Iran and America have been bitter rivals for decades
Iranian lawmakers chanted ‘‘death to America’’
241 US marines died in a separate suicide-bombing
There have been sanctions…
…hostage-taking…
…proxy wars…
…and assassinations
Iran is constantly on the agenda
These have shaped…
…not just the relationship between Iran and America…
…but much of the Middle East
The rivalry has largely defined the region…
…for the past four decades
So what’s behind the feud?
And could President Biden…
…help ease decades of tension?
If you want to understand…
…Iran’s troubled relationship with America…
…you need to go back to the 1950s…
...when it all started in a fight over oil
At the time Iran was home to one of the biggest oil refineries…
…in the world—Abadan
But most Iranians didn’t benefit from this vast wealth…
…as the oil fields were controlled by the British
A British employee showing Persians how to shut off the flow of oil…
…now that the tanks are full
This angered many in Iran…
…and in 1951 Iran nationalised the oil industry
The campaign was led…
…by a nationalist leader, Mohammad Mosaddegh…
…who became prime minister
When Mosaddegh came and tried to nationalise the oil…
…Britain considered this theft
The concern was this…
…if they allow Iran to nationalise its oil…
…what is to prevent Iraq, Saudi Arabia and others…
…to follow suit and do the same?
For years Britain tried diplomacy to win back the oil
But talking didn’t work
The British needed something more radical…
…and approached America for help
As these CIA documents show…
…the British persuaded the Americans…
…to join them in a plot
Together they would remove Mosaddegh…
...and in doing so, change the course of history
British and American spies stirred up violence in Iran…
…and Mosaddegh was swept from power
That experience really was a watershed event…
…in the modern history of Iran
With Mosaddegh gone…
…the Americans needed a leader…
…they could more easily control
So in 1953 they helped reinstall the country’s king—the shah
Iran was an important strategic ally for America…
…as it provided a buffer against the Soviet Union
And the Americans hoped the shah would provide access…
…to cheap oil
Iran, because of the great leadership of the shah…
…is an island of stability…
…in one of the more troubled areas of the world
But America’s support could not protect the shah…
…from problems at home
The shah was perceived as somebody…
…who had been reinstated in power…
…thanks to this coup
So as you can imagine…
…he was suffering from a crisis of legitimacy
At the appointed moment, the shah of Persia will arrive
The shah was hell-bent on Westernising Iran
He introduced sweeping reforms…
…that increased access to education…
…and gave women the vote
But some thought the reforms went too far
Eventually that Western influence…
…would anger a lot of people, including the Shia clergy
And then you had the rest of the population…
…which was just angry…
…with the way the shah sort of handles his business…
…he was extravagant, he was corrupt…
…he cracked down on any dissent
It was becoming clear the shah’s days were numbered
Protesters filled the streets in violent clashes…
…with the authorities
There was one man…
…who embodied the revolutionary movement
The exiled Shia cleric Ayatollah Khomeini
He returned to Iran from Paris in February 1979
And was greeted like a messiah
His return would give the revolution…
…the final push it needed
The revolution really came like a sudden tsunami
It was unexpected
And it happened in such a short time span…
…that not even the Ayatollah and his lieutenants…
…expected, you know, such a quick victory
Within a few months, Iran had been declared an Islamic Republic…
…which it remains to this day
This was a bitter blow for America
But things were about to get much worse
The shah had left Iran before Khomeini returned…
…and months later…
…President Jimmy Carter allowed him to come to America…
…for cancer treatment…
…which caused outrage in Iran…
…and paved the way…
…for one of the worst geopolitical fiascos…
…America had ever suffered
The Iran crisis. America held hostage
Landmark reports like this broke the news to the nation
The US embassy in Tehran…
…has been invaded and occupied by Iranian students
Angry that the shah had escaped justice…
…students took a group of US embassy employees hostage…
…demanding that the shah return to stand trial
The hostages were regularly paraded in front of the cameras
Look at this, one American, blindfolded, handcuffed
That hostage crisis really traumatised…
…the American political establishment…
…and made Iran into a very prominent nemesis
It became the poster-child…
…for what we refer to nowadays as Islamic fundamentalism
The crisis played out over 444 days
A rescue attempt went wrong…
…and Jimmy Carter failed to win re-election
Meanwhile, trouble was brewing on the country’s western border
Iraq’s leader, Saddam Hussein, had taken advantage…
…of the political upheaval to invade Khuzestan…
…home to the Abadan oil refinery
The Iranians retaliated and it turned into a gruelling eight-year war
America supplied weapons to both sides…
…prolonging the conflict…
…but it mainly tried to sway the balance of power against Iran
For America, it was a chance to really sort of stick it to the Iranians
So they backed up Saddam Hussein…
…did everything they could…
…to sort of tilt the war slightly to his advantage
Iran and Iraq attacked each other’s ships
So the American navy started to escort oil tankers in the Gulf
And America soon became drawn…
…into direct fighting with Iranian forces
In one incident…
…an American warship…
…shot an Iranian passenger plane out of the sky…
…whilst under attack—mistaking it for a fighter jet
Both Iran and Iraq suffered huge losses…
…but, on balance, Iraq came out on top
The conflict hardened Iranian attitudes towards America…
…which still shape Iran’s politics today
Iran’s current political elite…
…their baptism of fire happened during that Iran-Iraq war
The formative years of their lives were spent in the war front…
…so you cannot now blame them…
…for having this security-minded outlook on things
The Iran-Iraq war was only one in a series of proxy wars…
…where America was pitted against Iran
Another was in Lebanon
Israel—a friend of the West…
…invaded Lebanon in 1982…
…to push out the Palestine Liberation Organisation, or PLO
Iran intervened in the war to help arm and train…
…a radical Shia militia
Iran doesn’t have the military might…
…to fight the US or Israel
The only way Iran can have an advantage…
…is through asymmetrical warfare
And this is where proxy groups become handy
America and other Western countries were drawn into the war…
…and Iran-backed suicide-bombers…
…attacked Israeli and Western targets…
…including the US embassy…
…and a marine base in Beirut—where hundreds of Americans were killed
It was yet another trauma caused by Iran on America…
…it sort of went without retaliation
So it really showed up America’s weakness
At the time, the militant group behind the bombing…
…didn’t operate under one name…
…but it soon became known as Hizbullah or ‘‘The Party of God’’
It is both a militia and a political party…
…and dominates Lebanon today
Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, Hizbullah and other proxy groups…
…carried out multiple attacks on US…
…and especially Israeli targets around the world
But then everything changed
Iran had nothing to do with 9/11
But Iran came to experience the repercussions of the 9/11 attacks
Oh my God
I’ve never seen anything like it in my life
By now, Iraq under Saddam Hussein…
…had also become a foe of America’s
In the wake of the attacks…
…America invaded the country to depose him
This was a crucial moment in America’s relationship with Iran
And with Americans on their doorstep…
…Iran accelerated its nuclear programme
And America was worried
Iran had been working to develop missiles
The nuclear threat from Iran…
…was sort of front and centre at this point
Iran claimed its nuclear ambitions were for civilian purposes…
…not for weapons
But the West responded…
…by imposing ever tighter sanctions
The sanctions didn’t stop the country…
…building centrifuges to enrich uranium…
…which went from zero in 2006 to almost 20,000…
… seven years later
But sanctions…
…particularly those on Iran’s oil exports…
…did cripple Iran’s economy…
…pushing its leaders to the negotiating table
And for the first time since the hostage crisis…
…America, too, was willing to negotiate
President Barack Obama’s administration…
…negotiated a deal with Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani
…called the Joint Comprehensive Plan Of Action…
…or JCPOA
There were two moderate leaders in each country…
…that both realised, you know…
…you cannot start from maximalist demands…
…and expect the other one to surrender entirely
The deal was groundbreaking
It limited Iran’s nuclear facilities…
…and opened it up to more rigorous inspections…
…in return for sanctions relief
But not everyone saw it as a success
Never, ever, in my life have I seen any transaction…
…so incompetently negotiated as our deal with Iran
President Donald Trump withdrew from the deal in 2018…
…reimposing sanctions under a policy of maximum pressure…
…once again raising tensions in the region
It convinced the Iranian hardliners…
…that you can never trust America’s words
People really did suffer…
…and this gave America tremendous leverage
But Donald Trump didn’t really use this leverage to any end
In fact, by the end of Donald Trump’s term…
…Iran was closer to a bomb than at the start of it
President Biden has already indicated…
…he would like to rejoin the JCPOA
The only way out of this crisis is through diplomacy
But the road ahead is far from certain
Iran will elect a new president in 2021…
…who is widely expected to be more hardline than his predecessor…
…making any end to the feud even more unlikely
The irony of this rivalry…
…is that American society and Iranian society…
…are much closer to each other than, say…
…American society and Saudi society…
…but their leaders are held hostage by history
So as much as it would be somewhat natural for America and Iran…
…to have this rapprochement…
…it’s going to be very difficult to bring about
I’m Roger McShane, the Middle East editor for The Economist
If you want to read more of our coverage on Iran…
…please click the link
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