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Iran v America: what's behind the feud?
- The US-Iran rivalry, defining the Middle East for four decades, originated in the 1950s over control of oil and culminated in decades of sanctions, hostage-taking, proxy wars, and assassinations.
- In 1953, the US and UK executed a covert coup to remove Iran's democratically elected Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh after he nationalized the oil industry, installing the Shah to ensure Western access to oil and counter the Soviet Union.
- The Shah's modernization reforms, including women's suffrage, and his reputation for corruption and illegitimacy sparked the 1979 Islamic Revolution led by exiled cleric Ayatollah Khomeini, resulting in the establishment of the Islamic Republic.
- In November 1979, Iranian students seized the US Embassy in Tehran, initiating a 444-day hostage crisis that traumatized the US political establishment and prevented President Jimmy Carter's re-election.
- From 1980 to 1988, Iran and Iraq fought a brutal eight-year war; the US supplied weapons to both sides but ultimately favored Saddam Hussein, directly engaging Iranian forces and shooting down an Iranian civilian airliner in 1988.
- During the 1980s, Iran utilized "asymmetrical warfare" by arming Hezbollah in Lebanon, leading to suicide bombings against US and Israeli targets, including the 1983 US Marine barracks attack that killed 241 Marines.
- Following the September 11, 2001 attacks, the US invasion of Iraq and the presence of US forces on its borders accelerated Iran's nuclear program, leading to widespread international concern despite Tehran's claims of civilian intent.
- Between 2006 and 2013, Iran increased its uranium enrichment centrifuges from zero to nearly 20,000, prompting tight sanctions that crippled the economy and forced negotiations.
- In 2015, the Obama and Rouhani administrations finalized the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), which limited Iran's nuclear facilities in exchange for sanctions relief, a deal US President Donald Trump withdrew from in 2018.
- The 2018 US withdrawal from the JCPOA under a "maximum pressure" policy convinced Iranian hardliners of American unreliability and brought Iran closer to nuclear weapon capability by the end of Trump's term.
- President Biden has expressed a desire to rejoin the JCPOA through diplomacy, but the path is complicated by Iran's upcoming 2021 presidential election, which is expected to yield a more hardline leadership.
- Analysts note that while American and Iranian societies share more similarities with each other than with Saudi society, deep-seated historical grievances and security-minded elites make a rapprochement difficult to achieve.