This page has been archived and commenting is disabled.
A Brief History Of The Ups And Downs In US-Iran Relations
Courtesy of Reuters:
Iran and the United States broke diplomatic ties following the 1979 Islamic revolution and the storming of the U.S. embassy in Tehran 32 years ago. Here are details of ups and downs in their relations since the 1950's.
1953 - A COUP: -- In August 1953, the CIA helped orchestrate the overthrow of Iran's democratically elected and popular prime minister, Mohammed Mossadegh, restoring the Shah, Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, to power.
-- Washington acted after Britain, opposed to Mossadegh's policy of nationalising the British-controlled oil industry, convinced U.S. officials the prime minister was turning to communism.
1972 - CEMENTING A RELATIONSHIP:
-- A 1972 visit by U.S. President Richard Nixon cemented a close strategic relationship between Iran and the United States. But opposition to the Shah, led by exiled cleric Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, mounted over the next few years.
1979 - KHOMEINI RETURNS:
-- After bloody clashes between protesters and troops, the Shah fled into exile in January 1979. The next month, Khomeini returned to Iran in triumph to seal victory for an Islamic revolution whose mantra was "Death to America".
-- In November 1979, Iranian students seized the U.S. embassy in Tehran and took 90 hostages; 52 were held captive for 444 days, prompting Washington to break relations in 1980.
1986 - ARMS DEAL:
-- U.S. President Ronald Reagan admitted to secret arms deals with Iran that broke a U.S. embargo. The trade was aimed at winning the release of Americans held by pro-Iranian Shi'ite Muslim militants in Lebanon. Money from the sales was secretly passed to U.S.-backed Contra guerrillas in Nicaragua. At the time, Iran was embroiled in war with President Saddam Hussein's Iraq, with Washington giving increasing support to Baghdad.
1997 - REFORMISTS IN CHARGE:
-- Iranian voters swept reform-minded President Mohammad Khatami to power. He promoted a "dialogue among civilisations". During his term, Iranians staged an impromptu vigil in Tehran when hijacked planes struck U.S. targets on Sept. 11, 2001.
-- After those al Qaeda attacks, Iran offered support in a U.S.-led war to topple Afghanistan's Taliban leaders, who were shielding al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden. Iran helped ensure the success of a multilateral post-war conference on Afghanistan. But in January 2002, U.S. President George W. Bush branded Iran part of an "axis of evil".
2003 - INVASION OF IRAQ:
-- The U.S.-led invasion of Iraq toppled Saddam, a Sunni Arab leader who had been a deadly enemy of Iran, and brought to power Shi'ite factions with closer links to Tehran.
-- As Iraq descended into insurgency and sectarian conflict, the United States accused Tehran of arming, funding and training Shi'ite militias that had attacked U.S. forces in Iraq. Iran denied this, blaming the U.S. troop presence for the violence.
NUCLEAR STAND-OFF:
-- The United States led efforts to toughen U.N. sanctions on Iran over its nuclear activity and in March 2008 the Security Council adopted a third sanctions resolution. Iran says the programme is lawful, peaceful, designed only to generate electricity, but a history of concealing sensitive nuclear work and restricting U.N. inspections has raised Western suspicions.
-- U.S.-Iran tension worsened after the 2005 election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who berated the West, questioned the Holocaust and called for Israel to be wiped off the map. In a surprise development, a U.S. National Intelligence Estimate in late 2007 said Iran put nuclear military plans on hold in 2003.
A NEW START:
-- New U.S. President Barack Obama said in January 2009 that America was prepared to extend a hand of peace to Iran if it "unclenched its fist". Ahmadinejad said Tehran was ready to talk but demanded a fundamental change in U.S. policy.
-- In March 2009 Obama issued a videotaped appeal to Iranian leaders and their people, saying his "administration is now committed to diplomacy" that addresses the full range of issues before them and "to pursuing constructive ties".
-- Iran said later that Obama should fundamentally change Washington's policy towards Iran and should "realise its previous mistakes" and make an effort to correct them.
WHAT'S HAPPENING NOW?
-- Washington has been pressing for new sanctions on Iran after uncovering what it says was an Iranian plot to assassinate the Saudi ambassador in Washington.
-- In November Secretary of State Hillary Clinton demanded that Iran respond within days to IAEA accusations of atomic weapons work, and said Washington was consulting allies on further steps to pressure Tehran. Her comments followed a report from the group that concluded that Iran had worked on developing an atomic bomb design and may still be conducting such research.
-- Iran, has denied it wants nuclear weapons, condemning the report as "unbalanced" and "politically motivated". The United States stepped up pressure on Nov. 21, naming Iran as an area of "primary money laundering concern", a step designed to dissuade non-U.S. banks from dealing with it
»
- 11264 reads
- Printer-friendly version
- Send to friend
- advertisements -
Yep. Iran-US relations were VERY GOOD in 2001... Bush screwed the whole thing with his speech.
Bush screwed up a lot of things. Only Obama could make him look decent.
So let's see, we're rushing toward war in Iran, meanwhile Europe is on the precipice of collapse with $8B in Greek bonds maturing starting December 19th. Sounds like a good time for the supposed "leader of the free world" to take a 17-day vacay, wouldn't ya say?
We're going 200 miles an hour on a busy 2-lane gravel road in the middle of a snowstorm and we have no one at the wheel. God/Allah/Vishnu/Baby Jesus/Flying Spagetti Monster help us all.
Obama is a Disney automatron, I swear to god.
The road has a turn coming up, too.
I like the idea of an 'automatron', but it needs to be a buxom blonde in a nurses outfit for it to have the right effect.
Fembots baby, yeah!
Some might say Fem Boughts yeah, eh?
But here, serious downs, mossadegh was the end of a free Iran, realistically.
UNITED STATES has a lot of bad karma.
America is all right. By me.
ORI
/the-plan/
yes, people have lost sight of that Iran had offered the WHOLE ENCHILADA to us after 9/11. Normalization, suspension of their support for Hezbollah, suspension of the nuclear program, everything. They were willing to support us...
We SQUANDERED it. The issue was NEVER redress of 911 it was fucking Pax Americana and PNAC. No sooner did 911 happen than they started trying to finger IRAQ and manufacture a justification to carry out the agenda.
Remind everyone of that when they talk bullshit on GWOT. It's never EVER been about that.
This is true. Iran did indeed offer to place everything on the table, including acceptance of Israel's right to exist and reestablishing diplomatic relations with the United States.
It sure is peculiar that there wasn't much news coverage of the spontaneous candlelight vigil in Tehran for the victims of the 9/11/01 attacks, or the assistance provided to the United States by Iran in the initial stages of the invasion of Afghanistan, or President Khatami's offer of normalized relations with no strings attached.
Iran is surrounded on almost all sides by US forces. There is the aircraft carriers in the gulf, Iraq, Turkey, troops in Turkmenistan, our forces in Afghanistan, and who knows what Pakistan is. Iran is a scary place to live right about now. To the victor goes the spoils.
The road has a turn coming up, too.
No worries; the Ptb are about to take you airborne by remote control. Might hit a coupla buildings, though..
The road is serfdom
He might be a Disney automaton but he is a Disney automaton with a Nobel Peace Prize mind you.
chances are, that an EMP deployed over the CONUS wouldn't affect someone in say...Hawaii.
Chances are, that an EMP deployed over the continental United States wouldn't have too much of an effect on somone in, say, the continental United States.
The Starfish Prime detonation used a thermonuclear warhead (fusion bomb, a.k.a. hydrogen bomb) with a yield of 1.4 megatons, and the resultant EMP caused the following civilization-ending catastrophic calamity: lots of burglar alarms were set off, a microwave relay belonging to the phone company was damaged, and about 300 streetlights went out.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starfish_Prime
If you look at the pictures of the explosion in the link above, you'll notice that the buildings in Honolulu still have all their lights on.
The nuclear weapons of Pakistan and North Korea are fission devices, with yields measured in kilotons, not megatons. EMP is just another scary monster under the bed, brought out to frighten people when it serves to advance an agenda. Sure, it might cause some problems, but they wouldn't be nationwide, and the idea of it sending us back to the 19th century is ridiculous. In a worst case scenario, it might send parts of the country back to the 1950s.
On the other hand, a significant coronal mass ejection directed toward the Earth could cause some real problems, but you can't blame "them terrists" for a CME.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coronal_mass_ejection
it took out 1/3 of all low-earth orbit satellites. in modern times, imagine the loss of GPS, satellite comms, etc.
It was nearly 1500 KM away from Hawaii. The way the power grid is now, it might cause a series of expanding blackouts along whichever coast it is near.
1.4 Megatons is nowhere near 50 megatons, the size of the Tsar bomb. Keep in mind Russia and China appear to be backing Iran and Syria at this point. North Korea has been amazingly quiet these days.
Matt took the time to respond with:
Yes, it would certainly cause problems for satellites in low-earth orbits, as would a conventional explosion from an anti-satellite weapon as the debris field expanded while circling the globe. As for high-earth orbit satellites, such as those in geosynchronous orbit, some might be affected, but given the yield in tens of kilotons that one would expect from a device launched by a rogue nation, these satellites might not even notice, since they are already operating in an environment which exposes them to radioactivity and bombardment with high-energy particles.
Yes, or about 900 miles. Again, this effect was achieved with a yield of 1.4 megatons with a fusion bomb, which is unobtainable with a fission-only device. A device launched by a rogue nation could be expected to yield 1 to 2 percent of this, which would be hideously destructive as an air burst over a city, but might hardly be noticeable at the altitude required for widespread EMP effects.
America's power grid is certainly shaky and, given the current economic depression, is not likely to become more robust anytime soon. As was demonstrated in August 2003, we have far more to worry about from wayward tree limbs in Akron, Ohio than we do from EMP attack.
Tsar Bomba was the result of a hydrogen bomb dick waving contest between the United States and the Soviet Union. In the context of EMP attack by a rogue nation, it is a non sequitur.
Russia and China are not likely to fling nukes toward the United States, as it would result in retaliation in kind. It would be far easier for them to fuck over the US government simply by dumping their holdings of Treasuries. North Korea's test explosions resulted in yields estimated in the single-digit kilotons, which would be useful for blowing shit up, but not likely to make much of an EMP effect.
You forgot someone.
Not quite. Shia Iran despised Sunni Al Qaeda who were alot closer to their doorstep than the US at that time. So they helped us.. Enemy of my enemy is my friend... They did exactly the same when we invaded Iraq in 2003.
thanks for such a great post. remember the stuxnet virus?
http://expose2.wordpress.com
There may have been ups and downs, but Iran will be down for the count on this next "down" move. Iran is now threatening OIL supply and that will no sit well with the western powers. I think a final confrontaion is gonna happen in the near future.
Iran says oil would go over $250 if exports bannedWe don't need Iran! We just need to keep digging up Canada's fresh water aquifers for tar sands and mine the shit out of the last immaculate places on earth (Alaska)!
Rape the earth for oil, bitchez!
http://www.indexmundi.com/g/r.aspx?c=ir&v=95
Not to poop on the significance of their exports, but do they really think they're the marginal barrel?
Their 2.4Mbbl/day is ~5% of the 45Mbbl/day output of the combined major exporters. You don't think the world has 5% of conservation in them?
Maybe until X Mas.
Your link should read Gross Exports (it is clearly not Net Exports).... still, the US is exporting 1.7 mmbpd of oil??
(Not that I disagree with your figures on the Iranian share of net exports, I believe the world exports are closer to 40 mmbpd, but that is a quibble) As it stands right now, everybody is the marginal barrel....
Sure, 5% of consumption could be knocked off, but it'll take at least 3-6 months to bring things into balance and in the mean time prices will spike and the economy will shudder to a halt....Not to mention that the SPR will be used...
....again.
Anyone notice if they refilled it??
Can someone in Lousiana check the dip stick?
I think that what is not said is the absolute control Iran holds over the Persian Gulf. No doubt war with Iran would push oil to $250 and beyond.
Libya only produced 1.8Mbbl/day, yet the NATO was desperate to do anything it could to take out Gaddafi and get in their oil corporations as fast as possible.
How is Iran threatening oil supply when it is the West threatening to block their oil?
Also, it just means more for China. Not sure where to look up export stats, but according to the Wiki (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Iran):
Export goods petroleum (80%), chemical and petrochemical products (4%), fruits and nuts (2%), cars (2%), carpets(1%), technical services
Main export partners China 16.3%, India 13.1%, Japan 11.5%, South Korea 7.1%, Turkey 4.2% (2009)Somehow I think we can assume petroleum is the bulk of exports to China.
The main threat is likely if Iran starts makes a move on the Straight of Hormuz (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straight_of_Hormuz) where a lot of oil is shipped out. Which is what we hear every now and then as a potential response by any aggressor force. Then oil will be more than $250.
Read "All the Shah's Men", the 1953 Coup was a about the share in Iran's oil profits that Mossedagh was asking that Iran keep, which was the same, 50% that Saudis got from the U.S.A. but Britain would only agree to allow Iran 18% of its own oil profits. Communism was an excuse to destroy a Democratic government for oil profits and install a brutal dictator, the Shah (worse than Saddam) so that the forerunner of BP could have higher profits. The whole thing is a great example of how the U.S. and Britain work together to sew havoc in the world.
Uncomfortable truths Joaquin.
Salvadore Allende of Chile was another egrigious one, on a Spetember 11th too, 1973 I believe.
But yes, long and dirty list.
ORI
seems that everthing that gets screwed up, the CIA has their finger in the pie
That's their job.
...until the layoffs coming in DC. A big culling is coming in the intelligence agencies. Too many directors...too little money.
Maybe they'll print some more so they won't lose all those valuable employees.
/sarc off
When that happens, I'll wager there'll be no cuts in "Homeland Security" or "Transportation Safety". More than likely, the cuts in the CIA will be transferred directly to those branches of State Security (SS).
The USAF trained Iranian F-4 Phantom maintenance techs at Lowry AFB, Aurora Co in 1974. They were in the school building next to my tech school on that base. Years later I got a letter:
"Greeting from Shah Reza Pahlavi,
Come fix our jets and train our techs, we pay you good, live in American compound..etc etc"
It's wild how the US can be all friendly with a country, then a few years later they are now subhuman enemies to be annihilated.
Geo politics are a cluster-f***.
I was stationed at GAFB 84-87 working weapons on F-4Es. We were training Saudi pilots then...they almost killed us working EOR during Red Flag @ Nellis one day ejecting the drag shoot at my crew....
Insha'Allah, baby. They're lots of fun in rotary wing aircraft as well...new meaning to the term 'Flying Circus'.
So far the "Arab Spring" has been at best a "wash" geopolitically for the US. (1 unpredictable lunatic, 1 harmless kleptocrat and 1 useful ally deposed).
Getting rid of Assad in Syria and the Mullahs (and that scruffy runt that is their front man) in Iran changes that score dramatically. And I'm sure that the thinking is that "if it requires a brief war to make that happen, so be it". After seeing how Quadafi and Saddam ended up, those leaders will not be sticking around to see how the war turns out. In fact, they may not even wait for the outbreak of hostilities to officially start.
those big decks and our base structures mean we can project force basically with impunity on any non-nuclear power
It's easy to control a single person compared to rigging an election every few years. That is why the U.S. prefers dictators over democracy.
This is too brief. When somebody adds up few more years in between and align time chart with UST yields, USD and gold price ... than we'll have something
Forward to Bachmann immediately. LOL
Look up the Wesley Clark video or transcript on the list he was given with the 7 countries that were to be invaded because we can. The rest of it is made up shit to go to war because Yes we can. That's it, say anything, do anything in the region to start a war. WWIII has been going on for a while.
Edit: 2007 interview http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SXS3vW47mOE
I can own a gun, but you can't---type of relationship...
You left out that we shot down one of their Airliners in 1988 killing 290 passengers and that they were behind Kohbar towers attack in 98
I'm not sure about Khobar towers.Can you give an indenendent,non MSM link.
This has a pretty good write up on it. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/tehran/axis/map.html
This has been back and forth but that we put the Shah in power is far bigger than anything they have done to date. It is a shame most Americans only think of the hostages at the embassy as they were a pawn in the post Shah power vacum. The clerics can't have peace with the US and hold onto power. Their grip is lose now and they only held on in 2009 by using their Arab Lebanese Hezbollah Basij as muscle against their own folks.
Omitted from this brief passage is that the USA was selling components to construct the chemical weapons and cluster bombs which Saddam Hussein used against Iran in their very bloody war.
America has no more ability to succesfully execute a regime-change plan in Iran than Germany has the ability to bail out Europe.
Not only does America NOT have the ability to stage a succesful military ground & air strike on Iran, one which would actually topple the current regime, but they have zero ability to handle the shitstorm which would follow. We've seen first hand their ability to deal with the aftermath of regime change in Iraq. We've seen how thinly stretched they are in trying to deal with the administration of a country like Afghanistan. Iran is a whole complete different ballgame in a completely different league.
If America had no obligations towards Iraq, Afghansitan, and Libya, and if it had a an economy chugging along at 4% growth and with 5% unemployment, and if the deficit was under control, and it had pretty much nothing else to be distracted by, and if it had Russia and China on its side....even then it still would be a bloody difficult task.
With all the various political vacuums in Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, Iraq, Afghansitan...and with the Syrian regime about to blow up...and with the Saudis feeling very nervous about whether they might be next up in the Arab Srping game, and with Israel just dying to use any of its super high-tech toys against its enemies, and with Hamas, Hezbollah, and al Qaeda all having the ability to cause major trouble...NOW is probably the frikkin worst time ever to even consider going to war ahgainst Iran.
Good grief! WTF are these people thinking?
They are going to war because they can. Everything else is made up shit to those ends. See the Wes Clark link on my above post, he pretty much confirms that.
I think your line of thinking is 100%.
That said, they will do it anyway. We asked the same questions in the lead up to Iraq. Only this time, some BIG players are thinking "fool me once..."
One of the reasons "it will happen anyway"? The overused phrase, "this will end badly", will happen regardless whether they attack Iran or not.
Maybe the hopes of "population correction", reduce oil demand, secure oil, tamp down M.E., find out once and for all about this WMD in Iran, etc., etc.
Maybe just another big fucking round of shoot and shout "Shit !"
No doubt 2012 is setting up to be a blockbuster.
Have a golden day !
Ahhh yes...the MIG24 Camel Toe ;-)
looks more like a SU-24
Don't forget Iran's dual nature and its green revolution. I hear something else being shouted and its starting to drown out the paid "death to america" shouts.
Oh god. We're going to be entangled in another war if more provcations occur. Ugh.
libertarian86.blogspot.com
I remember reading about the Iran-Iraq war, the Iraqi's (backed by US) had the edge in weaponry but the Iranian troops were fanatical and would charge in the thousands, with thousands of casualties in every battle. The carnage was incredible, but they never gave in. They are a feisty bunch. Nerve gas, cluster bombs, they didn't seem to give a damn.
TRC "Good grief! WTF are these people thinking?"
Their thinking how their going to get Obama re elected.
All the Shah's Men gives a great history of US covert involvement in Iran from the 1950s to the revolution in 1979. Highly recommended.
...and they lived happily ever after...?
Na, Iran ain't happy with the STDs it got.
all this too protect, what or whom ? -
"You have turned my fathers 'HOUSE', into a 'Den of Theives"!
ZH should know better than to blindly quote zionist controlled Reuters.
The bottom line is this;
In your opinion, any news agencies out there that are not Zionist?
Next move, sweep up all US Persians into FEMA camps.
"Calling all cars, be on the lookout for I. Ranian, non-white, calls everyone 'my man', last seen in a white 2001 BMW 740."
"ZH should know better than to blindly quote zionist controlled Reuters."
You sound like David Duke.
And you sound like an AIPAC shill. I'll take Duke, if that is the choice.
I wouldn't be too proud of that claim....
I'm getting that the USA's friendship with Great Britain may have a downside? That's interesting.
I think you started the list rather arbitrarily with 1953 there TD. The downfall of Mossadegh was not ordered until he nationalized the oil industry, made overtures to the Soviets, collectivized agriculture, and put nearly all land under government ownership. Not a very popular thing to do back in the McCarthy era. Especially making pillow talk to the Russians. Pretty much the same exact thing as what happened in Cuba a few years later, except that Castro was mostly tolerated after he took power until he also nationalized oil and started sweet talking to Moscow.
If western powers invest billions, trillions in today's dollars, into developing oil fields which were even more critical then because technology did not support alternatives, there were no alternatives, do they not have the right to access, to keep those assets? Or does the host nation that made an agreement for massive investment one day get to kick us out the same week we cut the ribbon on production facilities? I say that the west had a right to at least negotiate, but the Iranians were not negotiating. I do not think we should have allowed the CIA to install the Shah, but there was also a lot of internal support for the Shah, a lot of people did not like the new communist leaning Mossadegh.
Going to war over it is really not needed though. Not then and not today. Not JUST for oil anyway. Both oil supply and demand are fungible, my BMW does not particularly care if the petrol in the tank started as a fossil in Nigeria or Mexico, Iran or Texas. If Iranians cut off supply the price will skyrocket yes, but they will have cut off their own ability to export in the process. Eventually as prices rise beyond affordability either demand will go away, probably permanently, or supply will find other ways onto the market. Neither of these will in the end benefit Iran.
I am just damned tired of all that ever happened in the universe that is unpleasant being the fault of America and by extension somehow all MY fucking fault. We are a player on the global stage for sure, but just one of many, and a lot of what the USA has brought humanity over the centuries has on balance benefitted all people.
The whole contrived horror over the possibility of Iran developing nukes is absurd. Israel (with the aid of stolen US technology) has had them for decades, and refuses all inspections. Why the selective horror? Give us all a break.
Kennedy's pointed questions concerning Dimona might have been a contributing factor to his assassination.
Frankly, the US would be better served to GIVE the Iranians the bomb (assuming, which may be wrong, that they do not already have some) than to pursue the suicidal "whore for Israel" policy that they do. It might persuade the Israelis behave better.
Only one country has its President calling for another nation to be "wiped off the face of the earth", a country which is known to support terrorists who would likely use nuclear devices against civilian populations. That's why they are not allowed to have them.
"In November 1979, Iranian students seized the U.S. embassy in Tehran and ..."
Unfortunately, while a nice synopsis, there were some glaring ommissions.
Perhaps most importantly, at the time of the seizing of the embassy (not that I would ever countenance such an action) the US government had been pursuing the destabilization of the Afghanistan secular government as the Carter administration felt it was too chummy with its giant neighbor to the immediate north, the Soviet Union.
Therefore, a presidential directive was signed around 6 months prior to the return the Ayatollah and the seizure of the embassy, to destabilize the Afghanistani government, with the help of the Saudis, importing the most virulent Islamic fundamentalists, their Wahabists, to the northern border where the fomented religious war, instigating the Soviet invasion. (At that time Sufi Islam was the majority along the Afghanistan-Soviet border area.)
Obama's last secretary of defense, Robert Gates, mentions this in his vile book, "From the Shadows" (Gates' memoirs), and Zbig Brzezinski also explained this in an interview in France back in the late '90s.
The historic overview could have started a little earlier and include the episode after WW2, when Britain exiled Reza Shah to South Africa and installed the weakest son of the family on the Peacock Throne.
Iranians (rightly or wrongly) always see Britain as the arch-manipulator behind the scenes.
Imperialistic ambitions and the desire to control resources are the seeds of ongoing tension where neither side of the conflict will win.
The world would be better off if we can focus on innovation rather than diminishing resources that we have become overly dependent upon due to the oligopoly of the energy industry.
If there's one thing history has certainly taught us is that we should always seek to reform and change our government for a government left to its own vices will only create bigger problems that end in unnecessary suffering.
Once again, Britain told Eisenhower that they'd pull out ALL of their troops in Korea (entire Commonwealth contingent).
Of course who pumped up the propaganda about communism wanting to take over everywhere? Those same imperialists. Manufacture a fake problem, get us on the hook, then threaten to withdraw your support...unless.
We'll we were fools. But we were also played. We're still being played. The losing game is called imperialism.
Glass-Steagall