Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei last Tuesday (August 27) commented on possibly re-opening negotiations with the United States on nuclear cooperation, saying there was “no harm” in engaging with the “enemy”.
Although Khamenei said the enemy should not be trusted, he said there was “no barrier” to engaging with Washington.
The last time the countries seemed close to bilateral cooperation was in 2015, when Iran and Western countries signed a deal. The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) called for cutbacks to Iran’s nuclear weapons development programme, in exchange for the removal of some Western economic sanctions which had hurt Iran’s economy for years.
However, the deal fell apart when the Donald Trump administration pulled the US out of it in 2018. Since then, Iran-US relations have further deteriorated. While they do not have formal relations now, that was not always the case.
Iran-US relations in modern history
The 1953 coup in Iran serves as a pivotal moment in the Iran-US relationship. For years, the United Kingdom had exercised control of Iran’s oil resources. When the democratically elected leader Mohammad Mosaddegh sought to nationalise oil profits, Iran severed diplomatic ties with the UK.
The UK and the US then staged a coup, promoting an uprising which led to Mossadegh’s arrest. Iran’s monarch, the Shah or Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, assumed power with US backing. Pahlavi restored diplomatic ties with the UK and did all he could to maintain his grip on power. He established SAVAK, an intelligence agency that used brutal methods to silence dissidents. The US government also sent aid to Iran.
Eventually, the public began retaliating. The Shah’s support for progressive and secular views and his relations with the West caused clerics to turn against him. Clerics and students helped bring in the Iranian Revolution in 1979, where religious scholar Ayatollah Khomeini emerged as the leader.
Following the violence and protests, the Shah left the country. Khomeini then established an Islamic republic.
Iran-US relations after 1979
Soon after the revolution, the Iran Hostage Crisis further deteriorated their relations. For 444 days, 52 American diplomats and citizens were held hostage by pro-revolution Iranians in the US embassy in Tehran. They demanded that the Shah, who was undergoing treatment in the US, should be sent back to Iran. The crisis led to the US formally ending ties with Iran.
The US later backed Iraq in its war with Iran (1980-88). A major low in ties was further marked during former US President George W Bush’s 2002 State of the Union address, where he said Iran was part of an “axis of evil,” along with Iraq and North Korea.
“States like these, and their terrorist allies, constitute an axis of evil, arming to threaten the peace of the world,” he said, adding that Iran “aggressively pursues [weapons of mass destruction] and exports terror, while an unelected few repress the Iranian people’s hope for freedom.”
Major US sanctions against Iran
Since the Iranian revolution, the US has periodically imposed sanctions against Iran. In 1979, Executive Order 12170 called for a trade embargo and $12 billion was frozen in Iranian assets.
During the Iraq-Iran war, an arms embargo was imposed on Iran, with the US naming it a State Sponsor of Terrorism in 1984. Later in the 2010s, the Comprehensive Iran Sanctions, Accountability, and Divestment Act (CISADA) imposed sanctions on foreign banks doing business with Iran.
Fallout of JCPOA
In 2015, a warming of relations seemed imminent after the JCPOA was signed between Iran and the US, China, France, Russia, the UK, Germany and the European Union. At the time, Iran was led by moderate President Hassan Rouhani.
While the Supreme Leader holds most power in Iran, presidents can help negotiate certain policy matters. As opposed to hardline presidents, moderate leaders have generally supported engaging with the West. Iran’s dire economic situation also played a role in Iranian leaders agreeing to the deal.
India supported the deal too, with Prime Minister Narendra Modi saying the agreement represented the “triumph of diplomacy and sagacity”.
However, the US left the deal in 2018, with Trump claiming it did not do enough to prohibit Iran from developing nuclear weapons. Since then, Iran has expanded and accelerated its nuclear programme, reducing the time it would need to build a nuclear bomb, according to a 2024 Reuters report. However, Iran says it does not want to build a weapon.
The hostility between the US and Iran has added to instability in the Middle East over the years. Being a staunch ally of Israel, the ongoing Israel-Hamas war has seen the US defend Israel’s military offensive in Gaza. Iran has also deemed the US and Israel as “Great Satan and Little Satan”.
Continued sanctions on Iran have also caused strains in other bilateral ties, forcing a choice between trading with the West or Iran. India, for instance, stopped importing oil from Tehran in 2019.
The author is an intern with The Indian Express.
