season ahead? Don't hold your breath. Read more: Sir David Murray - who sanctioned the signing of Rangers' first high-profile Catholic player and who took Bears to task for their love of The Billy Boys during his lengthy tenure as owner of the Ibrox club – was bang on the money about the topic of bigotry earlier this week. Speaking to promote his autobiography Mettle: Tragedy, Courage and Titles, Sir David said, 'They don't address it, they won't take it chin on. We're stuck in a time warp. It's like a hot potato for the government, for the Scottish parliament. But when it's on the streets it's their responsibility.' Our politicians should spend less time trying to pander to the least informed and most prejudiced members of the electorate by scapegoating hip hop trio Kneecap and more of their working days tackling a problem which should have been consigned to the dustbin of history decades ago. Sectarianism in Scottish football remains no laughing matter.
