7 key points in U.S.-Iran relations : NPR
Demonstration in July 1953 in Tehran, in support of Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh. The elected prime minister was overthrown in a coup orchestrated by the CIA and British intelligence.
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The US attacks on Iran this weekend, in conjunction with the Israeli military, marked a stunning new phase in relations between the two countries.
But this is not the first time that Washington and Tehran have clashed politically and militarily.
Here are some key historical moments between the United States and Iran.
1953: The United States helps orchestrate a coup that overthrows Mohammad Mosaddegh
Britain had controlled Iran’s oil industry for decades, but in 1953, elected Iranian Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh nationalized the country’s oil sector.
This decision prompted Britain to appeal for assistance from the United States, resulting in a CIA-led campaign to overthrow Mosaddegh’s government. The coup allowed Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the last shah (or king) of Iran, to consolidate his power around him. (The CIA, long suspected of participating in the revolt, officially acknowledged its role in 2013.)
Mosaddegh was imprisoned and then placed under house arrest until his death in 1967. Pahlavi continued to rule Iran for the next two and a half decades, becoming a strong ally of the United States.
1979: Iranian Revolution and US Hostage Crisis
Exiled Iranian opposition leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini delivers a speech as journalists surround him at Roissy airport near Paris on January 31, 1979, before boarding a plane bound for Tehran. Khomeini establishes an Islamic republic in Iran.
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But in early 1979, after months of protests by secularists, Islamists and leftists against his autocratic rule, Pahlavi fled Iran and entered the United States.
The revolution had been led by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, a Shiite cleric who lived in exile near Paris after being expelled by Pahlavi in 1964. Khomeini returned to Iran and oversaw the country’s transition to an Islamic republic, becoming Iran’s supreme leader. Khomeini established a harsh theocracy and called America the “Great Satan.”
In November of the same year, a group of Iranian students stormed the American embassy in Tehran and captured 66 Americans.
A U.S. rescue attempt in the spring of 1980, codenamed Operation Eagle Claw and approved by President Jimmy Carter, was hampered by mechanical problems, a violent dust storm and an accident that killed eight servicemen. He fails to secure the release of the hostages.
After 444 days of captivity, the 52 remaining hostages were released on January 20, 1981, the day of President Ronald Reagan’s inauguration.
Early 1980s: the Iran-Contra affair
But Reagan’s tenure was also marked by a now-infamous transaction with Iran.
Officials in his administration reportedly sold weapons to the country in the hope that it would help secure the release of American hostages held in Lebanon by Hezbollah, a militant group allied with Iran.
The Reagan administration used proceeds from arms sales to finance the Contra paramilitary rebel group fighting the socialist Sandinista government in Nicaragua.
Reagan confirmed this story at a White House press conference in 1986 and publicly took responsibility for what became known as the Iran-Contra affair.
Late 1980s: tensions in the Persian Gulf
Thousands of people mourn in July 1988 in Tehran, at the funeral of those who died when an Iranian airliner was shot down over the Gulf by the US military.
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Iran and Iraq have been engaged in a war since 1980, and towards the end of that decade, Iran began attacking oil tankers owned by Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, Iraq’s financial backers.
In 1987, the United States launched a military campaign known as Operation Earnest Will to protect Kuwaiti oil tankers.
During this operation in 1988, the American frigate USS Samuel B. Roberts struck an Iranian mine, which blew a 15-foot hole in the hull but did not kill any American sailors.
Yet this incident sparked another military operation called Operation Praying Mantis, in which U.S. forces responded to the explosion by attacking several Iranian oil platforms.
Also in 1988, the US Navy shot down civilian Iran Air Flight 655, killing all 290 people on board. American forces mistook this plane for an Iranian fighter jet.
2015: Obama signs the Iran nuclear deal
The United States reaches a deal with Iran and five other world powers to limit Iran’s nuclear capabilities in exchange for lifting some harsh United Nations sanctions.
The deal allows Iran to continue enriching uranium for civilian energy purposes, but President Barack Obama says it will limit the country’s ability to create a nuclear bomb. Iran also agrees to strengthen inspections of its nuclear facilities.
In 2018, during his first term, President Trump withdrew the United States from the Iran nuclear deal and reimposed sanctions on Iran.
The Biden administration is conducting indirect negotiations with Iran, and when Trump returns to power in 2025, he will sign an executive order in an effort to exert “maximum” pressure on Iran to end its nuclear ambitions.
2020: US drone strike kills Major General Qassem Soleimani
A major recent development in U.S.-Iran relations is occurring not in Iran itself but in neighboring Iraq.
Just days into 2020, US forces launched a drone strike near Baghdad International Airport and killed, among others, Major General Qassem Soleimani.
Soleimani, who led an elite branch of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps known as the Quds Force, was considered one of the country’s most influential officials.
Khamenei then responds that “severe reprisals await” the United States. A few days later, Iran fired at least a dozen ballistic missiles at two military bases in Iraq that house U.S. troops. The Pentagon said the following month that 109 American soldiers suffered brain injuries during the strikes.
2025: US and Israel strike Iranian nuclear sites
In June, the American and Israeli military launched a spectacular attack against several Iranian nuclear sites. For the United States, the military escalation follows what had largely been a diplomatic effort aimed at deterring Tehran from acquiring nuclear weapons.
President Trump said in a speech at the White House that the goal of the operation was to scuttle Iran’s nuclear enrichment capabilities.
“Tonight, I can announce to the world that the strikes were a spectacular military success. Iran’s main nuclear enrichment facilities have been completely destroyed,” Trump said, although questions remain about the exact extent of the damage caused.
The attacks come about two months after the United States and Iran began a new round of talks aimed at renegotiating a deal over Iran’s nuclear program.
In March, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard said U.S. intelligence believed Iran “is not building nuclear weapons and that Supreme Leader [Ayatollah Ali] Khamenei did not authorize the nuclear weapons program he suspended in 2003.”
