Two histories that rarely intersect.
The history of U.S.-Iran relations has been defined by misunderstandings, missed opportunities and tragic mistakes
The road to war in the Middle East has always been paved by lies, misunderstandings and squandered opportunities — by leaders on all sides. But above all, it has been scarred by the senseless deaths of innocent people.
The latest symbol of that, of course, is the horrific crash of the Ukrainian passenger plane in Iran killing so many Canadians.
There has been more than four decades of bitterness between the political leadership of the United States and the Islamic Republic of Iran.
But for a moment this week, there seemed to be a pause in their military confrontation. The world breathed a sigh of relief that the war that seemed inevitable might actually not happen, at least for now.
Would this then mean that the death of more innocent people would also not happen, at least for now?
Tragically, the answer to this question now seems to be “no.”
Although it may take months for a final determination, American and Ukrainian security officials, and later Prime
Minister Justin Trudeau, said Thursday that the crash this week in Tehran of a Ukrainian jetliner — killing all 176 passengers on board, many of them Canadians — was likely due to an accidental attack by Iranian air defences.
These defences were on alert in Tehran in the event that U.S. military planes retaliated against Iranian missile strikes that had just occurred on U.S. bases in Iraq.
The photos of the Canadian crash victims in the world’s media were heartbreaking. They brought sadness to many cities and towns across Canada.
It was also probably impressive to many Canadians that the Iranian-Canadian community is so large, educated and young in this country — and, with such obvious exuberance, so proudly Canadian.
But to the wider world, it was a reminder of something else. In spite of an apparent lull in the crisis, the deepening conflict still has the potential to cause even more human tragedy in the days ahead.
If it is ultimately proven this tragedy was a horrible consequence of the “fog of war,” its memory will join a long list of other epic events that are burned onto the pages of Iran’s modern history.
To an astonishing extent, the story of the past four decades of Iranian-U.S. relations is one of selective memory and missed opportunity — by each side.
An example of selective memory occurred this week in a sharp exchange between the country’s two presidents, Donald Trump and Hassan Rouhani.
Trump warned Iran that the U.S. had identified 52 Iranian sites, some “important to Iran and Iranian culture” and they would be “hit very fast and hard” if Tehran carried out revenge attacks on them.
Ignoring the fact that such an attack would constitute a war crime under international law, Trump chose the number “52” for the 52 U.S. citizens held hostage by Iran in 1979.
Iran’s president replied that “290” is actually the proper number to stress, referring to the Iranian passenger plane shot down accidentally by the U.S. military in 1988, killing all 290 civilians on board.
The hostage drama of 1979 is probably the only historic Iranian event that most Americans remember, but it is rarely mentioned now in Iran. In contrast, the U.S. downing in 1988 of an Iranian passenger jet — unknown to most Americans — is etched deeply in Iranian history.
This is a tale of two histories that rarely intersect.
In U.S. circles, the rule of the shah of Iran — who was in power before the Islamic Revolution of 1979 — is often revered as a golden time for Iran. But by any measurement, his U.S.-backed government was corrupt and loathed by most Iranians.
But even when the Islamic revolution erupted, there was no certainty it would turn anti-American. The U.S. government itself helped make that happen.
And then there’s the Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s. It was a seminal event for many Iranian leaders, including the military leader Gen. Qassem Soleimani, assassinated by the U.S. last week.
It was a war started by Iraq’s Saddam Hussein, and supported by the United States and most western countries, even though Saddam used chemical weapons against Iran. It ended in a ceasefire in 1988, but it cost more than one million Iranian lives.
More than any event, it helped define Iran’s future foreign policy. No longer would Iran’s mullahs rely on any other major country for support. “If we lose Syria,” Soleimani once said. “We lose Tehran.”
Although there were awful acts of violence on both sides during these four decades — and Soleimani in particular was responsible for many deaths and acts of terror — there were also missed opportunities.
In 2003, as respected Iranian-American scholar Trita Parsi once reported, Iranian officials secretly offered the Bush administration a “grand bargain” that would have limited Iran’s aggressive actions in the region and lead to the recognition of Israel — as long as the U.S. abandoned any notion of “regime change.” The offer was rejected as not serious.
And then, of course, after years of negotiation, there was the historic nuclear deal of 2015 between Iran and the world’s leading powers. It provided stability for more than a decade and was being adhered to by Iran — until Donald Trump blew it up.
If there was a pause this week between the U.S. and Iran, most analysts believe that it is only short-lived.
Trump’s “maximum pressure” strategy against Iran is incoherent and ineffective.
With the demise of the nuclear agreement, Iran is now virtually being invited to move toward a nuclear weapon.
And its leadership, notoriously paranoid and insecure, sees its very survival at stake.
This is a dangerous mix. Perhaps the only realistic way out is some sort of holding pattern until a post-Trump era — likely within a year — that could revive the earlier efforts at Middle East accommodation.
And as for Canada, it will have no influence in this chapter of the Middle East’s history until it resumes diplomatic relations with Iran.
In 2012, then-prime minister Stephen Harper effectively outsourced Canada’s Mideast policy to Israel and did its bidding by cutting off relations with Iran.
Prime Minister Trudeau in 2015 indicated that this would be changed, but nothing has happened.
Surely, as the history of this region turns dark again, the events of this past week — including the horrible death of so many Canadians in Tehran — will finally trigger action.