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Black America Web
23-06-2025
- Politics
- Black America Web
Understanding The US And Iran's Long And Complicated History
People observe fire and smoke from an Israeli airstrike on an oil depot in Tehran, Iran, on June 15, 2025. Stringer/Getty Images With the U.S. bombing of three nuclear sites in Iran, relations between the two countries have arguably reached one of the lowest points in modern times. But the bad blood between the two countries isn't new: The U.S. and Iran have been in conflict for decades – at least since the U.S. helped overthrow a democracy-minded prime minister, Mohammed Mossadegh, in August 1953. The U.S. then supported the long, repressive reign of the Shah of Iran, whose security services brutalized Iranian citizens for decades. The two countries have been particularly hostile to each other since Iranian students took over the U.S. Embassy in Tehran in November 1979, resulting in economic sanctions and the severing of formal diplomatic relations between the nations. Since 1984, the U.S. State Department has listed Iran as a 'state sponsor of terrorism,' alleging the Iranian government provides terrorists with training, money and weapons. Some of the major events in U.S.-Iran relations highlight the differences between the nations' views, but others arguably presented real opportunities for reconciliation. Mohammed Mossadegh. Wikimedia Commons In 1951, the Iranian Parliament chose a new prime minister, Mossadegh, who then led lawmakers to vote in favor of taking over the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company, expelling the company's British owners and saying they wanted to turn oil profits into investments in the Iranian people. The U.S. feared disruption in the global oil supply and worried about Iran falling prey to Soviet influence. The British feared the loss of cheap Iranian oil. President Dwight Eisenhower decided it was best for the U.S. and the U.K. to get rid of Mossadegh. Operation Ajax, a joint CIA-British operation, convinced the Shah of Iran, the country's monarch, to dismiss Mossadegh and drive him from office by force. Mossadegh was replaced by a much more Western-friendly prime minister, handpicked by the CIA. Demonstrators in Tehran demand the establishment of an Islamic republic. AP Photo/Saris After more than 25 years of relative stability in U.S.-Iran relations, the Iranian public had grown unhappy with the social and economic conditions that developed under the dictatorial rule of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. Pahlavi enriched himself and used American aid to fund the military while many Iranians lived in poverty. Dissent was often violently quashed by SAVAK, the shah's security service. In January 1979, the shah left Iran, ostensibly to seek cancer treatment. Two weeks later, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini returned from exile in Iraq and led a drive to abolish the monarchy and proclaim an Islamic government. Iranian students at the U.S. Embassy in Tehran show a blindfolded American hostage to the crowd in November 1979. AP Photo In October 1979, President Jimmy Carter agreed to allow the shah to come to the U.S. to seek advanced medical treatment. Outraged Iranian students stormed the U.S. Embassy in Tehran on Nov. 4, taking 52 Americans hostage. That convinced Carter to sever U.S. diplomatic relations with Iran on April 7, 1980. Two weeks later, the U.S. military launched a mission to rescue the hostages, but it failed, with aircraft crashes killing eight U.S. servicemembers. The shah died in Egypt in July 1980, but the hostages weren't released until Jan. 20, 1981, after 444 days of captivity. An Iranian cleric, left, and an Iranian soldier wear gas masks to protect themselves against Iraqi chemical-weapons attacks in May September 1980, Iraq invaded Iran, an escalation of the two countries' regional rivalry and religious differences: Iraq was governed by Sunni Muslims but had a Shia Muslim majority population; Iran was led and populated mostly by Shiites. The U.S. was concerned that the conflict would limit the flow of Middle Eastern oil and wanted to ensure the conflict didn't affect its close ally, Saudi Arabia. The U.S. supported Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein in his fight against the anti-American Iranian regime. As a result, the U.S. mostly turned a blind eye toward Iraq's use of chemical weapons against Iran. U.S. officials moderated their usual opposition to those illegal and inhumane weapons because the U.S. State Department did not 'wish to play into Iran's hands by fueling its propaganda against Iraq.' In 1988, the war ended in a stalemate. More than 500,000 military and 100,000 civilians died. The U.S. imposed an arms embargo after Iran was designated a state sponsor of terrorism in 1984. That left the Iranian military, in the middle of its war with Iraq, desperate for weapons and aircraft and vehicle parts to keep fighting. The Reagan administration decided that the embargo would likely push Iran to seek support from the Soviet Union, the U.S.'s Cold War rival. Rather than formally end the embargo, U.S. officials agreed to secretly sell weapons to Iran starting in 1981. The last shipment, of anti-tank missiles, was in October 1986. In November 1986, a Lebanese magazine exposed the deal. That revelation sparked the Iran-Contra scandal in the U.S., with Reagan's officials found to have collected money from Iran for the weapons and illegally sent those funds to anti-socialist rebels – the Contras – in Nicaragua. At a mass funeral for 76 of the 290 people killed in the shootdown of Iran Air 655, mourners hold up a sign depicting the incident. AP Photo/CP/Mohammad Sayyad On the morning of July 8, 1988, the USS Vincennes, a guided missile cruiser patrolling in the international waters of the Persian Gulf, entered Iranian territorial waters while in a skirmish with Iranian gunboats. Either during or just after that exchange of gunfire, the Vincennes crew mistook a passing civilian Airbus passenger jet for an Iranian F-14 fighter. They shot it down, killing all 290 people aboard. The U.S. called it a 'tragic and regrettable accident,' but Iran believed the plane's downing was intentional. In 1996, the U.S. agreed to pay $131.8 million in compensation to Iran. In August 1997, a moderate reformer, Mohammad Khatami, won Iran's presidential election. U.S. President Bill Clinton sensed an opportunity. He sent a message to Tehran through the Swiss ambassador there, proposing direct government-to-government talks. Shortly thereafter, in early January 1998, Khatami gave an interview to CNN in which he expressed 'respect for the great American people,' denounced terrorism and recommended an 'exchange of professors, writers, scholars, artists, journalists and tourists' between the United States and Iran. However, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei didn't agree, so not much came of the mutual overtures as Clinton's time in office came to an end. In his 2002 State of the Union address, President George W. Bush characterized Iran, Iraq and North Korea as constituting an 'Axis of Evil' supporting terrorism and pursuing weapons of mass destruction, straining relations even further. Inside these buildings at the Natanz nuclear facility in Iran, technicians enrich uranium. AP Photo/Vahid Salemi In August 2002, an exiled rebel group announced that Iran had been secretly working on nuclear weapons at two installations that had not previously been publicly revealed. That was a violation of the terms of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, which Iran had signed, requiring countries to disclose their nuclear-related facilities to international inspectors. One of those formerly secret locations, Natanz, housed centrifuges for enriching uranium, which could be used in civilian nuclear reactors or enriched further for weapons. Starting in roughly 2005, U.S. and Israeli government cyberattackers together reportedly targeted the Natanz centrifuges with a custom-made piece of malicious software that became known as Stuxnet. That effort, which slowed down Iran's nuclear program was one of many U.S. and international attempts – mostly unsuccessful – to curtail Iran's progress toward building a nuclear bomb. An excerpt of the document sent from Iran, via the Swiss government, to the U.S. State Department in 2003, appears to seek talks between the U.S. and Iran. Washington Post via Scribd In May 2003, senior Iranian officials quietly contacted the State Department through the Swiss embassy in Iran, seeking 'a dialogue 'in mutual respect,'' addressing four big issues: nuclear weapons, terrorism, Palestinian resistance and stability in Iraq. Hardliners in the Bush administration weren't interested in any major reconciliation, though Secretary of State Colin Powell favored dialogue and other officials had met with Iran about al-Qaida. When Iranian hardliner Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was elected president of Iran in 2005, the opportunity died. The following year, Ahmadinejad made his own overture to Washington in an 18-page letter to President Bush. The letter was widely dismissed; a senior State Department official told me in profane terms that it amounted to nothing. Representatives of several nations met in Vienna in July 2015 to finalize the Iran nuclear deal. Austrian Federal Ministry for Europe, Integration and Foreign Affairs/Flickr After a decade of unsuccessful attempts to rein in Iran's nuclear ambitions, the Obama administration undertook a direct diplomatic approach beginning in 2013. Two years of secret, direct negotiations initially bilaterally between the U.S. and Iran and later with other nuclear powers culminated in the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, often called the Iran nuclear deal. Iran, the U.S., China, France, Germany, Russia and the United Kingdom signed the deal in 2015. It severely limited Iran's capacity to enrich uranium and mandated that international inspectors monitor and enforce Iran's compliance with the agreement. In return, Iran was granted relief from international and U.S. economic sanctions. Though the inspectors regularly certified that Iran was abiding by the agreement's terms, President Donald Trump withdrew from the agreement in May 2018. An official photo from the Iranian government shows Maj. Gen. Qassem Soleimani, who was killed in a Jan. 3 drone strike ordered by President Donald Trump. Iranian Supreme Leader Press Office/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images On Jan. 3, 2020, an American drone fired a missile that killed Maj. Gen. Qassem Soleimani, the leader of Iran's elite Quds Force. Analysts considered Soleimani the second most powerful man in Iran, after Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei. At the time, the Trump administration asserted that Soleimani was directing an imminent attack against U.S. assets in the region, but officials have not provided clear evidence to support that claim. Iran responded by launching ballistic missiles that hit two American bases in Iraq. Hamas' brazen attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, provoked a fearsome militarized response from Israel that continues today and served to severely weaken Iran's proxies in the region, especially Hamas – the perpetrator of the attacks – and Hezbollah in Lebanon. Trump saw an opportunity to forge a new nuclear deal with Iran and to pursue other business deals with Tehran. Once inaugurated for his second term, Trump appointed Steve Witkoff, a real estate investor who is the president's friend, to serve as special envoy for the Middle East and to lead negotiations. Negotiations for a nuclear deal between Washington and Tehran began in April, but the countries did not reach a deal. They were planning a new round of talks when Israel struck Iran with a series of airstrikes on June 13, forcing the White House to reconsider is position. On June 22, in the early morning hours, the U.S. chose to act decisively in an attempt to cripple Iran's nuclear capacity, bombing three nuclear sites and causing what Pentagon officials called 'severe damage.' Iran vowed to retaliate. This story has been updated to reflect the U.S. bombing of Iranian nuclear sites on June 22, 2025. Jeffrey Fields, Professor of the Practice of International Relations, USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article. SEE ALSO: Appeals Court Allows Trump To Keep Control Of National Guard In LA The Disrespect: Trump Disregards Juneteenth, Says US Has 'Too Many Non-Working Holidays' SEE ALSO Understanding The US And Iran's Long And Complicated History was originally published on
NDTV
18-06-2025
- Politics
- NDTV
The Long Complicated History Of How Iran And US Became Enemies
Relations between the United States and Iran have been fraught for decades – at least since the U.S. helped overthrow a democracy-minded prime minister, Mohammed Mossadegh, in August 1953. The U.S. then supported the long, repressive reign of the Shah of Iran, whose security services brutalized Iranian citizens for decades. The two countries have been particularly hostile to each other since Iranian students took over the U.S. Embassy in Tehran in November 1979, resulting in economic sanctions and the severing of formal diplomatic relations between the nations. Since 1984, the U.S. State Department has listed Iran as a ' state sponsor of terrorism,' alleging the Iranian government provides terrorists with training, money and weapons. Some of the major events in U.S.-Iran relations highlight the differences between the nations' views, but others arguably presented real opportunities for reconciliation. 1953: US overthrows Mossadegh In 1951, the Iranian Parliament chose a new prime minister, Mossadegh, who then led lawmakers to vote in favor of taking over the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company, expelling the company's British owners and saying they wanted to turn oil profits into investments in the Iranian people. The U.S. feared disruption in the global oil supply and worried about Iran falling prey to Soviet influence. The British feared the loss of cheap Iranian oil. President Dwight Eisenhower decided it was best for the U.S. and the U.K. to get rid of Mossadegh. Operation Ajax, a joint CIA-British operation, convinced the Shah of Iran, the country's monarch, to dismiss Mossadegh and drive him from office by force. Mossadegh was replaced by a much more Western-friendly prime minister, handpicked by the CIA. 1979: Revolutionaries oust the shah, take hostages After more than 25 years of relative stability in U.S.-Iran relations, the Iranian public had grown unhappy with the social and economic conditions that developed under the dictatorial rule of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. Pahlavi enriched himself and used American aid to fund the military while many Iranians lived in poverty. Dissent was often violently quashed by SAVAK, the shah's security service. In January 1979, the shah left Iran, ostensibly to seek cancer treatment. Two weeks later, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini returned from exile in Iraq and led a drive to abolish the monarchy and proclaim an Islamic government. In October 1979, President Jimmy Carter agreed to allow the shah to come to the U.S. to seek advanced medical treatment. Outraged Iranian students stormed the U.S. Embassy in Tehran on Nov. 4, taking 52 Americans hostage. That convinced Carter to sever U.S. diplomatic relations with Iran on April 7, 1980. Two weeks later, the U.S. military launched a mission to rescue the hostages, but it failed, with aircraft crashes killing eight U.S. servicemembers. The shah died in Egypt in July 1980, but the hostages weren't released until Jan. 20, 1981, after 444 days of captivity. 1980-1988: US tacitly sides with Iraq In September 1980, Iraq invaded Iran, an escalation of the two countries' regional rivalry and religious differences: Iraq was governed by Sunni Muslims but had a Shia Muslim majority population; Iran was led and populated mostly by Shiites. The U.S. was concerned that the conflict would limit the flow of Middle Eastern oil and wanted to ensure the conflict didn't affect its close ally, Saudi Arabia. The U.S. supported Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein in his fight against the anti-American Iranian regime. As a result, the U.S. mostly turned a blind eye toward Iraq's use of chemical weapons against Iran. U.S. officials moderated their usual opposition to those illegal and inhumane weapons because the U.S. State Department did not ' wish to play into Iran's hands by fueling its propaganda against Iraq.' In 1988, the war ended in a stalemate. More than 500,000 military and 100,000 civilians died. 1981-1986: US secretly sells weapons to Iran The U.S. imposed an arms embargo after Iran was designated a state sponsor of terrorism in 1984. That left the Iranian military, in the middle of its war with Iraq, desperate for weapons and aircraft and vehicle parts to keep fighting. The Reagan administration decided that the embargo would likely push Iran to seek support from the Soviet Union, the U.S.'s Cold War rival. Rather than formally end the embargo, U.S. officials agreed to secretly sell weapons to Iran starting in 1981. The last shipment, of anti-tank missiles, was in October 1986. In November 1986, a Lebanese magazine exposed the deal. That revelation sparked the Iran-Contra scandal in the U.S., with Reagan's officials found to have collected money from Iran for the weapons and illegally sent those funds to anti-socialist rebels – the Contras – in Nicaragua. 1988: US Navy shoots down Iran Air flight 655 On the morning of July 8, 1988, the USS Vincennes, a guided missile cruiser patrolling in the international waters of the Persian Gulf, entered Iranian territorial waters while in a skirmish with Iranian gunboats. Either during or just after that exchange of gunfire, the Vincennes crew mistook a passing civilian Airbus passenger jet for an Iranian F-14 fighter. They shot it down, killing all 290 people aboard. The U.S. called it a ' tragic and regrettable accident,' but Iran believed the plane's downing was intentional. In 1996, the U.S. agreed to pay US$131.8 million in compensation to Iran. 1997-1998: The US seeks contact In August 1997, a moderate reformer, Mohammad Khatami, won Iran's presidential election. U.S. President Bill Clinton sensed an opportunity. He sent a message to Tehran through the Swiss ambassador there, proposing direct government-to-government talks. Shortly thereafter, in early January 1998, Khatami gave an interview to CNN in which he expressed ' respect for the great American people,' denounced terrorism and recommended an 'exchange of professors, writers, scholars, artists, journalists and tourists' between the United States and Iran. However, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei didn't agree, so not much came of the mutual overtures as Clinton's time in office came to an end. In his 2002 State of the Union address, President George W. Bush characterized Iran, Iraq and North Korea as constituting an 'Axis of Evil' supporting terrorism and pursuing weapons of mass destruction, straining relations even further. 2002: Iran's nuclear program raises alarm In August 2002, an exiled rebel group announced that Iran had been secretly working on nuclear weapons at two installations that had not previously been publicly revealed. That was a violation of the terms of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, which Iran had signed, requiring countries to disclose their nuclear-related facilities to international inspectors. One of those formerly secret locations, Natanz, housed centrifuges for enriching uranium, which could be used in civilian nuclear reactors or enriched further for weapons. Starting in roughly 2005, U.S. and Israeli government cyberattackers together reportedly targeted the Natanz centrifuges with a custom-made piece of malicious software that became known as Stuxnet. That effort, which slowed down Iran's nuclear program was one of many U.S. and international attempts – mostly unsuccessful – to curtail Iran's progress toward building a nuclear bomb. 2003: Iran writes to Bush administration In May 2003, senior Iranian officials quietly contacted the State Department through the Swiss embassy in Iran, seeking 'a dialogue 'in mutual respect,'' addressing four big issues: nuclear weapons, terrorism, Palestinian resistance and stability in Iraq. Hardliners in the Bush administration weren't interested in any major reconciliation, though Secretary of State Colin Powell favored dialogue and other officials had met with Iran about al-Qaida. When Iranian hardliner Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was elected president of Iran in 2005, the opportunity died. The following year, Ahmadinejad made his own overture to Washington in an 18-page letter to President Bush. The letter was widely dismissed; a senior State Department official told me in profane terms that it amounted to nothing. 2015: Iran nuclear deal signed After a decade of unsuccessful attempts to rein in Iran's nuclear ambitions, the Obama administration undertook a direct diplomatic approach beginning in 2013. Two years of secret, direct negotiations initially bilaterally between the U.S. and Iran and later with other nuclear powers culminated in the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, often called the Iran nuclear deal. Two years of secret, direct negotiations conducted bilaterally at first between the U.S. and Iran and later with other nuclear powers culminated in the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, often called the Iran nuclear deal. Iran, the U.S., China, France, Germany, Russia and the United Kingdom signed the deal in 2015. It severely limited Iran's capacity to enrich uranium and mandated that international inspectors monitor and enforce Iran's compliance with the agreement. In return, Iran was granted relief from international and U.S. economic sanctions. Though the inspectors regularly certified that Iran was abiding by the agreement's terms, President Donald Trump withdrew from the agreement in May 2018. 2020: US drones kill Iranian Maj. Gen. Qassem Soleimani On Jan. 3, 2020, an American drone fired a missile that killed Maj. Gen. Qassem Soleimani, the leader of Iran's elite Quds Force. Analysts considered Soleimani the second most powerful man in Iran, after Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei. At the time, the Trump administration asserted that Soleimani was directing an imminent attack against U.S. assets in the region, but officials have not provided clear evidence to support that claim. Iran responded by launching ballistic missiles that hit two American bases in Iraq. 2023: The Oct. 7 attacks on Israel Hamas' brazen attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, provoked a fearsome militarized response from Israel that continues today and served to severely weaken Iran's proxies in the region, especially Hamas – the perpetrator of the attacks – and Hezbollah in Lebanon. 2025: Trump 2.0 and Iran Trump saw an opportunity to forge a new nuclear deal with Iran and to pursue other business deals with Tehran. Once inaugurated for his second term, Trump appointed Steve Witkoff, a real estate investor who is the president's friend, to serve as special envoy for the Middle East and to lead negotiations. Negotiations for a nuclear deal between Washington and Tehran began in April, but the countries did not reach a deal. They were planning a new round of talks when Israel struck Iran with a series of airstrikes on June 13, forcing the White House to reconsider is position.
Yahoo
12-06-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Explainer-What's behind Iran's long tussle with the United States?
(Reuters) -The United States has pulled some diplomatic staff and military families out of the Middle East, citing unspecified regional security risks. 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. WHY DID IRAN AND THE UNITED STATES BECOME FOES? 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. HOW DID THE US-IRANIAN RIVALRY PLAY OUT? 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. WHO DO THE U.S. AND IRAN BACK IN THE MIDDLE EAST? 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. HOW DOES IRAN'S NUCLEAR ISSUE FIT IN? 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. WHY IS ISRAEL'S STANCE ON IRAN IMPORTANT? 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. (Writing by Angus McDowall, Editing by Timothy Heritage)
Reuters
12-06-2025
- Politics
- Reuters
Explainer: What's behind Iran's long tussle with the United States?
June 12 (Reuters) - The United States has pulled some diplomatic staff and military families out of the Middle East, citing unspecified regional security risks. 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.
Yahoo
01-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Iran's long rivalry with the United States
(Reuters) - Relations between Iran and the United States - once strong allies - have often been mistrustful and sometimes openly hostile since Iran's 1979 revolution. Here are some key dates: 1953 - The U.S. Central Intelligence Agency helps orchestrate the overthrow of Iran's popular Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadegh, restoring to power Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi. 1967 - The United States provides Iran with a nuclear reactor and enriched uranium fuel. Iran signs the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, allowing it a civilian nuclear programme but not a military one, in 1968. 1972 - U.S. President Richard Nixon visits Tehran to strengthen security relations between the countries - part of a policy to make Iran and Saudi Arabia "twin pillars" of the U.S. strategy to contain Soviet influence in the Middle East. 1979 - Iran's Islamic Revolution forces the shah to flee. Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini returns from exile and becomes Supreme Leader. Students seize the U.S. Embassy in Tehran and hold staff hostage. 1980 - The United States cuts diplomatic ties with Iran, seizes Iranian assets and bans most trade with it. A hostage rescue mission ordered by President Jimmy Carter fails. The hostages are released minutes after Carter steps down. 1983 - Lebanon's Hezbollah group, founded and backed by Iran, is accused by the U.S. of bomb attacks on its Beirut embassy and marine barracks that kill about 300 people, mostly Americans. Hezbollah has said other groups were responsible. 1984 - The United States restores ties with Iraq, giving it diplomatic backing in a war against Iran. 1986 - U.S. President Ronald Reagan reveals secret arms deal with Tehran in violation of an arms embargo. 1988 - The U.S. Navy destroys two Iranian oil platforms and sinks a frigate in retaliation for damage to a U.S. vessel that hit an Iranian mine. U.S. warship Vincennes mistakenly shoots down an Iranian passenger plane over the Gulf, killing all 290 aboard. 2002 - President George W. Bush declares Iran, Iraq and North Korea an "axis of evil". U.S. officials accuse Tehran of operating a secret nuclear weapons program. 2003 - Following the U.S. invasion of Iraq, Iran-backed Shi'ite Muslim militias gain wide sway in parts of the country and stage attacks on U.S. forces. 2011 - The FBI says it has uncovered an Iranian plot to assassinate the Saudi ambassador to Washington. Iran denies any involvement. 2012 - U.S. law gives U.S. President Barack Obama, who has offered to extend a hand if Tehran "unclenches its fist", power to sanction foreign banks if they fail to significantly reduce imports of Iranian oil, leading to an economic downturn in Iran. 2013 - Hassan Rouhani is elected Iran's president on a platform of improving its relations with the world and boosting the economy. 2015 - Iran and six major powers, including the United States, agree to a nuclear deal curbing Iran's nuclear work in return for limited sanctions relief. 2016 - Iran releases 10 U.S. sailors who ended up in Iranian territorial waters. The United States and Iran swap prisoners. 2018 - U.S. President Donald Trump withdraws from the nuclear deal and reimposes economic sanctions on Iran. 2019 - Oil tankers are attacked in the Gulf in May and June. The United States blames Iran, a charge Tehran denies. 2020 - The United States kills Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Quds Force head Qassem Soleimani with a strike in Iraq. Iran strikes back with missile attacks on Iraqi bases housing American troops, injuring about 100. 2022 - Major protests grip Iran. The United States imposes sanctions on entities it says are involved in the crackdown. 2023 - Iran releases five imprisoned Iranian-American dual citizens in return for a sanctions waiver. Washington releases five detained Iranians days later. On October 7, Iran-backed Palestinian militant group Hamas attacks U.S.-ally Israel, killing 1,200 people and seizing around 250 hostages, prompting an Israeli military campaign in Gaza that Palestinian health authorities say has killed more than 50,000 people. Iran-backed Hezbollah starts firing on Israel in what it calls solidarity with Gaza. Yemen's Iran-backed Houthi group attacks Red Sea shipping and fires drones at Israel in support of Hamas. 2024 - Israeli attacks on Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps personnel in Syria and the killing of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah prompt two direct Iranian attacks on Israel. The United States helps shoot down Iranian missiles and drones. 2025 - Trump threatens to bomb Iran if it does not come to an agreement with Washington over its nuclear programme. Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei says any U.S. attack on his country would prompt "a strong reciprocal blow". (Compiled by Arshad Mohammed and Angus McDowall; Editing by Janet Lawrence and William Maclean)
