Coup, revolution, mistrust: Moments in Iran-US relations
DUBAI: President Donald Trump’s decision to not re-certify the Iranian nuclear deal marks yet another key moment in relations between Iran and America, which has seen decades of mistrust and mutual recriminations. Iranian President Hassan Rouhani mentioned many of them in his reaction to Trump’s decision Friday night. Here are some of the key moments of that relationship:
1953 coup
In the aftermath of World War II, Iran nationalized the British oil refinery at Abadan, at the time one of the world’s largest. America, fearful of Soviet influence, sided with the British in fomenting a coup against the elected government of Iranian Prime Minister Mohammed Mosaddegh. Though initially a failure, street protests fanned by the CIA ultimately pushed Mosaddegh out of power and cemented the rule of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. The US role in the coup plays a large part in the mistrust of America that persists in Iran to this day.
1979 Islamic Revolution By January 1979, the cancerstricken shah’s grip on power had waned. Facing protests and strikes, he fled into exile, shocking his American backers who had no idea a revolution was in the making. The long-exiled Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, a charismatic hard-line Shiite cleric, returned to Tehran. Soon, he would become Iran’s first supreme leader in its clerically overseen government, having final say on all state matters. Khomenei later would turn against those who supported the revolution but opposed his absolute rule.
US Embassy takeover In November 1979, Iranian university students stormed the US Embassy in Tehran, taking 52 Americans hostage. They demanded the return of the shah to Iran to face trial. President Jimmy Carter refused and launched a failed commando raid to free the captives. Six Americans who fled the initial takeover and found refuge with the Canadian ambassador later escaped Iran with the CIA’s help. Their escape was dramatized in the 2012 film “Argo.” Iran held the hostages for 444 days, releasing them only after the 1981 inauguration of President Ronald Reagan.
Iran-contra scandal Under the Reagan administration, the United States agreed to secretly send weapons to Iran, then under an arms embargo amid its 1980s war with Iraq. Money earned from those sales went to fund American-backed Contra rebels fighting in Nicaragua. The Americans also hoped the sales would encourage the Iranian government to use its sway to help free American hostages held by the Lebanese Shiite militant group Hezbollah. When George HW Bush became president, he told Iran that “good will begets good will” and while American hostages in Lebanon were freed, relations never went further. —Reuters